It's been drilled into us. Meet everyone's needs before your own. While taking care of our loved ones provides a sense of satisfaction and fulfillment, it also requires precious energy. In worse cases, it can even breed resentment - another huge source of energy drain.A famous person once said, "Only give from an overflowing cup." Try this on. What if your criteria for giving were based on how full your own cup was? In other words, you can only afford to give when you have an ample supply yourself.
It's YOUR life . . . live it completely!
Well.. I think I'm doing pretty good with this one. I had my aha! moment with the contact lense fiasco, and am really trying to be conscious about taking care of Shirley.
ReplyDeleteStill have a ways to go though, I accepted 2 dogs for boarding even though I wasn't ever going to do that again... and I didn't even realize that I didn't want to do it until the next day and it was too late... looks like I'll have to learn how to pay more attention to how my body feels when someone asks me to do something. I figure that when my chest clenches up, my shoulders tighten, and my stomach drops - that's a clue that a "no" should be forthcoming.