Whitney Cummings' Self-Care Journey

Summary: Whitney Cummings shares her personal journey with self-care, highlighting how she used to prioritize others' needs over her own, a behavior rooted in her upbringing. Through 12-step programs and books like Codependent No More and Adult Children of Alcoholics, she learned to recognize and address her codependent tendencies. This involved avoiding "mothering, martyring, and micromanaging" and focusing on her own needs first.

• 🏃‍♀️ Overextending herself: Whitney describes her past self as constantly running around, catering to everyone else's needs at her own expense.
• 📖 Resources that helped: Books like Codependent No More and Adult Children of Alcoholics, along with 12-step programs, provided insights into her behavior and guided her towards healthier patterns.
• 🙅‍♀️ Behaviors to avoid: She learned to avoid the "three Ms": mothering, martyring, and micromanaging, recognizing them as detrimental to self-care.
• 👪 Impact of upbringing: Whitney links her difficulty with self-care to growing up in an alcoholic home with narcissists, where her own needs were secondary.
• ❓ Constant questioning: She used to habitually ask others if they needed anything, reflecting her ingrained tendency to prioritize their needs.

Key Takeaway: Prioritizing your own needs is not selfish, but a crucial step towards healthy self-care, especially for those with codependent tendencies rooted in challenging family dynamics.