It can be enough to drive someone crazy.
We wear many hats...girlfriend, boyfriend, husband, wife, lover, father, mother, employee, boss, friend, daughter.... We have responsibilities that come with choices we have made in our lives. However, we also have needs of our own, and responsibilities to ourselves that need to be met. For a long time, I thought that being a mother meant that your needs never come first again.
If you can identify with this, then understand that this feeling comes not from an area of selflessness, but from an area of poor self-confidence. It comes from wanting to feel needed in order to feel worth. It is an incorrect notion, and requires reprogramming messages that you've long-held in your psyche.
How do you know you feel this way?
If you are your last priority, if working out doesn't get done because of time and/or money, if you find yourself handling the majority of household or work responsibilities while feeling like you kinda missed the boat when it comes to yourself, then maybe you're putting yourself last. Do you feel that if you do things for other people, they'll come to realize the sacrifices you've made and appreciate you for it...however that never seems to happen?
Does it leave you feeling victimized or resentful?
If you feel this way, I challenge you to write down the messages that you've been sending yourself. For example, "I want to work out, but I don't have enough time in my day because of my responsibilies...I want to eat right, but my children want chicken nuggets & I can't get them to eat healthy food and I don't want to cook 2 dinners...I want to go to the gym, but my husband gives me a guilt trip even though he has time to tinker in the garage...."
Then, I challenge you to examine your needs, and construct new messages that incorporate these needs while balancing the needs of others. For example, "I want to work out, and to do so means that I need to share responsibilities with other members of the household so that I am not doing everything for everyone...I want to eat right, and that means that my children will also eat healthy tonight instead of chicken nuggets...I want to go to the gym and my husband needs time for himself in the garage. We can each have one hour to ourselves while the other covers the household responsibilities..."
Remember, if you don't respect your needs, chances are that no one else will.
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