YOU’RE SO STINGY!

Who me? Yes!

Although I consider myself to be generous, I tend to be stingy with one person in particular, myself. I’m quick to give my time, money, energy and resources to anyone who asks. Well, you probably don’t even have to ask, I’ll still give. For some reason, I have a hard time giving myself my time, money and energy. While leaving the gym the other morning, I thought to myself, “Wow, I just gave myself an hour of my day!” I felt like I was stealing this precious hour from someone more deserving. I had missed several calls and texts during the hour and had a sinking feeling that I had let someone down by taking that hour for myself. One hour was hardly a huge chunk of time out of 24 hours. It was barely any time at all in the big scheme of things.

The next day, I went crazy and spent 30 minutes in the sauna after my workout. That is a whole hour and a half given to myself. I was getting less stingy and only felt a tad more guilty.

When I moved my daughter to Dallas last week, I took her shopping for a work wardrobe and had no problem spending the money on her. She suggested that I get a pair of shoes that she was getting since I also liked them and that sounded crazy to me. I was happy to buy them for her, but it felt indulgent to buy them for myself. See, I am stingy!

One thing I know for sure is that you can not change a behavior if you are unaware of it. The good news is that I have noticed my tendency to be less than generous with myself. It is now up to me to change that behavior. This week, I am committing to give myself five hours of my time. I will remind myself that I am worth it and that pretty much every phone call or text can wait less than an hour to be answered. After all, we used to have to wait for people to be at home to reach them on a land line! Remember that??

XX,

MG

TEA IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD