“Just as food is needed for the body, love is needed for the Soul.”  Osho

Valentine’s Day! This holiday is a blessing in the middle of  winter. It floods our stark winter world with hearts, color and chocolate. Yum!

I love any reason to eat rich, dark chocolate, (especially raw chocolate).  And I love fresh flowers in my home while the ones in the yard lie dormant and buried. And the cute paper heart crafts from my girls…love them.  Mainly though, I love being loved. Who doesn’t? And that’s the heart of it all isn’t it. The desire to be loved.

This mid-winter celebration offers much more than a reflection on the romantic loves, or lack of them, in our lives though. The core of all health begins with the love we have for ourselves.

Relationships affect our well-being. They are a primary food that can nourish our health or bring it out of balance. Relationships with partners, co-workers, friends and family can influence how we feel, our stress, happiness, and motivation. They can effect our eating patterns and the choices we make in regards to our personal vision.

The most primary relationship is, of course, the one we have with ourselves. And nothing effects how we eat more than our mindset.  Do you prioritize your day for someone you don’t value, respect or love? Didn’t think so.

Do you prioritize the time to shop, cook, plan and eat? Do you choose foods that support your love for yourself, and not just your love for that food?  Does your relationship with food leave you satisfied and happy?  Or guilty and shameful? Are you energized and vibrant, or do you cycle through feast and famine? How functional is your relationship with food?

Lot’s of people think that eating healthy and consciously is hard and full of deprivation and bleak, yucky foods. Who wants that? I’m all for eating what we love (see chocolate comments above). I’m all for being healthy and fit. And I’ve come to love the clean, flavorful, real food that energizes and connects me to my vibrant self. I want that for you too. The biggest shift I have had in my own health was when I realized that I could eat without guilt, fear or shame. Honestly, the thought had never occurred to me until I saw speaker David Wolfe during my training at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.

What are you thinking about after you eat?

This Valentine’s Day make a vow to nourish yourself, care for yourself and share the gift of a healthy and vibrant you with the world. Share the love and reap the happiness in the coming year.

Start today. Buy yourself some flowers. Give a gift to a teacher, friend or lover. Enjoy the chocolate. Celebrate your wonderful self.  Declare your love in the comments below.

Happy Valentine’s Day and winter well.

Cydney Smith, founder of www.MompreneurWellness.com, helps entrepreneur women, who are also moms, to leverage the power of healthy eating to fuel their success in life and business. When not writing about healthy eating and living, or coaching successful women, Cydney is usually off adventuring with her 2 daughters (9 and 10). She lives with her husband, girls and pets in southwestern NH. Follow on twitter: @cydneysmith and join the Mompreneur Wellness Community on facebook.

This is a re-post/re-write from the archives.

This post is part of the Mompreneur Wellness Profile Series.

My intention is to highlight that wellness is part of our life journey and contributes to our success as a mom and entrepreneur. I want to get away from the images and beliefs that wellness is about perfection.

There is no perfect model, no ideal.

Each profile will feature a Q & A with a real, authentic women sharing her successes and struggles with incorporating wellness into a busy life. I believe that wellness is a journey that evolves and adjusts, depending on what our priorities are. The journey can be easy, at other times an exciting adventure, and at times we may be armchair travelers! Read on….

Sara Bingham, WeeHands, a division of Parenting Productions Ltd

http://www.facebook.com/weehandsbabysignlanguage

http://www.twitter.com/weehands

WeeHands was founded in 2001. WeeHands teaches parents to use ASL signs with their babies! WeeHands is the world’s leading children’s sign language and language development program for babies, toddlers and preschool children.

Married? Number and age of children?

I am married and have two fantastic kids, age 8 and 10 years old.

Where do you live?

I live in a little village. Brooklin, just east of Toronto, Ontario Canada.

What role does nutrition and food play in your life?

Nutrition and food…with two kids and an Italian husband, food is constantly on my mind! We’re trying to be as healthy, nutritious and delicious as possible. Oh, and we have to add timing to our thoughts as well.  It’s a balance and often a struggle to plan and get healthy, delicious food on the table on time for other weekly activities like basketball and piano lessons.  How did my mom do it with her four kids!?

Tell me about one strategy/action you have for self care.

My self-care? What’s that?! I found the easiest thing to start with self care is to take a really good vitamin or supplement. I take vitamins both in the morning and evening.  I’ve noticed a huge difference in my nails and skins since I’ve started this and when I do it consistently.

I’m working on eating healthier myself. For a long time, for some reason I was saving all the fresh fruit for my kids and making sure they ate a lot of vegetables daily.  It sounds so weird but I’m now focusing this for myself as well. I don’t just have to save the grapes for the kids! I’m getting better regarding my own nutrition; my next step is exercising regularly now.

Tell me a strategy or tip you have for feeding your family healthy foods.

One strategy I’ve started a few months ago is to mainly grocery shop around the outside of the grocery store, where the fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy are usually kept.  If you shop less in the inside aisles of the grocery store, you’ll be buying less processed food.

Do you have a favorite wellness resource, philosophy or food that inspires you?

The idea behind Healthy Moms and Healthy Babies is easiest for me. It focuses on three things (1) a low GI diet, (2) daily exercise and (3) daily supplements. It’s simple and fairly easy.  I’m constantly learning about low GI diets and connecting with other moms who motivate me. I know it’s a balance and no ones perfect so connecting with others that inspire me is a big plus.

Do you exercise regular? If so, what do you do?

No, but I teach at a local college and I’ve just realized that I get a staff discount on their fitness centre so I’m off to get more information about that today! Thank you for motivating me Cydney!

What have you struggled with, in terms of wellness, as you have been building a business and raising a family?

My struggles have been around my weight and my confidence. For too long my thoughts have centered on thoughts like, “Oh, I can do that or wear that or speak there, when I’ve lost the weight”. I have to ban these thoughts from my head!

Raising a family and building your own business that you are passionate about is very fun but it takes a lot of work, more than you think when you start. It’s very easy to put family and the work that you must do in front of taking care of yourself. But if I don’t take care of myself, what kind of picture am I setting for my daughter and if my self-esteem is low how can I really promote my business?

How do you feel your health and wellness contributes to your business? Your creativity? Your family?

Health and wellness for me means that I need to focus on myself and I truly think that if I focus on myself and make myself happy, I’ll have more to share with my family and everyone involved or connected to my business.

Anything else you’d like to share about wellness, family, health, food, and exercise?

My advice, take time for yourself.  Don’t lose yourself in just your kids or just your business. Both need you to be the best you can be. It’s okay to be selfish to take care of yourself…that way you’ll be able to take care of others! At the same time, know that there will be good days and bad days. Take the pressure off yourself. Try to get rid of the guilt. You won’t be and can’t be perfect all the time.

Any special promos or particulars regarding your business you’d like me to add?

If you have any questions about baby sign language or language development in general, please follow @WeeHands on Twitter or become a fan of WeeHands on Facebook. Our Instructors are amazing and 30% of them are speech-language pathologists!