When we live with or love an alcoholic, when we are a parent, or a wife, a co-worker, a small business owner, and on and on, it can become very easy to put others first in our lives.

Sometimes it becomes so easy the lines get blurred and we lose ourselves in the process.

Here, for your light-hearted Friday before Friday the 13th, are seven signs you aren’t taking care of yourself:

1. When your feet hit the floor after you get out of bed, your first thought is of someone else. Yes, maybe you have children to feed, a husband to get off to work. Maybe you are concerned whether or not your hungover son/daughter/sister/husband/wife will make it into work and how you will handle it. We all have responsibilities. But if you don’t take care of YOU FIRST, in some small way, you’re no good to anyone else. 

2. You read another loved one’s horoscope before your own. Enough said. 😉

3. You’re the first to volunteer for committees, bake sales, and block parties – LONG after you’re overburdened. Hey – volunteerism is wonderful. I do it myself. But have you ever noticed, especially in a church home, there is a small percentage of people who can ALWAYS be counted on to do anything? Don’t be one of those. Burn-out city. Trust me. 🙂

4. Friends call you a whirling dervish, because they hardly see you anymore. Worse yet, they stop calling at all. Staying connected is important. I read a study that serotonin levels in people who are shut-ins goes up just by spending time on Face Book. So imagine how much happier face-to-face contact makes us! We need touch, we need hugs, laughter, all these things to remind us we are not alone in life.

5. Your dentist no longer recognizes your name, and says they have no information about you on file.  

6. You stop speaking up for yourself, and all the boundaries you’ve worked so hard to build start to wobble and weave.

And the last sign you aren’t taking care of you?

7. When you are in a car crash, your car sliding around on ice, before it comes to a stop, the lives that flash before your eyes are everyone else’s except your own. 

Dear Reader, please take care of yourself. You are the only YOU there is.

Peace out.