Celebrate ALL Your Love Relationships
On a day like Valentine’s Day the world tells us we are not worthy unless we have some sort of romantic partnership to celebrate the day. I’ve spent almost all of my adult life alone on Valentine’s Day, I’ve never experienced surprise flowers or a gift from my lover on this day. I’ve never had to tell someone I couldn’t make it because I had big Valentine’s Day plans with my beloved. That doesn’t mean I don’t know what love is. That doesn’t mean I don’t know how to be intimate with another person.
Do I long for partnership? Of course I do. Do I hope for love, and keep that hope burning, stoking its fire on a daily basis? You know I do. Do I practice intimacy regardless, and know for sure that I have intimate relationships? Duh. Messages about love churn out relentlessly and it has a habit of making those in imperfect partnerships (so, everyone?) and single people feel some type of way.
You may reject all of the bullshit surrounding Valentine’s Day, but not one of us is impervious to the messaging that’s all over the internet, in retail shops and restaurants doing 2-for-1 specials. We are conditioned early on to understand that you need romantic love to be worthy, and that the friendship love you have is slightly less important than the romantic love you should aspire to. As a kid I made Valentine’s Day cards for everyone in my class as an arts and crafts project assigned by the teacher. We were to make hand-made cards for each of the people in our class and then on the day would go to a paper folder that was stuck on the wall at the front of the room and collect our love notes from our classmates. It was before I somehow digested the idea that love was finite and reserved for that ‘special someone’ and can still feel the feeling of excitement I had in my body of giving my love freely. How good it felt to receive all these beautiful crafted love notes from my friends! I don't know when the idea that those relationships were somehow less important crept in, but it had to be early on, considering every Disney movie ever is about a princess finding her prince.
If you are lucky, you will have the opportunity to have had other types of relationships in your life beyond romance. Deep friendships: the ones you’ve had for years and years, the ones who know too many stories about you and can act as a mirror for the ways you’ve changed and grown, the ones who have become family. New friendships: the burst of new friendship love when you’re excited to learn more about each other is the best, a lifetime of stories on your lips and new adventures to share. Mentors: people who perhaps know more than you, have lived more life than you and can guide and support you through the fire of difficult moments, encourage and celebrate you - and hold you accountable. Colleagues: people who spend so much time with you that you have a secret language, inside jokes that no one else in your life would care about and arguably knows more about you than anyone else - at least the parts of you that you share in your work. Familial love: that love that’s always been there, the people who have known you the longest and the ones you share your blood with - to be sure, this one can come with a lot of baggage but also act as a support, enduring and familiar. I’ve felt deep and abounding love for all these types of relationships - and I'm sure there are more that you can think of that I've not listed here. I have also felt the acute pain and grief of losing close friends - whether through circumstance, changes, ruptures or death - it’s shown me that I must have really loved them to feel so deeply when I’ve lost them. Let's normalise the grief we feel over lost friendship!
On this day of love - if you’re in a difficult moment in your relationship, if you are feeling the crunch of being single or even if everything is going well in romantic partnership or singledom - I invite you, also, to celebrate all your love relationships. To recognise all the love you have in your life. All the support. The people championing you, the ones cheering you from the sidelines. The ones who know how incredible you are. The ones who know your secrets, and keep them. The ones who let you be. The ones who cook for you. The ones who send you a surprise gift, just because. The ones who open their doors to you, time and time again. The ones you haven’t spoken to for too long - because life - but with whom nothing would have changed if you sat down to break bread. The ones you’ve lost, too, because they taught you something. Celebrate the community you have, the village you’ve created - even if said village is dotted all over the world (as mine, unfortunately for me, is). On this day of love, let yourself feel how loved you are. Because odds are, you really, really are.
I’m teaching another movement and meditation workshop on 19 February at 12 pm EST/5 pm UK about WORTH. If you sign up to my Patreon it’s included in your membership (with a bunch of other great content), but you can also come as a one-off by signing up here.
We will focus on reclaiming worth for yourself - in whatever area of your life you may need it. There is nothing wrong with feeling unworthy: it’s a normal human reaction. What I’m interested in is helping you uncover the places where your worth may be covered up to make room for it to come through.