On Valentine’s Day, try to find the real reason to love yourself
HAPPY VALENTINE’S Day.
Apparently the first Valentine’s Day was celebrated as far back as 496AD and was celebrated in remembrance of St Valentine, a priest who, in the third century, was sentenced to death after performing marriages in secret, as Emperor Claudius II had banned them, stating married men made bad soldiers.
He was then sentenced to death but fell in love with the gaoler’s daughter. He was executed on February 14, having left a letter for her, signing it ‘‘from your Valentine’’.
Sadly, after nearly 26 years of marriage, my Valentine’s Days are in the past, or as I prefer to look at it, we celebrate our love all year around and not just on one day. However, the truth is it falls so near my own birthday that it almost seems unfair to expect to be spoilt even more.
It did get me thinking though, having a day to celebrate love is no bad thing, and what I’d like to do is put my own spin on Valentine’s Day to make it relevant to everyone, not just those who are in those first flushes of a relationship.
As I see it, we all live with an Emperor Claudius, someone who is banishing love in our life, that believes living without it all makes us better people. The truth is, that having coached many people from all walks of life and background, the one thing that seems to run true of most people, is that the one person that we often fail to love, is ourselves.
It’s like, as humans, we have this ability to have a running commentary in our heads, constantly running ourselves down, criticising our every move, not putting our own needs first, for feeling guilty, doing things that we enjoy, telling ourselves that we’re too fat, too thin, too tall, too old, too young generally being completely unkind to ourselves – our own personal Emperor of self loathing and hater of love.
So this Valentine’s Day, if this is you, I would love for you to turn the tables and tell your Emperor to have a well-deserved day off.
Take a day out to enjoy yourself, to do those things that you enjoy, to spoil yourself, to tell yourself how amazing you are, how you are perfect just the way that you are.
If you wish, you can go one step further and buy yourself a present, take yourself out for lunch, or go to your favourite cafe. Treat yourself like you would a person who you really love. How often do we do that?
But above all, allow all the negative thoughts that you’ve ever had about yourself to pass, for this day, don’t allow yourself to entertain them or give them focus, it’s amazing what an impact it can have, giving yourself a day off from running yourself down.
Imagine for a moment all of your thoughts about yourself, positive and negative, are lots of different colours, you can choose whatever colour you like to create the person that you are.
For today, choose all the colours that create the best possible picture of yourself.
If you wish, you can carry on doing this every day, but as a first step, simply focus on today.
■ Andrea Morrison is a Transformational Life Coach and author. andreamorrison.co.uk