Seriously, why do we have these days of celebrating something that should be part of our everyday?

I can certainly appreciate the honoring of someone we love and sharing our gratitude for that person being in our life.

I do also believe in the importance of creating love in our lives, and living in a shared experience of love with someone dear.

What I don't like is the commercial aspect of a celebration where the true intention of expressing ones feelings of love for another, or self, is overpowered by the pressure of this one day of Valentines, also a day dreaded by many.

Yes self, how do we practice SELF-LOVE?

News, Choices, Tools, and Love.

Last month I talked about Hope and Love, and this month Love will be the topic again. I hope some of you will enjoy this as a nice new aspect of my newsletters though I know that many of you appreciate my very straight forward representation of food choices and ways to make better ones everyday.

I hope that those of you who want that information only will search through my very extensive archive of old newsletters where you will find lot's of information. You can also visit my other info-site www.selfnourishment.com for more food information.

I have a book coming out soon that I wrote about Appetite Control for a health supplement company. When it is available I will let you know.

Now back to this issue, it will be about LOVE, but with a twist.

Being Loved.

Have you ever been in a relationship where the other asks you or you ask of your other: "How much do you love me?" Probably. The more important quesition is: "How much do you love you?" Most people, when I ask them this, tend to feel very uncomfortable. I can understand that. Most of us have not learned to. Maybe you even come from the same society of belief system as I, where you were taught that loving yourself was about ego, feelings of grandeur, and completely inappropriate. Obviously we have all met people that would excessively express their love for self, but I also have to wonder if that was indeed a love for self or rather a desperate call for love from others.

Part of my job I to is to help someone fall back in love with "Self". In our many ways of coping with our feelings of not loving ourselves we come up with all kinds of distractions to keep that heartbreak away from our awareness. These distractions become everything from mindless living, habits of overindulgence, addictions to food, alcohol, drugs as well as excess exercising, work, and sex. You see, the place in our brain that registers if we are satisfied does not know the difference of the source of satisfaction. It is also the very same place in the brain that tells you if you feel loved. Makes sense now doesn't it? So we can use all kinds of resources to feel loved or to mask the notion that we do not feel loved.

The next question will be, if someone "other" is needed for you to feel loved. For sure it helps when someone loves us. I asked a friend of mine what love means to her and she answered. "When two people share love they are in a flow with each other." I thought that was a rather beautiful way of describing the constant dance we are in when we relate to each other with an open heart.

The other side of this is when love becomes dependant on the other, where we hold the other in blame and guilt for our own feelings. This is an unbalanced love and we are stuck in a process of being reliant on another to bring us love.

We surely can appreciate sharing love with another but depending on it for our self-love is where we get in trouble. Our self-love allows us to appreciate ourselves within a relationship - or even without one.

Relationships are not easy. They require us to be present, open, and in communication. They are however also a window into our own patterns, habits, triggers and charges, and they help us grow when we can leave that window open for the wind to blow through it. A soulmate does not mean someone where everything is just easy going. It just as much means someone who can help us grown by pushing all the buttons we need to wake up to. We meet many soulmates in our life. We grow with each meeting with others as it reflects onto and into ourselves. It still comes back to us loving our SELF. That means, the essence we are, not the expression of our identity.

So for this month and on this day of Valentine, take the opportunity to go inward and have a day of love, gratitude, honor, and compassion for yourself. For all you have done up till this day to be the person you are and allow yourself to know that you will always grow.

Tuning in to Self.

My friend Karol Ward has just published her new book:
Finding your Inner Voice
Using Instinct and Intuition Through the Body-Mind Connection

Karol Ward, LCSW is a licensed psychotherapist and seminar leader who specializes in the importance of the body-mind connection and is a warm and insightful teacher.
The book combines her background as a therapist with her study of how we can access our intuition faster by connecting to our bodies.

It is a straightforward, practical, book filled with anecdotes, exercise and checklists that will show you how to use your own body as a compass for creating goals and making decisions and help you notice your body's intuitive signals
How to interpret those signals and use the information to create success in your personal and professional life success in your personal and professional life.

Hope you enjoy it.

and...A Lovingly Event:

This is an event for Chocolate Lovers and/or those who want to help make a difference by sharing the love (in this case:donations).

I will be speaking at this event about why we love chocolate so much
and if it does indeed carry with it the health benefits that it promises.

The Valentine's Day Chocolate Tasting Extravaganza

And is a: Chocolate tasting fund-raiser hosted by the Global Giving Circle to benefit Project Hope & Fairness which supports African cocoa farmers and their families.

The chocolate companies and bakeries confirmed to be present: Baked, The Chocolate Room, Theo, Vere, Sweet Riot, Fine & Raw, Amano Chocolates, Stogo and others.

When: Saturday, February 14th from 3-5 pm
Where: Side Bar, 120 East 15th St @ Irving Place, NYC 10003
Cost: Tickets start at $25 per person
Higher ticket prices (donation levels) are available along with gifts.
To buy tickets:
For more information: www.globalgivingcircle.org
Contact : shana@globalgivingcircle.org

The Global Giving Circle is a network of individuals who come together to support creative and innovative work in alleviating poverty. We believe that true fulfillment comes from active engagement in the world.

Beneficiary: Project Hope & Fairness www.projecthopeandfairness.org

Project Hope & Fairness is a US based 501(c)(3) organization which supports African cocoa farmers and their families.

Benefit goal is to raise $5000 so we can pay for a well to be built in one of the villages and a few scales. Scales are significant because farmers are often cheated by the middlemen who typically weigh the cocoa away from the villages.

Come participate and find other ways to share the love by giving too.