New book teaches women to ease stress, avoid burnout by leading balanced lives

In a hurry-up world where women are desperately trying to fulfill multiple roles and suffering the ill effects of stress and burnout, author Elizabeth Gregory wants to be a source of help and hope.
   
Not only is she qualified for the job in her capacity as a professional counselor as the program director for behavioral health services at Baptist Medical Center Montclair in Birmingham, she’s a woman who has traveled the burnout road. By sharing her personal experiences in her book “Seeking Simplicity: A Woman’s Guide to a Balanced Life,” Gregory hopes to encourage women to begin their own quests to live simpler, more meaningful lives.
   
“I started this journey because I had reached a point in my life where I felt driven,” she said. “I was always rushing too much, doing too much, trying to please too many people, and I was never good enough, no matter what I did.”
   
Even when her daughter went away to college, the then-single Gregory found herself rushing headlong down the same grinding path and decided some changes were in order.
   
“I realized it wasn’t because I was so busy being a mom or that there was so much pressure raising a child alone or because of anything else,” she said. “It was me doing it to me. I realized I couldn’t meet everybody’s expectations, I couldn’t be all things to all people and that what was most important was knowing where God wanted me to be.”
   
When she first started writing the book, Gregory’s focus was on stress management. As the project evolved, however, her focus took a more spiritual turn.
   
“When you’re writing from your heart, you get to what’s really at the core,” she said, “and at the core of every single area of my life was ‘What is it God wants me to do?’”
   
In seeking to answer that question, Gregory created a practical workbook format that takes readers through a step-by-step process of spiritual self-evaluation and discovery. She considers the process not so much as cleaning up life’s clutter as determining one’s godly purpose, and then using that as the focal point for setting priorities.
   
“I’m hoping people will actually do the exercises,” Gregory said. “I find that when people have to stop and really think about a question instead of skimming over it, it becomes real. This book is a guide for a woman to find her own answers. I don’t have her answers. My walk with God has been my journey and hopefully, that journey is going to be helpful to someone who is looking for a way to get balance in her life.”
   
Gregory’s journey has been typical of many women of her generation — marriage, divorce, the accompanying financial strain, single motherhood, a demanding career, remarriage — thus, the realistic and practical approach of her book. She believes women like her, in the mid-30s to 50s age range, became caught in a trap that fostered unrealistic expectations and triggered confusion about priorities.
   
“It was acceptable one generation ago to be at home raising children. That was your entire reason for being, and that was okay,” she said.
   
Then we went through women’s lib and got into having to have a career. But we still had to be the perfect homemaker. So we started trying to do everything and that was impossible.”
   
In “Seeking Simplicity,” Gregory reveals the pitfalls of women’s “do all, be all” tendencies by separately addressing issues such as time management, materialism, finances, relationships, health and spirituality.
   
In each instance, she offers readers insight and information, then gives them opportunities for self-evaluation with thought-provoking questions or scenarios.
   
Gregory said one of the most stressful areas in which she counsels women is relationships. For women, these are often one-sided. “We’re relationship-oriented,” she said. “We’re naturally caring and giving people. But some relationships can take everything out of us so that we don’t have any energy for anything else. We need to know when it’s okay to say ‘no,’ when it’s okay to let go of relationships, when it’s okay to realize that we’re not going to get what another person isn’t capable of giving.”
   
“Seeking Simplicity” takes a look at healthy relationships within the marriage and family arena, including family with stepparents, and also addresses women caught in the “sandwich generation,” caring for children and elderly parents.
   
The book also addresses the most important relationship — a relationship with God. 
   
“When I speak to women’s groups, I talk about how in relationships with other people we get to know them by spending time with them, by sharing history and feelings and beliefs. The same is true in a relationship with God,” she said. “He reveals Himself to us in a number of ways, but how are we sharing ourselves with Him?”
   
Gregory’s original draft of “Seeking Simplicity” did not include a chapter on health.
   
“I left it out,” she admitted. “Then I realized, ‘Good heavens, I’m a nurse and I didn’t even talk about physical health!’”
   
She continued, “Women are bad about doing everything for everybody else and not taking care of ourselves. If we don’t take care of ourselves, we’re not going to be around to take care of those we love.”
   
The response to her book has been overwhelming and Gregory is in awe of how God has worked through her to help others.
   
“I think the women I know who have read it are more relaxed around me. I’ve had them say, ‘It’s just like I’ve sat down and had a conversation with you,’” she said.
   
“I’ve been surprised at the number of women who will be in tears over something I’ve said. But I know it’s not me. It’s the Spirit at work that’s touching them.”
   
She also hopes the book is something women will pick up and read more than once.
   
“This isn’t a one-time process,” she said. “You can go back and see how you’ve grown and how relationships have deepened and then you realize the effort you put into this is really worth it.”