Although it’s been long debunked that Valentine’s Day is not, in fact, a candy-company holiday but a bona-fide romance-fest. There are many legends regarding why, perhaps the most common story featuring a priest named Valentine who would marry young couples in secret to save the men from going to war.
So by the 1700s, commercial cards were being sold for Valentine’s Day and everyone was encouraged to find a date, so that you’re not caught celebrating alone.
Quelle catastrophe.
But in 2020, you don’t have to find a partner. You don’t have to cohabitate. Your willing participating in marriage isn’t required to save someone else from war.
And even if you do eventually want all of those things, and just don’t happen to have them on this day in particular of the available 365, Valentine’s Day can be an empowering time to celebrate the best love story any of us gets a chance to have: your life-long love affair with yourself.
Sometimes it’s not easy to love yourself. Sometimes the thought of wallowing with lactose-free ice cream and a dollar-store sheet mask is worse than the thought of just ignoring Valentine’s Day.
So today, let’s explore some seriously luxuriant and absolutely rejuvenating ways to give yourself the best date you’ve never dared to expect from anyone else.
Build Yourself a Supplement Basket
While it doesn’t sound romantic, what could be more loving than investing in a future healthy you?
If you know you’re planning to spend Valentine’s Day alone (or if you want to reschedule it for another date that’s more convenient for a full you-day plan), get yourself the ingredients to start pampering the inside you.
Get collagen supplements, like the Sugarbear gummies, for hair and nail health.
Drink a rising energy smoothie drink right when you wake up. Get your daily multivitamin, your probiotic or gut helper, even your CBD supplements if you want to release muscle tension and get ready to really relax.
You could even take an absolutely sumptuous herbal tea bath! The skin is the largest organ in the body, so absorbing the nutrients in herbal teas through bath water is an even more effective way to benefit from the plant constituents in tea.
Try using rose tea, calendula flowers, lavender flowers, chamomile flowers, peppermint leafs, ginger root, rosemary leaf, violet leaf, red clover blossoms, or do your own research and find an herbal tea to soothe what ails you.
All you need is the loose leaf tea and a muslin drawstring bag!
Give Yourself the Gift of Light, Breezy Yoga
There are dozens of reasons people do yoga – to relax, to exercise, to practice mindfulness, to energize them.
You can also practice yoga to remind yourself to love your body and the things you can do with it. A cursory search will yield tons of results…
But if you’re already familiar with yoga, it might be a fun and personal practice to choose the ten yoga poses that make you feel the best – the strongest, most flexible, most relaxed, most centered – and write yourself a routine.
Schedule it for yourself in the morning, right after your smoothie, or in the late afternoon – maybe after you’ve woken up from a loving nap!
Don’t Treat Yourself with Junk Food
Valentine’s Day may call to mind fatty steaks and rich chocolates, but the truth is heavy food and overeating leaves most of us feeling slow and sleepy.
Try pampering yourself with bone broth soup, or a fantastically colorful salad, a roasted pan of cruciferous vegetables, a delectable dark chocolate mousse, a cheesy frittata, yummy mint hummus, candied walnuts, dill salmon and quinoa pilaf…
The possibilities are endless, although it may seem like you’re relegated to choosing between a loaded baked potato and a caesar salad.
Get creative. Get loving. The act of cooking for yourself is itself a declaration of your own value – treat your body kindly.
Grab a Book You’ve Never Touched from Your Bookshelf
Busy people know this game – you buy a book by an author you’ve loved at a farmer’s market and add it to the book shelf. Your mom/pal/coworker lends you a copy of a new novel for book club, but you forgot to go and you’ve never opened that book.
Break the cycle!
Bring down one of those books and wrap yourself in something absolutely yummy – satin pajamas, an old t-shirt and flannel bottoms, or hey – nothing at all!
Swivel down into the most comfortable spot in your home (bring yourself some of that leftover herbal tea and a square of dark chocolate) and let yourself get lost for a little while.
This list is certainly not exhaustive.
Singing by yourself? Totally restorative.
Stretching out on the floor and staring through a skylit? Magical.
Practicing rebalancing your qi energy through strategic breathing exercises? Priceless.
There are endless ways you can show yourself love, and that’s especially important to remember on Valentine’s Day.
Honor the most important relationship in your life…
The one you have with yourself.