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Valentine’s Day is one day that’s fraught with expectations, celebrations, disappointments and love and has always been that way since we were in grade school exchanging those paper valentines, putting them into decorated boxes.
Whether you’re in an intimate relationship or not…
This holiday can be fun or it can be miserable and you just want to get it over with.
One of the tricks to making Valentine’s day special is to make that choice–and not only for this day but for every day.
That’s what we’re call the Valentine’s Day Stretch.
A woman Otto worked with many years ago was upset all day one Valentine’s day because her husband hadn’t sent her flowers.
She was grouchy with her co-workers and complained that she wasn’t appreciated by her husband as she waited expectantly for the bouquet that didn’t come.
She was in such a bad mood that even the flowers he’d sent to their home a few minutes after her arrival didn’t change her attitude.
She thought that he SHOULD have known to send the flowers to her work during the day instead of to their home in the evening.
As you might guess, it didn’t go well when he got home!
Her focus and expectation had been on the tangible evidence of her husband’s love and how special she was for her co-workers to see.
Now we can all see how wrong and even petty this seemed but the truth is we all do this in our own way from time to time.
We all get sucked into expectations of others and when they don’t follow through the way we think they should, we blame them, pull away and not see love when it’s given to us.
Valentine’s day is a day of expressing love, for yourself and for others, but we suggest you don’t get hung up on what you think another person “should” do to express love.
Expressing love shouldn’t and doesn’t have to stop with this one day.
Look at every moment of your life as special and an opportunity for love–and that’s a choice.
Awhile ago, Susie was at the grocery store in line behind a woman who was obviously buying for an organization because her cart was full of gallons of milk and other items. Susie waited patiently as the woman made three separate payments for what was in her cart but after the woman’s final payment, Susie thought, “Okay it’s my turn” and pushed her card for the store in front of the cashier.
The cashier motioned that she was waiting patiently for the woman to put money into her purse and leave before she rang up Susie’s purchases.
Susie saw in an instant that she had been impatient and pushy in that moment and this gentle reminder from the cashier was just what she needed to get back to kindness and love.
Kindness and love are choices we can make in every moment, not just on Valentine’s day.
Take the opportunity today to make the choice to love instead of blaming, expecting, assuming or being pushy and you will see how your life lifts up and become much easier and happier.