The legendary story about Valentine’s Day and how it started is very interesting. Saint Valentine of Rome was imprisoned because he performed weddings for soldiers, who were forbidden to marry.
Today, Valentine’s Day is the second most popular card-sending holiday after Christmas as annually 150 million cards are exchanged.
We always look outside to find for our Valentine.
We always look outside for love, for approval, for appreciation, for enthusiasm, for support, for acceptance and all that jazz…
Yet, who we really have to focus on are ourselves. We have to turn within, accept and fall in love with ourselves and ask ourselves to be our own valentines.
On the eve of this
Valentines Day I have taken the challenge and asked myself these questions.
When was the last time I spent time with myself?
When was the last time I loved myself?
When was the last time I appreciated myself?
When was the last time I accepted myself?
When was the last time I was proud of myself?
The answer is startling. I don’t remember.
We always seek all these things from others and when we don’t get it we feel disappointed, hurt and let down. Slowly we begin to feel lonely and we get into depression as we lose connection with ourselves. That leads to a lot of diseases as the mental and emotional state affects the physical body. The truth is though that we let ourselves down didn’t we. We didn’t value ourselves did we?
When we stop this chain of looking for outside love, turn around and look into ourselves, we will raise the standards of self-awareness. The results won’t leave us disappointed. Our self- esteem is elevated, self-confidence is given a boost and our honor touches the skies and beyond.
Once we start treating ourselves like the special people that we are, then everyone around us will start doing it, too.
You don’t have to put extra effort to grab their attention. You just need to start taking action towards yourself and that will give them clues about how you want to be treated. Then, the universe will send that message out and everyone will start to treat you in that way. It is as simple as that.
Here are 6 tips to turn your attention to yourself:
1. Morning goal setting: As soon as you wake up, do this. Instead of grabbing your cell phone to check the messages and emails, spend a few seconds with yourself reflecting on the kind of day you’d like to have. This will set a positive tone for the day. Remind yourself that you love you.
2. Mindfulness: Practice yoga, meditation. Pranayama or anything that helps you to be aware of your monkey mind. The mind can jump from one place to another but you need to be very aware not to jump with it.
3. Positive attitude: Have an encouraging and positive attitude towards yourself rather than judging yourself all the time when something goes wrong. Be in a positive environment and with positive people for more productivity.
4. Self-Appreciation: You can always appreciate others yet we tend to put ourselves down and compare our abilities with others. Remember everyone in this universe is unique and has special talents. Your work is to recognize what you are good at and work towards it. At any cost, you need to protect your self-respect and kindle the self-love.
5. Seek guidance: Practice asking for guidance from the universe or higher self. This helps a lot and keep you open to new possibilities.
6. Alone time: At night before going to bed, just go over all the things that happened in the day. What were your happy moments and low moments? How can you make it better? Appreciate yourself and be proud of what you have accomplished at the end of the day. Encourage yourself to fix what you can.
Have gratitude for the incredible day and that will make your sleep better.
Once you realize that you are Love and stop seeking love from others, you will be more rejuvenated. Then you can give more love and attention to the people around you.
So, after kindling the self-love within, you can go and have a phenomenal Valentine’s Day with your partners knowing that you are LOVE itself