It's ok to love yourself.

I gave myself the flowers you see here. In fact, I give myself flowers each and every week. There are fresh flowers in nearly every room of my house, nearly every day of the year. I can afford it and they make me happy. They also make the people who live in this house with me happy, so we all benefit from them. They make my office smell nice, and create a peaceful setting in which I can write, so everyone who reads my writing benefits indirectly from these flowers as well. These flowers serve as a reminder to me to be grateful for the financial security I have. When I'm grateful and consciously aware of all I have, strangers in-turn benefit, because I'm more generous with others who are less fortunate. The flowers in my kitchen make me feel good about cooking, about feeding me and my family healthy food, as an expression of my love for myself and them. These flowers are a simple reflection of the self-love I practice everyday.

I also love myself enough to eat food only nature provides and move my body to stay healthy. I read books, meditate and pray because I love myself enough to nurture my intelligence and wisdom. I love myself enough to spend time alone, figuring out why I was born in the first place and why I matter in the world. I love myself enough to seek out meaning in my life and take care of myself in a way that always me to fulfill my purpose. This past year, I showed myself the greatest act of self-love by giving up alcohol. I continue to discipline myself and practice self restraint because self control is a pleasure like none other. I love myself enough to tell myself no.

Self love is widely misunderstood and often viewed as an indulgence. People have confused it with arrogance and self-righteousness or dumbed it down to a day at the spa or a warm bath. Neither of these are true definitions of self-love.

We've been told, if you think highly enough of yourself to love yourself, you are clearly a narcissist. If you're not putting other people first, you are selfish. If you're not foregoing your own happiness for others, you surely are not living with Christian values or a life of sacrifice. Instead of loving yourself, you've been instructed to put others first, deny your own health, happiness and true purpose and then go to the spa a few times a year to make yourself feel better. Drink wine every night or go on vacation once or twice a year to reward yourself for all you do for others everyday, at the expense of taking care of yourself.

What a load of shit! All of those things are the opposite of what it really means to love yourself. Loving yourself starts by understanding who you are and why you were born in the first place. Why are you here? Why do you matter?

When you start answering those questions and really get to know yourself, real self-love becomes natural. You have a purpose to fulfill and only when you love yourself enough to take care of yourself properly do you fulfill that purpose. Nobody in the world benefits from you when you aren't loving yourself. To love yourself means to become all of who you are capable of being. Loving yourself means to nurture your own soul. Loving yourself is the greatest act of love for others.

Us moms are told we have to sacrifice everything for our children, which at first glance seems entirely appropriate. What mother wouldn't do anything for her child? But, sacrificing for your children is not the same as neglecting yourself. Neglecting yourself is actually an act of neglecting your children. If you want your children, and everyone else around you for that matter, to have the best life imaginable, start by giving them all of you; not a neglected, tired, un-inspired, unhealthy, worn out version of you. Neglecting yourself isn't something to pride yourself upon and it surely isn't an expression of love to others either.

You have a moral obligation to love yourself. You cannot love others without loving yourself first.