Practicing Self-Love Around Valentine's Day

Valentine’s Day as it is celebrated in modern culture is a chance to celebrate romantic love, yet it can also be a painful reminder if you’re currently single, have recently lost or ended a relationship with a romantic partner, or are processing relationship trauma. Even in a relatively healthy partnership, Valentine’s Day can be fraught with social pressures to demonstrate romantic commitment in certain ways like expensive gifts and romantic dates. It’s all too easy to feel disappointment, grief, or stress around Valentine’s Day, which is why practicing self-love and compassion are important. Here are a few therapy tips for honoring your authentic needs and values around Valentine’s Day.

What Do Your Feelings Tell You About Your Needs, Values, and Beliefs

First, let’s do a little check in: how are you feeling about the upcoming Valentine’s Day? Are you dreading it, excited about it? Annoyed by it? Stressed or anxious about it? Our feelings and expectations about holidays like Valentine’s Day are often signs of deeper issues that we need to address, from misguided beliefs to unmet needs.

For example, if you’re single and dreading the holiday, perhaps you’re struggling with what you believe your relationship status says about your worth (e.g., I’m alone because I’m unlovable). Or perhaps you’re in a relationship, but you’re feeling anxious about whether you can fulfill your partner’s expectations for a romantic evening (i.e., if I don’t come up with an extravagant gift, she’ll dump me) or the opposite (i.e., if he doesn’t make plans to celebrate with me, is it a sign that he doesn’t love me?) These fears are often signals of unmet needs or mismatched expectations about how you can express love and care for each other.

It’s important to take time to reflect on your feelings and expectations, and try to dig down to the thing beneath the thing—what are my feelings telling me about my beliefs, needs and values about this holiday?—and acknowledge those deeper issues with compassion, curiosity, and a commitment to honoring your needs.

Self-Love Practices for Valentine’s Day

Valentine’s Day, like any holiday, comes with its share of social pressures that may have more of a negative impact than a positive one. Whether you’re single or partnered, it’s important for your mental health to practice self-love. Your relationship to yourself is the most important one you have, after all. Here are a few self-love practices that can help you stay emotionally grounded around Valentine’s Day.

• Take time to love yourself with a little self-care. Be generous and kind to yourself, in whatever way you’re able - it could be taking a solo hike, scheduling a massage, or making time to do a creative activity that you don’t usually have time for. Whatever you choose, the goal is to nurture your mental and physical well-being.

• Practice gratitude and appreciation, both for the relationships that are meaningful to you (romantic or not) and for yourself. Although we often go through our days with a fleeting sense of gratitude in the moment, we can make space to practice gratitude intentionally; for example, you could write down a list of relationships in your life and the qualities within those relationships you’re grateful for. You can also practice gratitude for yourself by engaging in a loving kindness meditation, like this one from Tara Brach.

• Set healthy boundaries in your relationships. Now is a good time to take stock of your relationships (every kind) and check in with yourself about how you want to be treated, and how you want to treat others. If things between you and another person are feeling out of sorts, follow these steps for setting healthy boundaries.

• Ask for what you need from friends, partners, or family. Similar to setting healthy boundaries, being clear about your needs with your loved ones is a way to honor yourself and improve your relationship to others at the same time. For example, if you’re feeling grief this Valentine’s Day over a loss or a breakup, be honest about your feelings and ask for support.

• Build community connections. There are many types of love to celebrate, and there are many people who need love but are not romantically partnered. Modern western culture places much more emphasis on monogamous romantic partnerships than it used to, often at the expense of communal connections. Valentine’s Day is a great opportunity to lend your time and attention to community activities that build loving connection in non-romantic ways, like volunteering your time at a senior living facility, shelter for the unhoused, or a hospital ward.

Mental Health Support Around Valentine’s Day

Self-love is the work of a lifetime. Everyone struggles to be kind to themselves and improve their mental health; it’s important to know that you’re not alone. Meeting with a therapist can help you connect with your emotions, clarify your needs, and revise the story you tell yourself about your life, your relationships, and your ability to connect with others.

