February 14th! The feast of Saint Valentine, who just happened to possibly be more than one saint. I'm going to use the Saint Valentine, a Roman Priest who was arrested and persecuted for marrying Christian couples during the reign of Claudius I. (Perhaps the Christian right should take a look at this persecution thing for marrying out of the "accepted" norms of the current society! That's another blog, however.)
Anyway, the feast of Saint Valentine had nothing to do with sending Valentine cards, flowers or candy to one's beloved. It was simply a day to venerate all of the saints who could have possibly been named "Valentine" which is sort of the "Justin" of today or the "John" of the 50's. So happy feast day, Valentine!
The point of my blog today is love and hate. I read once that there is a very fine line between these two emotions. I've never been one to avoid "hate." In fact, I think it's a healthy emotion. It's the antithesis of "love" which we all agree the world needs more of. We all love and hate people, possessions and ourselves. We spend so much time on the people and possessions that we lose ourselves in the equation. This is what happened to me.
A few years ago, I was going through a bad time. It seemed, in fact, that my world was falling apart, piece by piece. Much of it had to do with the economy which impacted my entire family directly. So I did what many people facing crises do. I started self-medicating with food. Fortunately, I had the good sense to realize that I couldn't face things by myself, and I went to a counselor.
The story about my counselor is a humorous aside, or at least I think so. After about 10 minutes of pouring my heart out to a young woman who was looking at me quite uncomfortably, she asked if I had a problem with a conflict of interest on her part. She had been a former student of mine. Not wanting to face the purging of my soul a second time, I told her I was fine with it. This, plus the fact that I had no recollection of her ever being in one of my classes, made it easy. (I did recall her brother and went on about how great he was which probably put her into counseling, but oh well.)
Back to my point. I truly hated myself. I hated pretty much everything about my life, until I sat back and realized that I had lots to love. I was a nice person. I would do pretty much anything for a friend. I had a good sense of humor (or so I was told by those who don't want to make me angry), and I was a good listener. I had good friends, a beautiful family, was well-educated. And now I have even something more to love about myself. I don't have to work.
So, I'm dropping the self-hatred and bringing on the love. I have been faithful to my workouts, while not to my diet during my "one day at a time" plan. I am going to try to do better with my diet, starting today, because in honor of Saint Valentine's Day, I'm going to love myself. I'm going to celebrate my greatness, and give myself a big hug.
Tip for the day: Love yourself today. You are the best!
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