Have you ever tried to pour from empty cup?  No?  If you’re a female, a wife, a mom, a caregiver, and an employee, I’ll bet that’s what you do almost daily.  You wake up, take care of your spouse, take care of your children, take care of your parents, take care of your boss, and the list goes on, but wait…where are you on that list?  You’re not even on it because you give yourself the fumes that are leftover at the end of each day.  Sound familiar?  Does this describe you?

It doesn’t have to be that way.  What if you decided to wake up each morning a few minutes early…5 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes and put your mask on first? Mask?  What mask?  What in the world is she talking about?  Have you ever been on an airplane, and as the flight attendants go over the announcements of what to do in the event of a situation where the oxygen masks drop down?  Well, in case you don’t remember or have never experienced it, they always instruct you to put your mask on first before helping anyone else.

Why not apply that to your life right now?  How much better of a wife, mom, daughter, employee, and caretaker would you be if you began filling YOUR cup daily first before you tended to the wants and needs of everyone else?  Start small, like I said above, with 5-minute increments.  Have a plan ahead of time on how you’ll spend those extra 5, 10, 15, 30 minutes.  As I stated in the video, my day starts with prayer, Bible study, read a few pages of a book for personal development, and exercise.  Then and only then, after I’ve taken care of me, will I tend to my beloved husband, open my e-mails, read text messages, check on clients, view social media, well, you get the idea.  You see, we’re busy people, and if we don’t fill our cup FIRST, there will likely not be much of anything to give to everyone else anyway.  We women tend to wear this behavior like a badge of honor as we walk around with high blood pressure, overweight, high cholesterol, diabetes, constantly fatigued but refusing to even consider tending to our own needs.  Don’t think neglecting yourself is a big deal?  Consider this.  According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (cdc.gov):

• More than one-third (36.5%) of U.S. adults have obesity. [Read CDC National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) data brief PDF-704KB]
• Obesity-related conditions include heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer, some of the leading causes of preventable death. [Read guidelines]
• The estimated annual medical cost of obesity in the U.S. was $147 billion in 2008 U.S. dollars; the medical costs for people who are obese were $1,429 higher than those of normal weight.

According to www.cardiosmart.org:

• More than 42 million women are currently living with some form of cardiovascular disease.
• More than 8 million women have a history of heart attack and/or angina.
• Five and a half million women will suffer angina.
• Heart disease is the leading cause of death of American women, killing more than a third of them.
• 35.3% of deaths in American women over the age of 20, or more than 432,000, are caused by cardiovascular disease each year.
• More than 200,000 women die each year from heart attacks–five times as many women as breast cancer.
• More than 159,000 women die each year of congestive heart failure, accounting for 56.3% of all heart failure deaths.
• 48% of adult women have a total cholesterol of at least 200mg/dL.
• 50% of Caucasian women, 64% of African-American women, 60% of Hispanic women, and 53% of Asian/Pacific Islander women are sedentary and get no leisure time physical activity.
• 58% of Caucasian women, 80% of African-American women, and 74% Hispanic-American women are overweight or obese.
• Women with diabetes are 2.5 times more likely to have heart attacks.
• More women than men die of heart disease each year.
• 23% of women and 18% of men will die within one year of a first recognized heart attack; 22-32% of women and 15-27% of men heart attack survivors will die within five years.
• 12-25% of women and 7-22% of men heart attack survivors will be diagnosed with heart failure within five years.
• Women are less likely than men to receive appropriate treatment after a heart attack.

Who told us that taking care of everyone else’s needs while neglecting our own was the way we show love?  We deserve to be healthy, and our loved ones deserve the best version of us that we can give them.  However, when we don’t take care of self first, we’re being selfish and giving them the least of ourselves.  Are you giving your best version of yourself to those whom you say you love?

If the answer is no, then I recommend that you consider taking this Personal Development Challenge as we read The Miracle Morning and begin making some changes.  By the way, did you snag your copy of the book yet?  If yes, comment below how you’re implementing the principles of the book that you’ve read so far.  If you haven’t joined our group yet, do so by filling out the form below.

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