Today, down under it’s already Valentine’s Day. I have always had mixed feelings about this date. On the one hand, I resent being compelled to feel any form of emotion that I’m not naturally feeling, whether
it be love or enforced mirth as in the case of New Year’s Eve ( my least favourite day of the year, I’m weird I accept that).
Furthermore I hate the commercialization of an emotion, that like Christmas, becomes more about; a gift, setting and expectation involving a certain degree of pressure and stress, rather than intention and relaxed good cheer (wait before y’all start commenting, there is an upside to all this, it’s coming).
If you’re single during the run up to Valentine’s Day, you are constantly reminded of your singledom, even if it’s something that you’ve happily chosen for yourself. It’s like a party is going on that you’re not invited to, and everyone is waving their invitation in front of you ( again similar parallels to be being alone, ill or depressed around Xmas and New Year’s Eve).
One thing that single people tend to forget, is that it can actually feel worse to be coupled around Valentine’s Day, if that relationship is facing or a crisis or if you’ve had a tiff just the day before. Can you imagine the pressure in that situation? It’s compounded.
On the other hand, Valentine’s day is there to remind us about love. Every day should be St. Valentine’s Day. We shouldn’t need to be reminded about love but we do, like we need to be reminded about our health, our interconnectedness, and the nobler aspects of our humanity, such as integrity, compassion and kindness to all living beings.
Unfortunately St. Valentine’s Day has been hijacked by commercial motives to emphasize romantic love, which is a beautiful thing when two people meet, grow together and share their life together.
However there are other types of love besides Eros which need to be acknowledged and celebrated too. C.S Lewis in his book ‘The Four Loves’ gives equal importance to; storge (empathy bond and familial affection), philos (friendship bond) and agape (unconditional love) besides Eros. So today is a day for commemorating all those kinds of love, the love that gives of itself without expecting anything in return, as well as the love that loves the self too, embracing its shadow side (as opposed to narcissistic love).
Charity begins at home. As RuPaul says “If you can’t love yourself, how the .... , are you gonna love someone else?”So if you’ve got this far, this is my message to everyone. GIVE YOURSELVES A BIG HUG. You’re alive, it’s tough being a human, you probably criticize yourself enough. Today, no matter what you did yesterday, you deserve to give yourself a pat on the back for being you -warts ‘n all - coz nobody knows what it is like to be you, nobody does being you better than you. You deserve all the love in the world.
What do they teach us as soon as we get on a plane? Put the oxygen mask on yourself first before you try to assist anyone, including your kids. So breathe some pure self love deeply in today, because you are a wonderful creature and for some reason you are here on this earth having a human experience right now, in this moment in time and you need all the support you can get. START with that big self love hug this morning. HAPPY VALENTINES y’all. Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx #valentinesday #love #singledom #charitybeginsathome #selflove
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