With Valentine's Day right around the corner, our thoughts may naturally turn to our love life or lack thereof. We may dream, wistfully, of being swept off our feet in a lover's embrace. Or we may weigh and measure the quantity or quality of the relationships in our lives, and perhaps find them lacking.
Even if we find ourselves surrounded by loving relationships and feel truly cherished, as women, we just don't spend enough time and attention honoring, loving and celebrating ourselves. We are often called upon to be the supreme nurturers of relationships and may find ourselves in need of some serious loving of our own.
One of my favorite books for really unique ways to honor our self love and celebration is "The Woman's Retreat Book: A Guide to Restoring, Rediscovering, Reawakening Your True Self-In A Moment, An Hour A Day or A Weekend." Jennifer Louden reminds us that "we are in the perfect space to court at-one-ment, the realization that you are the lover and the beloved, that you are whole and complete in yourself". She includes all kinds of suggestions for "showering yourself with the kind of thoughtfulness you would want from a lover". Her chapter "Courting Yourself" is really great!
We can buy into the commercialism and hype around Valentine's Day and wait for our cards, candy, or flowers to arrive. Or better yet, how about getting a jump start on some "loving" and treating ourselves to a yummy helping of self celebration? Who better than ourselves to know what we really truly love!
One of my favorite things to do in honor of Valentine's Day is to declare the month of February as "love on myself" month. The whole month I surround myself in loving actions. Pick a day each week in February, and set up a date for yourself. I particularly like Friday afternoons as my self-date.
Some really great ideas for self love and celebration follow. Choose ideas from the following list or create your own:
- Buy yourself really, really beautiful flowers on market day
- Schedule a manicure/pedicure, facial, body wrap at a lovely spa
- Take a lesson in something sensual like belly dancing
- Get a massage with fabulous smelling oil and a fantastic masseuse
- Buy yourself some really gorgeous lingerie and wear it-for yourself
- Wear a really lovely outfit and go to coffee and meet a friend or go on your own and enjoy the freshness of conversation with someone new
- Buy yourself a meaningful piece of jewelry that celebrates your love for yourself.
- Whatever you would love to do for yourself!
Try out some of the ideas. You might enjoy yourself so much, you may want to make a standing weekly date with yourself.
Make Self-ish (the authentic loving and caring of the self) a regular vocabulary word and watch the richness of all your relationships unfold.
Happy Valentine's!
Books to Help You Blast Off to a Brand New Life!
Recommended by Susan Whipple, Life Coach and Expert on 50+Fabulous:
- Fifty on Fifty: Wisdom, Inspiration, and Reflections on Women's Lives Well Lived by Bonnie Miller Rubin
- Not Your Mother's Midlife: A Ten-Step Guide to Fearless Aging by Nancy Alspugh and Marilyn Kentz
- Fifty Celebrate Fifty: Fifty Extraordinary Women Talk About Facing, Turning, and Being Fifty from the editors of More Magazine
- Great Dames: What I Learned from Older Women by Marie Brenner
- Unstoppable Women: Achieve Any Breakthrough Goal in 30 Days by Cynthia Kersey
- Sex and the Seasoned Woman: Pursuing the Passionate Life by Gail Sheehy
- It's Only Too Late If You Don't Start Now: How to Create Your Second Life at Any Age by Barbara Sher
- Refuse to Choose!: Use All of Your Interests, Passions, and Hobbies to Create the Life and Career of Your Dreams by Barbara Sher
- Change Your Life in 30 Days: A Journey to Finding Your True Self By Rhonda Britten
- Visioning: Ten Steps to Designing the Life of Your Dreams by Lucia Capacchione
- Your Best Year Yet!: Ten Questions for Making the Next Twelve Months Your Most Successful Ever By Jinny S. Ditzler
- The Gift of a Year: HT Achieve Most Meaningful Satisfying Pleasurable Year your Life by Mira Kirshenbaum
- The Renaissance Soul: Life Design for People with Too Many Passions to Pick Just One by Margaret Lobenstine
