Valentine's Day 2013

Hi Everybody!  What a whirlwind 2013 has been for me. I have been working on new Treasure You programs, speaking for women's groups, raising my family, and soon my new TV show project launches! Now, I'm ready to get back to blogging and I'd love to start by talking about a certain holiday that's coming up!!! How many of you are hopeless romantics? At this time of the year, there are so many expectations around Valentine's Day that we sometimes lose sight of loving ourselves. Valentine's Day can be very distracting. Instead of focusing on the love and the care that are at the heart of this day, we get all bogged down in what we think we need. And it happens to everybody! Even I have struggled in my past. If you're with someone, it's way too easy to stress out planning an expensive evening. If you're single, you have to deal with all those ads for diamonds, flowers, chocolates and all the rest of it! It's enough to make everybody feel miserable on what's supposed to be a positive holiday! And when I say everybody deals with this in some way, I do mean everybody. Earlier this week, I was catching up with a friend and the topic of Valentine's Day came up. I was so surprised when she cut me off! "I don't want to talk about that!" she said. "I'm single right now and I don't even want to think about it." Now, this girlfriend of mine has so much going for her - she is beautiful, and she is successful. She is kind and she is smart. And yet she was letting this one little holiday get her down! It really reminded me how much power Valentine's Day has, but it also reminded me how many people look at it the wrong way. My girlfriend, and really everybody, should be using this week's holiday to love and treasure themselves! That doesn't mean you should cancel your date if you've got one, but it means that you should make sure you spend some part of the day treating yourself. Maybe that means a massage, or some chocolate, or maybe even a little present to yourself. That present could even be the gift of time! If you feel like you need more time to listen to God, more time with your family, or even just time to get away and bring some stillness to your life, give yourself that hour or two on Thursday.  You deserve to treasure yourself.

I'm going to be tweeting little ideas for how you can treasure yourself on Thursday. If you have any suggestions, tweet them to me or leave them here as a comment!