This is your chance to reflect on what you will take away from Chapter 2: What’s Wrong with Me? and to learn from or contribute to other book club members’ take-aways. You can also pose questions here about the chapter or what you are discovering about yourself. You have some incredible resources available in your fellow members. Don’t waste them. And please do not keep your own light under a bushel basket. You know so many things. Reach out and help your fellow book club members, okay?
The exercises we completed in Chapter 2: What’s Wrong with Me? included
- The "What Have I Done So Far?" List
- What Are Your Rewards?
Please subscribe to future comments on this page or check back here on Wednesday evening or Thursday morning for new ones.
That’s it for this week! Watch for your weekly email on Thursday or just log in again then. If you’re not getting the weekly announcements and you would like to add them, please send an email to me at webmaster@barbarasclub.com. I can also help with comment subscriptions if you need it. Until next week!
As mentioned in the previous exercise, I found that the reward is a powerful motivator that keeps me interested. I am learning to embrace that this is how God created me and that everything I have done, whether completed to someone else’s satisfaction or not, matters. What I have accomplished matters to me, and it all counts. I will admit that when it comes to completing tasks for others, I tend to maintain interest more consistently than with my tasks. For others, I tend to underpromise and over-deliver, which is also part of the reward. I hold myself to high standards, which can sometimes cause trouble because I expect the same from others. I need to be more open in applying those standards and show myself some grace when I don’t “finish” a task. When I have had enough, it’s okay to move on; it doesn’t make my accomplishments any less important.
I learned that I’ve accomplished a lot and have a undying curiosity to learn more about the world, different activities, and how they relate to me. Unfortunately there is also a bit fo anxiety that drives this, as I’m afraid that one day I’ll get too old or have other responsibilities that will prevent me from trying new things. I think it would be effective to have a scan of the list I made an to put it somewhere visible for me so I can remind myself as I’m prone to negative self talk! I’m also forlorn that there are so many things I did not continue that I found myself to be good at, such as writing and improv. I don’t know when I’ll be able to pick those back up again.
Hope you get back to those things Katherine, especially if you enjoy them.
It was good to get back in touch with what I find rewarding about trying new things. The awareness is rekindling a desire to learn and experience even more things. And, instead of looking to do things that others in my community are doing, I now know to look for something “unusual.”
I’ve learned that a lot of the things I love to do have a natural ending, as I love to work on projects more than anything else. In terms of things that are not project-based, I’ve become aware that, apart from things that I’ve tried and hated, I still have a yearning to finish many of the others things I tried and loved and that time, lifestyle changes and needling to have a job have been the reasons for not continuing, rather than boredom (along with the fact that no human being can keep up with so many things at once). I’m feeling a sense of grief as a result of this exercise, instead of the uplifting feelings I was expecting, but I’m determined to press on and see what Chapter 3 brings.
Thank you Christine. Honoring your grief and how walking towards what we want can ask a lot of us✨
I learned there’s a good reason why I could never hold a job or a hobby for long. Though my life-long hobbies seem to keep popping up, and when I get bored with them, I do something else for awhile, and then I come back. Looking forward to Chapter 3.
Thank you J
Chapter two was both fun and a bit painful. I noticed that I have done many, many things and enjoyed a large number of them. I noticed that I downplay accomplishments that were not somehow painful to achieve. I discovered/validated that I find the greatest satisfaction from creativity, self expression and pursuing justice, and that I also enjoy teaching. I still feel a bit baffled as to what will become of these revelations.
The other part of the chapter that resonated strongly with me was the whole “what’s wrong with me?” question. I was diagnosed with autism late in life and I have spent my whole life prior to that time asking “what’s wrong with me” and also noticing that “everyone else” seemed to know the playbook of life but that I never received it. I’ve ultimately learned that my brain is not broken, it is just different. As with scanners, we autistics are in the minority and can be led to believe that “everyone” finds their “one true calling” and/or thinks alike; it’s simply not true. I appreciate the validation in this chapter and I look forward to seeing what comes next.
Thank you Abby…so powerful and I am delighted that you can feel the validation…we all need that and it is one of the reasons I love Barbara’s work and communities so much!
I learned that I love a challenge, I love to feel the fear and do it anyway. It is good to remember this about myself. I seem to have got stuck in the fear and have forgotten the other side of the equation – the doing it anyway!