The Many Faces Of Love: Valentine’s Day Isn’t Just For Romantic Love

“Only from the heart can you touch the sky.”
― Rumi

Many think that Valentine’s Day is solely about romantic love. Not so! Others may think that Valentine’s Day is the special day to celebrate love. Actually, every day is an opportunity to practice, and be, love. When it comes down to it, love comes in many forms, all of which are to be celebrated regularly. Because, being in love, with yourself, and others, is allowing yourself full liberation into your being.

In no particular order of importance (except for the first one), the following are ways we experience and share love:

• Love for our self – this is the most important love relationship we can ever have. It is from complete self-love that we are able to be fully grounded and complete when entering relationships with others. Self-love is not only for affirmation lovers, self-help gurus, and/or yoga studios. Self-love is a necessity to live in this world with vitality. When we are grounded in our self-love, everything else falls into place. The wonderful Audre Lorde put it succinctly, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”
• Love for Spirit/Universe/God – whatever your connection is to that power which is greater than yourself, this is a powerful connection to nurture. Because although we may not experience verbal back and forth banter as we would with a best gal pal (although there are those of us who do have “conversations” with Spirit that some would consider pretty active!), this is a two-way love relationship. Even though we may waver during our good and bad days, the connection is never one that fades. And, if it is the perception that we are disconnected, we only need to open our heart for us to be instantly reconnected, once more.
• Love for family – this is love for both birth and chosen family. Some of us are lucky to be blessed with birth families that we feel truly supported, and nourished, by. And, some of us may find that our chosen family (non-blood members who we may consider family, including our furrkids!) in life is a greater source of love than the family they were born into. Many of us may have a combination of the two. Whichever way works for you, love for family plays a big part in how we view, and receive, love.
• Love for friends – BFF’s, platonic friendships, soul connections that are intimate but not romantic, there are many classifications for the love we have for our friends. I overheard one of my friends say yesterday, “Some of my friendships are deeper than my romantic relationships!” And, this rings true for some, as some of our soul mates are not necessarily romantic ones! Our friends offer an ear when we need to be heard, space to be in our feelings when our voice needs to speak truth, validation and reflection of our selves. These are only some of the love aspects that are alive in friendships, which is why we treasure them so.
• Love for our partner(s) – we choose our partners because they ring at the same vibration as we do when we first meet them. We also choose them because we often are working out our karma with them from lives past. And, we also chose them, before we were even born, because we wanted to learn certain lessons in life. And, these relationships are what we selected to help us learn these life lessons. They stretch our limits, force us to grow, and challenge our definitions of love. In the end, our partnership(s) are symbolic of growth and expansion, within the framework of love.

Love, in its many forms, keeps us grounded when we feel our drama may take us over. Love keeps us aligned to our higher purpose, and it allows us to see what’s really happening (versus the fear illusion we often create for ourselves). Love and fear are opposite sides of the coin. When we nourish love, the mindless chatter of fear becomes more distant and far away.

Here are some easy ways to incorporate love into your life this week, hitched or not:

• Buy yourself roses, since they vibrate with the heart chakra, and are highly vibrational to be around. It’s no coincidence that being around roses make us feel more calm!
• Make yourself tea with rose buds (in Chinese Medicine, this herb is called mei gui hua), since this helps promote the movement of Qi, soothes the Liver, harmonizes the blood, and also helps when you’re feeling premenstrual breast tenderness and menstrual pain.
• Pay attention to the words you use to describe yourself. Whether or not you’re aware of it, our bodies pick up, and store, whatever we say about ourselves. Our bodies will respond differently to something like, “I love myself, including my imperfections” than, “I can’t do anything right”. Choose loving words to address yourself with. Had a bad run and feeling like you’ve gone a bit too hog wild on putting yourself down? Forgive yourself for doing so, and then start practicing kindness with yourself. It never serves you to beat yourself up over what’s happened in the past. The Universe encourages us to expand, so allow yourself to do exactly that!

“When we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

How does love make you become better than you already are?

Happy Heart Day,

 

 

 

 

 

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