Old Loves, Priceless treasures and the Pain of Valentines Day

First Printed in Surrey604 – Feb 8, 2017

Valentines day can be a day of pain.  For many it is a day when the commercial expectations put on your life are measured against your real human reality.  Your personal prince, your love is nowhere to be found.  Your life doesn’t measure up to everyone else.  Your marriage isn’t what it used to be.  You buried your love and left your heart in the grave. Everywhere you look you see couples. You feel lonely and alone.

Congratulations, February 14th is your day of new beginnings.

 

Regardless of your situation, let this day be the day you have the courage to jump in with both feet, or get out, or step up.  Whatever it is you need to do to improve your situation, let this day be the day you motivate yourself to do it.

Let February 14 be the day you celebrate self-love, or the day you stop being self-absorbed and dedicate yourself to loving someone else selflessly.

Let today be the day you find someone who is alone and pour love on them.  A single Mom, an elderly person, the outcast, a marginalized person, a single friend or a stranger.

Don’t wait for someone to choose you as their Valentine, choose to become someone’s Valentine. Find someone who can use a hug and chose to invest some love into them.  Take control of your situation.  Don’t wait for love to come to you, pour love into some one else.

 

Life is not like the movies. There are many happy endings and many heartbreaks and despair. Most people have had more than one strong and significant love in their life. Our journey rarely goes the way we plan. It means that we have had the joy of love and we have had our heart broken.  Or we have broken someone else’s heart, which is equally as painful a thought.

There is a unique thing that you learn, having loved deeply, and lost. There is wisdom gained through a broken heart and if it can heal in a healthy way, it can be restored into something new.

Making peace with broken dreams takes discipline and a willingness to let go of your right to be angry, hurt or betrayed.  It means taking control of your mind and not allowing it to torment you with images of the past.  It means owning your own part in the drama.  It meant silencing the voices in your heart and continuing to walk in what you know to be truth regardless of what your heart had experienced.

It means choosing to continue to be vulnerable.

Continuing to be open to love is a choice.

Through brokenness you learn that you are stronger than you think.  You will learn that the only one who can truly heal your hurts is you.  There is a lot of help out there. A few good books, meditation to silence the mind, sleeping pills can help in the beginning.  Writing it all down can help you to let it go. Surround yourself with good friends to hug the misery out of you and time, lots of time.

It is a brutal journey but in taking this journey I have come to appreciate love when it is there. When I find happiness I hold on with both hands and live totally in the moment because I know how quickly it can be gone.  I have learned the lessons of a broken heart.  I am learning to balance my need with another’s ability or willingness to meet my need.  I have learned to hand over my heart without giving someone my essence. I have learned that you can love wholeheartedly and still keep pieces for yourself.  I have learned that self-love is as important as being loved by someone else.  I have learned that a broken heart can teach you a deep wisdom.  And that wisdom can help you walk in peace.

 

I have also learned that all love counts.

 

We have been pre-programmed to believe that only romantic love can fill that deep need for connection but that isn’t true.

If you open yourself up to celebrating all forms of love, you can have a very full, rich satisfying connected love life.  Look around you, you are surrounded by love.

Hug your cat and look deep into his eyes.  You have a deep connection with a animal.  That counts.

Go for coffee with your friend and remember all the moments you shared together, that love counts.

Hug a kid, pet a dog, spend an afternoon talking to an old man.  That love counts.

Write down all the things you love about yourself. That love counts most of all.

Fill your love bucket.  There are many people with partners who feel totally alone right now.  Having a partner isn’t going to fill that hole inside of you.  That hole needs to be filled, first by your own self-love and then by the parts of your life that bring you joy.

Your faith, your children or grandchildren, your career or volunteer work, your friends, family or pets.  Don’t have any of those?  No excuse.  Go get some.

It really is that easy.  Adopt someone’s kids, borrow someone’s dog, make a friend, volunteer.  Fill your life with richness and count all love.  Fill your love bucket. Connect.

 

Find someone who is alone this Valentines Day and send them a card. Buy a friend some chocolates. Leave a Valentines Day card with an encouraging message on the seat on the sky train. Imagine being the stranger that finds that.  Find love by giving love.

 

 

   All love counts.

 

Be your own best valentine.  You are loved.