How to Create Love this Valentine’s Day
-by Brenna Ortner
Valentine’s Day is almost here again. Maybe you aren’t feeling valentiny at all. In fact, maybe you want to hide away, and you just don’t feel like getting out of your negative-nancy rut. Instead, you want to gorge, whether it be on food or on negative feelings. But I can promise you that will not help a thing. So let’s agree to put down the pizza, put down the putting-yourself-down and slowly, carefully walk towards the light.
Trust me, I’ve had my fair share of Valentine’s Days with loads of chocolates and lots of whine (pun intended). So how can you feel love when you are feeling pretty empty? Without the not-so-healthy quick fixes? How can you attract love, no matter what your situation? Single or married with kids, who doesn’t want to feel more love?
For the next few weeks, I will be sharing with you tried and true tools that you can carry with you, and draw upon in case of emergency.
Here are some ways to inch that beautiful self of yours toward feeling the love you were born to feel, in a much more healthy way!
Nourish yourself in all the ways you know how
Here are ten creative ideas for treating yourself as the most important person in your life. Because, after all, you are, aren’t you?
- Buy yourself flowers
- Cook yourself a favorite healthy meal, or try a recipe you’ve been wanting to try…FOR YOU
- Light candles
- Have a glass of organic juiced veggies in a beautiful wine glass
- Treat yourself to some raw chocolate
- Take a bath, and put your favorite essential oil in the water
- Go for an abundance walk on a crisp winter day and list everything you see that feels beautiful to you
- Collect some of your favorite music and burn it onto a CD
- Do 10 minutes of yoga
- Sprinkle rose petals and rose water over your freshly made bed
Live for yourself
Women (and especially mothers) generally tend to give everything they have of themselves for others, and then what is left? Why is everyone else more important than you?
Elizabeth Gilbert wrote in Eat Pray Love something that used to really resonate with me, If I love you, you can have my everything. You can have my time, my devotion, my money, my family, my dog, my dog’s money…I will carry for you all your pain, I will assume for you all your debts, I will protect you from your own insecurity. Are you doing this? I was.
Take care of yourself. Don’t drain yourself to make others happy. They need to make themselves happy. I share with my clients who are mothers that it is not selfish to take time for yourself. In fact, it is completely the opposite. You can give so much more when you nourish yourself first. Take the time to nourish yourself. It is the most loving thing you can do for yourself. if you are not doing it, stop and ask yourself why? Journal about what comes up and be willing to look at the things that stop you from taking really good care of yourself.
Listen
Your initial thought here may have been to listen to others, but today I am talking about learning to listen to yourself. As a woman you know that you have gut intuitions that you inherently feel like you should listen to. It’s true. Listen to your body. I’ve had a few times this year when I had a gut feeling not go to something and I ignored it to make others happy. I used it as a learning experience to work on listening to what my body needs. This year I’ve promised to listen to myself. I feel more confidant because I know my decisions are coming from being in congruence with my intuition, rather than what my family, friends or general society think.
When trying to decide yes or no ask yourself How does this feel for me? If you hear a yes or a no, go with it. Your body tells you things for a reason, your gut has more neurotransmitters than your brain. If that isn’t enough reason to listen to your gut I don’t know what is. It’s a very loving experience to honor yourself instead of jumping through fire hoops to do what you think you should be doing.
Forgive
I believe a very strong way to open up your body and mind to receiving love is to forgive yourself. If you are harping on what you’ve done wrong, how can you open yourself up for what is right? We are all human. We make mistakes. That doesn’t mean you need to beat yourself up day after day for the rest of your life (and I need to re read this one a few times for myself)!
Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself. Forgive yourself.
And those grudges you are holding onto that you think are hurting the people that hurt you? Yea, not doing a thing to hurt them. Solely hurting you. Forgive them too.
“There is no love without forgiveness, and there is no forgiveness without love.” ~Bryant H. McGill
Nobody has the power to make someone else love us. Which is exactly why it’s such a tricky part of life. Money can’t buy it. What we do have is the power to love ourselves, to love others, to radiate our own love. By doing that we change ourselves, and ultimately change the world that we live in.
Meet Brenna Ortner
Brenna Ortner is a Board Certified Holistic Health Coach who guides women to thrive in their bodies. She will help you feel calm and confident, lower or eliminate sugar addictions and find the real energy you’ve been looking for. Brenna will work with you to heal the root cause of your health challenges so you can start living a happy life with your body working for you, not against you. She specializes in PMS, mood imbalances, infertility, low libido, low energy, inability to lose weight & menopause.
Brenna’s Healthy Little Bit: Along with cooking delicious treats you can use coconut oil as a moisturizer after taking a nice long bath (or in the bath!) . It’s a wonderful pampering treat and your skin will soak it right up.
This post is the first in a four-part series on loving yourself! Keep your eyes peeled for more juiciness next week and please share with us below what you plan to do to create love in your life! If any of these ideas or suggestions resonated for you, make a pledge to yourself below about an action step you will take this week!