Buy Yourself Flowers

Buy Yourself Flowers

 

 

“Your problem is you are too busy holding onto your unworthiness.”  Ram Das

 

I recently was in the grocery store with the kids.  It works much better now that they are older!  One pushes the cart and the other checks things off the list and there are very few shananegans anymore.  Just before going to the check-out I told them I wanted to pick out some flowers for the house.  Wren picked out a couple of bouquets and I rejected them for being too expensive and we finally settled on one.

I noticed that Dermot had gotten very quiet, which is rare!  I asked him if he was alright and he told me he was sad.  He was sad for two reasons.  He wanted me not to have to worry about money as much and he found it sad that I was buying flowers for myself because that was something that Frank used to do for me.  In fact the best and most thoughtful gift he ever got for me was a year’s worth of seasonal, monthly flower/plant deliveries from the local florist.

I thought for a moment and answered that it is never a bad thing to be cautious with your spending.  It was something that I never paid attention to when I was in our marriage.  I didn’t really become good at budgeting until I was responsible for myself.  I told him that and I also told him that I love fresh flowers and that there was no shame in me buying them for myself.

This started me thinking.  How often in my life have I not done something because I wasn’t good enough in my own mind or because some societal norm told me that I shouldn’t or couldn’t?  How many times have I denied myself joy because it wasn’t gifted to me from someone else or was outside the realm of the mainstream?  Why have I spent so much of my life navigating by anyone else’s compass than my own?

I am working on challenging myself in my actions going forward, making careful decisions and following my own path because I now know that I am worth it.  I am worth gifting small parcels of joy to myself, I don’t have to wait for someone else to deem me worthy.  We all, I think, need to let go of our unworthiness.  We all need to love ourselves more and treat ourselves more gently.

I wrote a long time ago about being challenged by a chaplain at a rehab to treat myself as I would my own child.  Would I use the same negative language with and to my child as I use to talk to myself?   Of course I wouldn’t, so why do I flay myself over and over again?  Treat yourself as you would treat your own child and be kind, teach, bring joy and nurture.

            So I say, don your bathing suit when the weather gets warm.  Don’t wait until you lose those last 20 pounds.  Don’t wait for someone to ask you out on a date, go out to a movie or enjoy a dinner, take an adventure, do what brings you joy.  Buy yourself flowers.