Excerpt

Self-Care: Becoming Your Own Best Friend

© Claire Communications

Need someone to work extra days? Ask me. Someone who’ll clean up the place because we’ve scheduled an open house? Sure. I’ll even bring the cleaning supplies. Need someone to baby-sit your kids while you go away for a weekend? I’ll do it. Stay late? Cook extra? Loan money? Run an errand? Give up my bed, my book, my best outfit? You bet.

“This was my life,” said Sharon, 42. “I thought I had to do anything and everything people asked. Even if they didn’t ask, I’d find ways to accommodate them. And if I couldn’t, I felt guilty.”

Sharon was an expert, no-holds-barred, genuine “accommodater.”

Somewhere along the line she learned that her needs weren’t important. In fact, she had been accommodating others for so long and doing it so well, she didn’t even know what her needs were.

What she did know was that she was unhappy, that she sometimes felt angry and almost always felt guilty. She realized she allowed people to use her, but she didn’t know how to say no.

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