How To Be Your Own Valentine
Another Valentine’s Day. Really? Those “love-vibes” are being sold everywhere. The commercials are back. They mean business this time! They have a remedy for you. Feeling sad? Buy a box of chocolates for someone! Feeling lonely? Book a reservation at an expensive restaurant! Are you in the throes of grief? Buy something, anything to feel better! Like the remedy is external. When it's not!
It’s hard to forget the hallmark of a holiday, the endless advertisements on the sidebars of your browser window. Chocolate dipped strawberries, edible flower arrangements made from out of season honeydew melon… did you make your reservations yet? The ads are deafening, they are blinding… Do you buy into it or do you let the day pass like any other? Do you enjoy the hype if you’re in a relationship? Would you even care otherwise?
This week, press the mute button, close the laptop, put the phone on airplane mode and make yourself the object of desire. Yeah, it sounds a bit strange to focus inward.
Be your own valentine by making time for you. Create a calendar marker. Not just this day, this week — but for the month. When was the last time you stopped and listened to the internal experience of the self? When was the last time you listened to your body? Or got a massage? Or cried just because? Or looked around, taking off the blinders, to appreciate what’s right in front of you?
Take a moment. Find a quiet spot, to be in the moment-of-you. Without distractions, what do you hear? Can you hear your breath? Can you feel the beat of your heart? Does your heart sound like the soothing beat of a drum?
If you must buy-in… buy yourself some flowers, chocolate... Be your own valentine. Meet your own desires, yearnings, paying keen attention to what hunger in you needs to be sated. And, guess what? V-Day no longer needs to be an excuse to be good to yourself.
Thank you:
Jeannine M. DeHart | https://medium.com/@jeannine.dehart/please-dont-intellectualize-falling-in-love-77152abea55d
Jennifer Rosater |https://medium.com/@jennrosater/afraid-to-tell-people-what-you-want-6a9ea537cc79
@DonnaRobertsPhD |https://medium.com/psych-pstuff/lifelong-learning-keeping-the-1st-grade-passion-alive-7143cbb4275e
