Want the Happiest Valentine’s Day Ever?

Money can’t buy me love. – The Beatles

Too bad, because that would be a whole lot easier.

Don’t we all just want to be loved?

Adored?

Made to feel special and unique?

It’s part of being human.  We crave love. 

We’ve also gotten a whole lot of confusing messages about love.

Fairy tales taught us to wait for a prince to swoop in on a white horse and whisk us away to a happily ever after.

Society taught us, “If you can’t marry for love, marry for money.”

Some of our religion taught us, “Love, honour and obey.”

We don’t REALLY believe those.

We know better. We try our best to teach our girls that they can do anything they want.

We try to teach them that even though it is perfectly okay and fun to love princess stories and princess dress ups and princess movies that they don’t really need to wait for a prince.

We know that to set men up as princes is unfair.  It leads to expectations that probably can’t be fulfilled by anyone without access to a kingdom.

We know that marrying for money doesn’t work if it’s the only glue holding couples together.  It’s not very satisfying for either party.

We know the obeying thing is archaic – and we don’t need to do that either.  But still….

Although we know we don’t NEED someone to fulfil us or complete us or affirm us, sometimes it sure would be nice.   

Wouldn’t it make the journey simpler in a lot of ways, to just surrender and let someone else do that for us?

Maybe.  But it’s kind of unfair to expect anyone else to do that.

Unfortunately, we’ve been taught to look outside ourselves for love.  We know the fairytale’s not real, we know the box office movies aren’t real, we know the happy family photos on Facebook are just a fleeting moment and it’s not ACTUALLY like that all the time.

We know there’s no happily ever after.  We know there’s more to it.  We know there’s work and pain and mess involved.

Unfortunately, we weren’t ever really taught to look inside, which gives us more unconditional love than the romantic kind ever could.

And, its much easier, less painful, and less messy.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m a fan of romantic love too.  I’m married.  I love to get flowers.  I love a good love story.

Romantic love can eventually help us to grow into our best selves.

But only if we are willing to do the inner work too.

I bring this up now, because heading toward us in all its marketing glory is the most romantic of all days – Valentine’s Day. 

I was fascinated about the history of this day and how we got to where we are now.

We started with a priest named Valentine  who lived at the height of Roman/Christian bloodshed.

One legend says that he married young lovers in secret after Emperor Claudius outlawed marriage (because single men made better soldiers).

Valentine also attempted to help Christians escape harsh Roman prisons.  He was imprisoned himself and sent the first “valentine” to the jailor’s daughter, who possibly visited him in prison.

For one reason or the other, he was ordered to be killed by the Roman leadership.

Also happening at the time was a Roman festival that involved slapping women with strips of goat hide, dipped in blood, to increase their fertility.  It seems women of the time welcomed this special treatment.  Okay.

This practice was eventually outlawed by Pope Gelasius – which coincided closely with his declaration of February 14th to be St Valentines Day at the end of the 5th century.  Again, okay.

It’s really not up to me to decide whether that goat hide thing was a good idea or not.  My intuition says no, but I’m also not sure that we should swap openness around fertility directly for a romantic notion of love.

And, that’s still so confusing for so many of us, but that’s another post.

In any case, it’s turned into a holiday where expectations are high, and disappointments are quite possibly just around the corner. 

Unless you have that rare mind reader of a man that seem to proliferate Hollywood.

It’s the perfect combination for anyone trying to sell gifts– expectation from women that they will be acknowledged, and fear from men that they won’t do the right thing.

Greeting card companies, restauranteurs, florists, jewellers and chocolatiers win.

I’m not that sure anyone else does.  I don’t mean to be a fun hater, but…

Doesn’t the minefield of expectation we’ve created around this holiday kind of perpetuate an awful cycle?

Doesn’t it just leave men guessing about what women want yet again?

Doesn’t it set women up for disappointment when the men in their life don’t get it right?

Doesn’t it set everyone up for failure?

It seems like we’ve taken a romantic notion and grabbed onto the fairytale again.

It seems like we’ve used Valentine’s Day as another opportunity to hang onto the belief that someone else needs to SHOW us we are loveable, rather than just believing that for ourselves.

Neediness and low self esteem in a relationship lead to jealousy, martyrdom, and unhealthy reliance.

This just makes relationships more difficult.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t need that.  They are hard enough on a daily basis.

But if we can learn to love ourselves, we can create an ever more fulfilling relationship with someone else.

We can start to love unconditionally, and believe that we deserve the same in return.

It’s okay to know that we are loveable because someone loves us.  That’s of course the truth.  But it’s not the Full Monty.  Not even close.

The Full Monty is this:

We are all capable and deserving of being loved in the most glorious way possible.  We just have to really, truly believe it.

And if we do?

THEN we can we can start love our partner/husband unconditionally too.  We don’t NEED something from them.  And ideally, they don’t NEED anything from us.

Except for the best we can each give at any given moment, which in that case will be enough.

Is this easy?  No.

Is it a long road that we might never get to the end of?  Possibly, yes.  But every little bit helps.

Do I always get it right myself?  Certainly not.

But I am certain that this whole romantic Jerry Maguire notion of “You Complete Me” really has to go.

Instead, I propose,  “I am Already Complete and I Look Forward to the Journey With You.”

I don’t know if that’s romantic, but it’s very, very, beautiful if you can find even just a little bit of it.

Have a beautiful Valentine’s Day lovelies.