Valentine’s Day is right around the corner.
In fact, I just placed an order of dark chocolate hearts on our online grocery order. (Side note, don’t you just LOVE online grocery shopping?!)
At Christmas, my son discovered the candy dish mixed with peppermints and chocolate kisses. He asked me if he could eat a peppermint, to which I told him no because of it being a choking hazard. He then asked if he could have one of the chocolate kisses, to which I said yes. From there on out, he would dance his way to the “peppermints” and continues to call kisses “peppermints.” Gosh, he’s so darn cute. So, I’m stoked to surprise him with a bag full of them on Valentine’s Day.
I almost waited until next week to buy them, when it’s closer to the holiday itself, but decided to stop procrastinating since I would get them anyway. It feels so good to be prepared!
Be Your Own Valentine
Valentine’s Day isn’t everyone’s favorite day of the year, and I know you may choose not to celebrate it. Whether or not you have a Valentine, you may see it as a “Hallmark Holiday” and put your foot down to rebuke the silliness of it. That’s totally fine.
But even if you don’t go all out with chocolate, flowers, expensive gifts and dinners and mushy cards, I want to offer you a way to show yourself some love – on Valentine’s Day and every day.
You don’t need a Valentine to celebrate the day. You just need yourself. In fact, I think that loving yourself first can mean so much more than the love someone else shows us. When we live just for the way others love us, we can sacrifice who we are and grow into a person that we don’t love (or even like). But when we can love and accept ourselves, flaws and all, we allow others to love us even better and the love we feel won’t rest on the shoulders of someone else.
Self-Care
I once heard someone say that self-care is doing the daily things that meet our basic needs so that we won’t have to take a full self-care day. I love that so much, because it is incredibly true. It’s easy to see the flower-filled bathtubs, retreats and getaways, tall cups of coffee and indulgent gifts that often get shared as #selfcare on social media. And while there’s nothing wrong with those, I think that if we find ourselves needing a large chunk of time to isolate and take care of ourselves, that can point out the fact that we have been neglecting what we’ve needed for days.
Carve out a little bit of time for yourself daily. It’s not selfish; in fact, it’s the opposite. Meeting your basic needs is a wonderful way to build trust with yourself, extend your love to others and to prevent the burn out that’s inevitably coming.
Body Love
One of the best ways to love yourself first this Valentine’s Day (and every day), is to show your body some love. It’s no secret that with all the images out there of what seems ideal, we often criticize and take for granted the body we have. Through my studies on human nutrition and my work in the medical field, I have been more than amazed at what our bodies endure for us, all things that we take for granted every single day.
Your beautiful, miraculous body wasn’t made for the comments and critiques you give it for its physical appearance. No, your body was meant to be marveled at and rejoiced over for what it’s doing for you. And I wholeheartedly believe that learning to love the body you have is the first step toward getting the body you want. In terms of dieting, we know that what we do to reduce our size almost always backfires into actually gaining weight along with pushing us further away from our true selves.
Loving your body doesn’t mean that you’re saying it’s perfect or lying about what may be real. No, loving your body is appreciating it for the home it gives you on this earth, for the work it does for you to live your life and choosing to accept it instead of criticize it for what it isn’t.
So here are 13 ways you can show your body some love. Practice these self-care tips and ideas on Valentine’s Day to love yourself and be your own Valentine, then take them forward every day to repair the relationship you have with yourself and learn to thrive in the body you have.
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Passionately,
Alyssa
Is it wrong to show yourself some love? Absolutely not. However, I would encourage you to know the love of the one who created you above all. It’s this kind of unwavering, steadfast love that will surpass any act of self-care we can show ourselves, any gift someone can give us and any relationship we could ever have.
