Flowering Fridays: Flowers for You

Salmon Pink Ranculus by Amy Palko reprinted under creative commons license

With Valentine's Day tomorrow, this time of year is all about love — and gifts that symbolize love.

And of course, I will share my love with my sweetie, my daughter and other important people in my life. But I am also reminding myself to love myself first and foremost.

I'm finally getting that all love and the quality of our relationship begins with self-love.

I'm learning that without deeply, unconditionally, and passionate love for myself, I can't truly love another or fully experience the fullness of the wondrous possibility that love is.

And I'm learning to give myself the love that I've been seeking outside of myself — fill myself up with it — and then overflow to others from that full place.

Then, and only then, I can experience the power and beauty of true love.

So this Valentine's Day, I'm buying myself flowers and cooing loving words to myself as a reminder of how important a loving relationship with myself is.

I'm hoping to find some ranunculus, but roses or a mixed bouquet would be fine, too.

I invite you to find a way to love yourself this Valentine's weekend, a way for you to let yourself know how important and loved you are, by you.

You might also want to check out:

• James Ray's video Valentine Message here, which inspired this post.
• Apartment Therapy's 7 Last-Minute Valentine's Bouquet Tips.
• Design Sponge's Weeder's Digest: Valentine's Flowers Decoded.

Tell me, which flowers would you choose to give as a Valentine to yourself?

(For more luscious flower goodness, check out Amy Palko's Flickr photostream of flora and fauna here. I love, love, love her photos. I'm going to follow her blog now, too.)

*********

Flowering Fridays is a weekly look at flowers through the lens of what they might teach us about flowering fully in our life. Past editions are here.