This Valentine’s Day, Be Your Most Cherished Valentine! By: Kathy Andersen

Valentines Day is more than just an excuse to buy candy for those you love, its an opportunity to love yourself. Kathy Andersen gives us a helpful guide to do just that in her latest blog post for The Troy Show.

This Valentine’s Day, Be Your Most Cherished Valentine!

This Card is For You!

“The secret to my own happiness, my own good future, is within my own hands.

I must not miss that opportunity!” are the inspired words of the Dalai Lama.

Likewise, the secret to our own love is within our hands. This Valentine’s Day, take the love that is within your hands, and cherish yourself among all others.

Why? For the same reason you are instructed during a plane’s safety briefing to place the oxygen mask first on yourself, then on another. Love is the oxygen of your life. Without first filling yourself with your own love, you cannot authentically give love. Most importantly, you cannot attract the authentic love that will take you to your greatest heights!

So how, on this Valentine’s Day, can you take some steps to be your most cherished Valentine?

1. Write Yourself a Valentine’s Card!

This sounds simple enough, but just like writing a heartfelt Hallmark to the love in your life, writing an authentic love letter to yourself takes a little time, a lot of honesty, and a world of courage. Are you daring enough to proclaim your love for yourself? Start here!

My Valentine’s Card to Me:

To my most cherished and loved [Your Name Here],

You are the love of my life.

No-one knows the depths of me as you do.

No-one feels the passions that lie within as you do.

No-one sees me naked as you do.

No-one longs for me to emerge from a tiny seed to infinite beauty as you do.

No-one wishes for me to have abundance, love, and happiness as you do.

The ten things I cherish and love about you are:

[Make your list of ten things].

Today and every day, I will love and honor you by bringing one of the things I love about you into my day.

I will celebrate you.

I will hold you.

I will smile at you.

I will be kind and gentle to you.

I will look into your eyes and tell you how much I love all that you are.

I will speak to you and encourage you to chase your dreams and become all you are here to be.

2. Make a Love Commitment to You. You Deserve It!

For each of the the ten things you cherish and love about yourself, list at least one thing you can do in your day to bring that one thing into your life, and show your love for you.

Commit to making just one act of love to yourself each day for 30 days, and you will have created a habit that you will never want to break!

Why? Just like the need others in your life have to feel your love—a friend, a family member, your children, your spouse, your partner— “you,” more than anyone, need to feel your love for you. You are a child of the universe, a seed of God, a divine being. Who is more deserving of your love?

“You can search throughout the entire universe for someone who is more deserving of your love and affection than you are yourself, and that person is not to be found anywhere. You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe deserve your love and affection,” said the Buddha.

3. Share Your Love With The One You Love!

Create the time on Valentine’s Day to “pause” and share the ten things you love about yourself with your partner, spouse, or even your best friend. And, make it a two-way affair! Have your partner do the same, and you will give each other one of the greatest gifts of love—the mutual sharing of the most precious things within each of you.

Just as important, share the ways you will bring each of the things you love about you into your life every day.

4. Make A Love Commitment to Each Other!

Commit to helping each other bring the things you love into your lives every day. Be an accountability partner for the love of your life, and for the love you want to bring into your life.

Exchange your “love lists” with your accountability partner and check in with each other each day—perhaps in the morning, during the day, or at the end of your day. You must choose to “pause” and create the space for you, for the love you have, and the love you desire.

5. Complete Yourself!

We often speak of our partners and those we love as “completing us.” Yet, we are the only ones who can act to complete ourselves.

Our partners, best friends, and those we most love can support us as we journey to be “complete,” to love ourselves, to bring our gifts of love into the world, and to manifest in our lives all that we are here to create through our being. We must choose to leap into the journey. We must act to take each step. We must fill our shoes with the love that will fuel our journey.

Each day, keep taking just one step. Each day, know that within you is all you need to create all you desire around you.

Each day, choose to be your most cherished and loved Valentine, and become your most complete!

“Love is the greatest refreshment in life.”

Pablo Picasso