February can be a difficult month for those who are hopeless romantics. It’s full of cheesy advertisements about love, aisles full of red and pink, romantic comedies on television, and overpriced roses. The truth is that Valentine’s Day usually doesn’t turn out how you expected (or how those movies say it should).
Regardless of your relationship status, try to forget about the over-the-top Valentine’s Day celebration. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go out to dinner with your spouse or indulge in some chocolate. It means that that you shouldn’t feel the need to spend the day extravagantly just because that’s what it seems like everyone else is doing.
Instead of focusing on the extravagance, try to spend the month of February focusing on yourself. Take some time to think about the things that are important to you and what makes you feel good; if there are activities, commitments, or people who don’t have a positive effect on you, it might be time to rid them from your life.
Here are a few out-of-the-box ways to show yourself some love this month:
Invest in you. Todd Patkin from Hitched Mag believes that investing time in your relationship with yourself is important. Just as you schedule time with your friends, your co-workers, and your significant other, you should also be scheduling time for yourself.
Grab a cup of your favorite coffee and enjoy it at that cute coffee house. Visit the museum exhibit you’ve been wanting to see. Do something creative, or even spend an hour in bed reading a new book. Spending some time alone, doing things that you enjoy, is a great way to recharge your batteries.
Get engaged. Not in the traditional sense of the word—be engaged with those around you. Huffington Post’s Corinne Rogero describes it perfectly; instead of learning about someone through their social media profiles, get to know them in living color. Engage in their lives, and surround yourself with the people you establish meaningful connections with.
We can’t be fully engaged in the lives of others by staring at them through Facebook or Instagram. Engagement happens when we turn off our phones, our laptops, and our televisions to sit beside the people we love and want to know more.
Set Boundaries. For some reason, many people struggle with saying no. When we don’t say no and continue to say yes to things we aren’t passionate about or don’t have time for, we lose time for the things in life we do love.
Life coach Bettina Pickering agrees, saying that “self-care is about setting boundaries for ourselves and others; saying no to things that don’t give us a good feeling about ourselves.”
This Valentine’s Day, make a commitment to improve your relationship with yourself—you’ll be glad you did.
If you’d like to set up a time to meet up with Reka, you can contact her by phone at 402-881-8125, by email at reka@omaha-counseling.com, or via Twitter or Facebook.
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photo credit: Muddy’s Bake Shop: Valentine’s Day cupcake selection via photopin (license)