At Empowered Connections Counseling in Chicago, our group of multidisciplinary therapists provide mental health support for individuals and relationships of diverse backgrounds and experiences: whether you’re single, healing from heartbreak or loss of a partner, recovering from intimate partner violence or betrayal, or you and your partner(s) are straight, LGBTQIA+, monogamous or polyamorous. We’re committed to helping you find the right therapist and strategy to strengthen your mental health, self-esteem, and relationship bonds. Book an appointment today to get started.

About ECC:

Empowered Connections Counseling is a practice of licensed therapists providing quality, multidisciplinary counseling for adults, children & teens, relationships, and families in Chicago and across Illinois. Whether by in-person session or via telehealth, we work with clients to find the therapist and treatment methods that best suit their needs. Connect meaningfully with your life by booking an appointment today.

Building a Secure Attachment in Your Relationships

You might know about attachment styles from books, mental health experts, or the therapist on Instagram that you follow. If it is new to you, then here is a little background. Attachment theory focuses on our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in relationships between people. This includes, but is not limited to, friendships, romantic relationships, polyamorous relationships, and even working relationships.

The theory was founded by John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth. Bowlby and Ainsworth believed that our attachment style was formed based on the responsiveness of the adults around us in our early experiences. There are four different attachment styles; secure attachment, anxious attachment, avoidant attachment, and disorganized attachment. If you want to know more about each style, we encourage you to check out this blog post, Attachment Styles & Their Roles in Relationships from The Attachment Project.

We all embody levels of each attachment style depending on the situation and relationship, but we typically have a more dominant style. What is key is knowing how your dominant way of relating to others shows up. What thoughts do you have about relationships, vulnerability, interdependence? What are your relational triggers and core fears? What do you do when you experience these triggers?

Gaining insight on yourself in this way can feel overwhelming at first. However, the benefit of attachment is that our neurological pathways are malleable. Meaning your dominant attachment can shift. There is no shame in what exists for you when you relate to others. We all have our own stories that make us who we are. However, working toward a sense of security in ourselves and our relationships can help us in leading more authentic, connected lives. Read on for how you can start to build a secure attachment. 

Talk to a therapist: exploring with a therapist the nature of your attachment orientation is key. Explore your relationship history. What is your earliest memory of feeling reassured, comforted, empathically understood? What were your caretakers’ attitudes toward emotional vulnerability? (i.e. weakness, sign of lack of self-reliance, a healthy part of development, an opportunity for connection) Did you seek support? Who did you turn to? Explore your core attachment fears and needs. Do you have a fear of abandonment or fear of being controlled? Take time to examine that.

Start with yourself: Continuing outside of therapy, exploring your own emotional world is key when establishing secure bonds. Practice being alone and sit with what that feels like. Journal to explore your emotions, and practice breathing exercises that will support you in moments of dysregulation. When you have a better sense of yourself, then you can better communicate your feelings and needs.

Create rituals: when working to establish security in your relationships. Find intentional ways to create rituals with those people. Whether it is a romantic partner, friend, family member, or coworker. Send your friend texts letting them know what they mean to you, or express gratitude for your friendship weekly. If it is your romantic partner, create coming and going rituals. When you leave for the day give them a kiss and a hug. When you get home ask them how their day was and give your full presence. If it is a work friend, schedule time to have lunch dates with them each week, and share what you admire about their work ethic. A little bit can go a long way!

Practice ATTUNEMENT: Use the acronym ATTUNE to practice attunement. Bring in awareness of your own feelings or your partner’s. Turn toward them or express to them what you are feeling. Tolerate your difficult emotions, as well as theirs with a deep breath. Try to seek to understand what they are experiencing. Practice non-judgmental listening and keep the focus on them. Lastly, empathize with them. Find ways you can relate to what they are feeling.

As social creatures we thrive on connection, and desire a strong sense of belonging. Attachment wounds from early experiences can stay with us and show up in our adult relationships. It can be an emotional, painful process un-packing that, but with the support of a therapist there is hope.

Schedule an appointment at Empowered Connections Counseling

Book Recommendations: 

Attached By, Dr. Amir Levine and Rachel Heller

Polysecure By, Jessica Fern

The Power of Attachment By, Dr. Diane Poole Heller