Rethinking it for those of us who are pissy about it.
Valentine’s Day has always annoyed me. I mean, it’s been done already. The whole representation of the heart symbol for care and love and all the other good relationship juju is just so… well… cheesy. Big boxes of chocolates have never made me feel loved. I have a part, a self-professed sugar fiend, who will do what any five-year-old will do: eat too much, get sick to her stomach, then regret it afterwards. Then there’s the “I’ve been single more Valentine’s Days than not,” so that’s a nice little slap to the single girl’s face. Add to that the whole capitalism/contrivedness of it. I mean, really, if I do not feel special and loved in the relationship other than one “important” day of the year… well, then you’re a sucky boyfriend and need to go back to remedial boyfriend school. Oh, and also there’s the pressure to get it just right and reserve just the right restaurant that everybody else and their girlfriend-boyfriend-lover-fiancé-husband-wife is also fighting over, one that will be too busy and too loud with crap service because they’re not usually this freaking busy! Really, I could go on and on about why Valentine’s Day is lame, but even that’s been done a thousand times at least already.
Here we are a few weeks out from yet another Valentine’s Day, and my snarky critic is already rearing its little fang-toothed head. She sits in the back of my mind, arms folded, and every pink aisle at the grocery store sets her off. “Oh, give me a fucking break. Another heart? Who falls for this crap?” She has run the show around this holiday for as long as I can remember.
So I dusted off my mindfulness practice and tucked it in nice and cozy with my resistance to all things heart-y, and I sat with her the way I sit with a part in session, curious and in no hurry. And what I realize is that it’s not the hearts or the chocolates or the dinner or the expectations or even the capitalism that I have the real resistance to. It’s that the symbols of love and care get mistaken for being the love and care. And then I have to wonder, “Well, yes, but why does that bother me?” And I had to come to a pretty brutal truth about myself.
As a yogini, massage therapist, meditator, and mindfulness-based movement therapist, I’ve got a load of language that speaks to mindfulness and love. You know, words like presence, slowing things down, easing up, practice, yielding, nonattachment… you all know the same lingo. But in the last few years, a series of experiences has made me… well, lose faith, I think, and fall out of love with the practice a bit. The loss of some physical mobility, the death of a dear friend, a relationship break that floored me, a mother whose memory collapsed… and I realize I have been less fully living from my heart, and more presenting that I’m living from my heart. Just like the symbols associated with Valentine’s Day, I have been mistaking the symbol of heartfelt living for actually living and operating from my heart.
When I asked the critic what she was afraid would happen if she put her fangs away, she showed me my own heart after those years, dropped too many times and patched over with all the right words. She would rather mock the paper hearts than let anyone near that one. Of course she would. How could she not?
I can feel when she has the wheel. My jaw sets, my chest goes tight and small, my breath stays high and shallow, and I hold the whole world at arm’s length. When she softens, even a little, the breath drops into my belly, my shoulders come down from my ears, my arms open, and there is warmth in my chest again. Your body may do this some other way entirely.
So, today I have decided to choose to love Valentine’s Day and all its symbols. Every time I see a heart, I will use it as a mindfulness tool to remember my own heart and see if it’s big and juicy, or dehydrated and shriveled up behind some image of a heart. Every time I see a fat Cupid and his sneaky little love arrow, I will remember the first few weeks of meeting my guy and our second yoga class together when we were lying on our backs, arms stretched out, and he touched my fingertips as our eyes connected… or those moments when I am holding my newest soft and innocent nephew. Every time I see chocolate, I will remember to find the sweet spot in myself and to offer it to another. And the sugar fiend gets one piece, slowly, melting on my tongue, and no stomachache after. Every time I recollect that Valentine’s Day is nothing more than a marketing ploy, I will remember that there is nothing inherently wrong with marketing (I do it myself to keep my therapy practice thriving), and that it is this capitalist society that has allowed me, a girl from the hood, to get a higher education and to do work that I love.
And the critic gets to come along. Every so often she will roll her eyes at a pink teddy bear clutching a satin heart, and honestly, some days I will roll mine right along with her. Then I check the one in my chest. Big and juicy, or shriveled up?
So, to all you other devout Valentine’s Day haters out there… wanna join me and see what comes of it? At the very least, it’s gotta feel better than being all tight and judgey.
May you find the sweet spot in yourself, and offer it to someone.
May your snarky parts be met with curiosity.
May every paper heart in every shop window send you back to your own.
May yours be big and juicy this year.
Sabrina Santa Clara is a coach, Approved IFS Consultant and founder of Interweaving Journeys, who tries to walk the talk, but, like the rest of us, stumbles from time to time. You can reach her through her contact page or visit SabrinaSantaClara.com.