What does standing here on a scale today in a factory have to do with Valentine's Day, you may ask?

Well, 14 years ago, having battled extreme yo-yo dieting, eating disorders and a constant hole in my soul of "never being good enough", I started to walk a journey to wholeness by becoming more active.

But only when I stopped weighing myself eight long years ago, did I allow my relationship with my body to truly heal.

Today this Valentine's week, I want to share a little bit of that with you and how it relates to roses.

As long as I was trapped by anything that connected me to a number, as long as I tortured myself by looking at the scale as some measure of who I was, I remained trapped.

This week, I had to weigh myself for my integrative doctor who was monitoring my cholesterol, which is a genetic condition.

So I was forced to weigh myself. Now, I don't have a scale in my home. I don’t believe in scales only in strength. I don’t believe in weight only in feelings. Feelings beyond any number. Feelings beyond any age. Feelings that fuel my faith to live in my body and not in my head.

In our home, we only have a small scale that is purely to weigh luggage.

And so I was forced to come to one of our factories to find a scale. To get somebody else to weigh me, and write down the number and send it to the doctor. I still don’t know what I weigh. You see therein lies the freedom to be. To live. To love.

So I want to tell you about the liberation of loving yourself enough this Valentine's 2025. To let go of the scale that defines a part of you, that shuts down a part of you to not live in your body. Because for all those years, when I stood on a scale, it seemed to define my relationship with my body. I lived in judgment, not in joy.

Now in my sixties, I live in my body and I have not a clue what I weigh. For eight years, I have no clue. And even when I got on the scale, I asked somebody else to write it down and send the message to the doctor.

Because there's something that happens when you start to love the body you're in.

You see, when your partner on Valentine's Day wants to love you, and you say, Oh, I'm so ugly, I'm so this, I'm so that, you are destroying the petals of their love.

And every time somebody pays you a compliment, and you smash that flower, you are diminishing a part of yourself, but you are also diminishing their love for you.

They love you as you are. Your partner chose you. They love you for how you show up in their lives every day. And every time you smash one of their compliments, you are diminishing a part of this incredible body that you were gifted to walk this journey of life in.

So this Valentine's Day, don't diminish who you are, and what you've come to the world to do and to be.

You only get so many flowers in your lifetime.

This Valentine's, use those flowers wisely. Use those flowers as a symbol of the body you've been gifted, not the weight you are, not what you look like, but the gift that you have been given.

The gift of bringing love to the world.

Love yourself so that others can freely love you.

That is the greatest gift you can bring to the world.