Self Indulgence: Positive or negative?

I was listening to a book on grief and it had a chapter titled Self Indulgence - I was expecting a lecture on not wallowing but it was literally 'indulge yourself' - eat the cake, have the bath, laze about - give yourself permission to do whatever makes you feel good. More what we refer to as self care these days.

I realised that is actually what Self Indulgence means but somewhere along the way, we turned it into a negative. A bit of googling discovered the dictionary description of 'the act of allowing yourself to have or do anything that you enjoy' (Cambridge Dictionary) It is literally a positive, however, what we default to in our meaning is excessive self indulgence, or mindless self indulgence where our gratification comes at the cost of damage to others or ourselves. We default to a negative view of what that 'anything' might be, when for most of us, it's pretty harmless. Or is the 'anything' for a lot of people self destructive and hurtful to others.

I can't find why or when this happened. 

It reminds me of the day it was pointed out in someone's blog that mental health was not a negative. We all had mental health, either good or bad. It was the same as health. We do things that are good for our health and bad for our health every single day.

But this shame and negativity attached to self indulgence seem a really nasty frame for pleasure. I wonder if it goes back to medieval time where people worked to the bone while the wealthy lords frolicked around?  Why are we as humans so judgmental on other people's happiness these days? Why are we so judgemental on our own actions that make us happy? If we eat the cake? If we take the day off chores? There's an internal feeling of being naughty.

Anyway, I had plenty of self indulgence this week - the joys of a Moomin Bath bomb, a wild orange sunrise lighting the room, relaxing with a face mask and a morning walk with my friend. The only excess was the cost of the bath bomb, but it was Moomin and it made me so happy so I did indulge.

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