This one is for those of us that always find ourselves tending to others. Other people and things outside of ourselves. For some of us, we've not only learned to caretake but we have learned to identify with it. It feels like who we are -- what we do. The tricky thing about caretaking is that sometimes it's a muscle that is so relied on that others have atrophied.

When we learn to meet our needs by meeting the needs of other people, think of it as a survival mechanism. It isn't the most optimal approach and it works to an extent so we keep doing it. If the unconscious thought is... 'if I care for you, and you're good, then maybe you'll be able to care for me' ...then what will be sacrificed just to meet some of the basic human, relational needs? Sometimes quite a lot.