Valentine’s Day is a day full of love, gift-giving, and being around the people that make you the happiest, but all too often it is also full of self-loathing.
“Are you kidding me, I’m single for yet another Valentine’s Day? What am I doing wrong? Everyone else is having the perfect day, I just want their life.”
If this sounds familiar, it’s okay, you’re not alone.
People assume that Valentine’s Day is exclusively for couples to celebrate their love while simultaneously posting it all over social media for everyone else to see, but what if I told you that doesn’t have to be the case?
One thing is for certain: Valentine’s Day is a day for love, but this also includes the love you should have for yourself, which is often forgot.
Rather than focusing on all your self-determined faults and asking yourself why you are not in a relationship, focus on all the qualities of you and your personality you love.
When people self-judge themselves in a negative way, they assume thats how everyone else sees them too. However, odds are the people around you do not care that your car is dirty, that you are wearing sweatpants three sizes too big, or that you are not currently ‘taken’. What they notice is your expressive personality, your warm smiles, and your contagious laughter, but when you view yourself negatively, these things get masked by your insecurity.
I promise that in 10 years, not one peer in your life will remember that one day you woke up and decided to wear an oversized shirt because you did not feel like getting dressed up, so why waste your time worrying about the insignificant details?
Of course, learning to love yourself is no small task. It takes time, so take baby steps. Starting on Valentine’s Day happens to be potentially the best day of the year to start.
Start by eliminating the word ‘should’ from your vocabulary. As you see the pictures of the couples spending the day together on your Instagram timeline, do not tell yourself ‘hey, I should be doing that too’. By eliminating the word ‘should’ you eliminate the preconceived standards you have set for yourself.
Step two is to do things you enjoy, not things you feel you ‘should’ be doing. Sleep in, eat what you want, watch Netflix all day, enjoy your day, and when it has past, feel good about how you spent your time. Life is too short to do things you do not actually want to be doing.
Little by little, you will start to realize that when you do what you want to do, life becomes so much more fun. You’ll start to realize you will feel better about yourself, and when you feel better about yourself, others will also feel better about you. Positivity really is contagious.
So this Valentine’s Day, single or not, ask yourself what you can do to love yourself a little more. It may not look as cool in an Instagram picture, but I promise it will make your personality look a whole lot more inviting. And who knows, it may turn out to be the best Valentine’s Day you’ve had in a long time.
