How do you deal with feeling overwhelmed in your life? Do you go into control mode and make sure everything is managed, or do you fall apart and let everything go until the chaos becomes so bad that you break under the pressure? It is certainly true that the world is offering us more and more stressors that add to the overload in our lives. The economy has effected all us in one or another. Our jobs (if we have one) are stressful. Seems like we are always trying to live up to someone’s expectations. Have you ever felt some days like you can’t do anything right?
Then there are family stresses: our partners, our kids and all their issues. And as women, we are juggling all of the schedules, the meals, the household responsibilities, our jobs, our partner’s needs, our own needs… Hmmm…our own needs, they are usually on the bottom of the pile, aren’t they? Are you even in touch with your needs? There was a time when I couldn’t have told you what I needed. I thought that I needed to meet the needs of my husband and my son and my extended family too. And I thought that if I did a good job at meeting all those needs, I would get my needs met and feel valued. I spent a very long time in that cycle–meeting everyone’s needs in an attempt to get my own needs met. I worked hard at it…I was determined to do a good job at meeting everyone’s needs.
The problem with always working at meeting other’s needs, is I never attended to my own needs. My own self got lost in the shuffle. Then there came a day when I was too overwhelmed to do it anymore. There was a melt-down. We can only go so long with ignoring our own needs before there is a break-down. When I came to the place where I knew I needed to recover my self, I wasn’t even able to connect with my own personal needs. I had neglected them for so long that I did not even know for sure what it was I actually needed. It took awhile for me to reconnect with my needs and desires. When I began to pay attention to valuing myself and attending to my own needs (instead of everyone else’s needs), I started to feel better. I got in touch with me, and I started to feel again. I awakened to what was really going on inside of me. When I stopped trying to figure out what the needs of everyone around me were, I could recognise what my own needs were. The next step is valuing yourself enough to ask for what you want and need. I will challenge you to ask yourself, “What do I need in my life today?” and then listen to what your heart answers.