Happy Valentine’s Day!
I want to brag on all of you amazing Moms out there today for being SO awesome and making this day so special for all of your people. Today is a very busy day for moms. Some of us are decorating shoe boxes and helping the Littles write their names on tiny valentines, and figuring out how to squeeze that school party into our busy schedule. Others are tending to the broken heart of a teenager or trying to figure out the perfect way to make our tween feel special. Moms everywhere have been working up to this day for weeks planning, preparing, thinking, scheming, strategizing, and (mostly) loving all of the fuss that this holiday brings. It’s just what we do, and sometimes we don’t even realize how flippin’ awesome we are and how much we care and how hard we try.
So I want to make sure I remind you of that today:
I see you out there killing it with the valentines, and school parties, and romantic dinners, and thoughtful gifts, and fun heart shaped breakfasts, and the million other things that moms do to make our people feel special on Valentine’s Day.
I also want to remind you not to forget the most important person in your life today: YOU. Don’t forget to show yourself some love today too!
There is so much to do for everyone else on Valentine’s Day, and that is great! I love this special day and the opportunity it gives me to show the people in my life how much I love them. It is very important to me to love my people well, on Valentine’s Day and every day. It’s something I think about constantly, I strive to improve continuously, and I take very seriously.
It’s usually easier for me to love on others than to love on myself, and so sometimes, I need a little reminder to show myself some love. Maybe you do too.
I feel guilty, self-indulgent and selfish when I put myself first. But when I don’t, I feel bitter, resentful, exhausted, burned out, and lonely, which makes it very difficult to show my people the love I want to show them.
So I’ve been working on putting me first a lot more often.
It’s a mindset that allows me to take care of me and leave the guilt behind. It allows me to take my needs, however small or insignificant they may seem, seriously 100% of the time.
It’s a way of life. It’s saying yes to myself even if it means telling others no. It’s listening to my body and actually acting on what it tells me. If I’m exhausted and need rest, I lay down instead of grabbing another coffee and ignoring the way I’m feeling. It’s saying no to an invitation that I feel like I should accept even though it strikes dread in my heart. It is leaving a situation where I’m dismissed or ignored or unappreciated, instead of sitting there seething in shame and anger. It’s building the things that I know I need into my life on a regular basis before I desperately need them like time with my girlfriends, or a good conversation with my mom. It’s knowing myself and anticipating my own needs just as I do everyone else’s.
It’s something that I’m getting better at the more I do it. It’s a process and a re-wiring of the way I’ve been treating myself my whole life. It’s extending myself grace, and giving myself permission to thrive. Ultimately, it’s just loving myself, and that’s why I bring it up today, on the day that is all about love.
Hopefully you also have built some room for self-love into your life, and you know how to put yourself first. Not at the expense of anyone else, but for the sake of all the loved ones in your life. They deserve the best you, and that is only possible when you take care of yourself and put your needs first.
So, whether you have a sweetheart or are single today, whether you have little valentines or teenagers playing hard to get, I hope you’ll take some time for the most important love of your life: YOURSELF!
