Taking Care of Self

When you love someone with an addiction, regardless of what that addiction may be, we seem to begin to neglect ourselves. Maybe its because we spend so much time taking care of others, or perhaps it is because we believe to need help may be a weakness. We learn to keep pushing in life no matter if we are sick, or tired or emotinally drained without stopping to perform any kind of self care.

I read about this in my Courage To Change book today -the funny part is after a morning of trying to talk myself out of it I called out of work today because I have come down with the flu. For many people this is a no brainer- for me to stop and take a day to nuture and care for myself is a huge step.

What I realized is that we spend so much time making sure others are okay and have what they need to be successful that we allow ourselves to fall to the wayside, our needs become less important to the point that we learn to ignore them all together. We may even get to the place where we feel guilty doing something for ourselves or taking time to nuture ourselves. Now when in a relationship with an active (and sometimes even recovering addict) this behavior combined with the self centeredness the addict acquires during their addiction is a great fit. Everything is about them!!! However when we are working towards healing ourselves we find out that we have to put the same amount of care we would into supporting them into supporting ourselves. We deserve it...

Given that I have given myself and you a challenge- do soemthing nice for yourself today- anything it can be as small or large as you like- block out some time just for you- take a bath, read a book, apply some makeup, buy yourself something anything just take a minute and take care of you-

And that moment where you second guess yourself because you feel a twang of guilt- remind yourself that you deserve it!