What’s love got to do with life? EVERYTHING!
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Any reminder to celebrate love is great. And I encourage you to find a way to honor love every day and not just one day a year.
Do we really have to orchestrate a commercialized day to revere LOVE? And the sort of love we find broadcast all over the TV, radio and internet on Valentine’s Day, is romantic love.
Romance with another person is only one facet of love. We may think that romantic love will cure all, as we throw ourselves into the arms of another thinking and hoping that they will rescue us.
What’s love got to do with it?
What if you don’t have a current romantic partner or valentine? How do you feel on this “special” day: sad, embarrassed and lonely?
I was in my 6am spin class yesterday morning. As we worked out to music with love themes in the spirit of valentine’s day, the woman next to me was saying how sad she felt having no boyfriend in her life. Physically shaken a tear rolled down her cheek.
And did you know that Valentine’s Day honors St. Valentine, a Roman priest who was beheaded in the third century for a reason that no historian can agree upon.
What we need is a reminder that love can be ever present in our lives.
The secret sauce all starts with LOVING OURSELVES!
The secret sauce to having a life you enjoy, a business or career that works, is self-love. Self-love means caring about you when things are not going so well, standing strong in the face of opposition, and taking time out for you as well as caring for others.
Our very human journey means finding compassion and love for ourselves, which is way easier to say than to do. When we can truly love ourselves and not continually beat ourselves up for so many little and big things, then we can more readily accept life on life’s terms. And we can beautifully reciprocate and love others as well with a full heart.
P.S. To find out more about the history of Valentines Day there’s a great article in Time Magazine