Happy Valentine’s Day.
Three little words …
For some, today is a day to celebrate a powerful connection with another who elevates and enhances your life. A partner, who sees you, gets you, and chooses to share life’s everyday moments with you. It’s that recognition of feeling love’s embrace all around you.
And, it’s a celebration you get to feel 365 days of the year. Not one we should only limit and isolate into one day.
If that’s you … then, I celebrate with you. I wish you and your partner great joy and many blessings, and of course deeper love, every day.
❤❤❤❤❤
For others, those who find themselves on their own, sometimes these three words can come with disappointment, discouragement, and desperation.
This blog post is especially for YOU!
You, the one who has been searching, seeking, trying to find your soul mate, your partner … and, real love.
You, who feels let down, beaten, exhausted, lost, and frustrated that all your searching, all your prayers, all your affirmations have felt like they’ve been for naught.
You, who has been “looking for love in all the wrong places”
We have been raised in a culture that teaches us, and even shames us, to seek out the “one.” To find our “soulmate” and that person that “completes us.” That somehow we are less without a partner.
Why?
Because we are afraid to be alone and to stand on our own? Because that is what everyone tells us we “should” have in order to feel worthy, to feel loved, to be fulfilled? Because we end up thinking something is wrong with us if we don’t?
Because, because, because …
Now, before you get all wound up … I am not dismissing the power of love, and the deep meaningful connection with another person that can lift us up to new heights. The kind of love that is a real partnership between two individuals who have chosen to commit to being there for each other, to challenge each other, to support each other … and, to love all of each other.
I’m talking about learning to love yourself first.
To be your own damn soul mate. To feed your own soul, and to learn how to create an intimate bond with, and for, yourself.
The kind of love that supersedes anything outside yourself. The kind of love that you’ve never truly ever experienced. As Whitney once sang, “to know the GREATEST love of all.”
As I thought about writing this blog post, I searched for definitions of soulmate. One of the definitions I found from a random Google search states: “A soulmate is a person with whom you have a deep and natural affinity, intimacy, and spirituality.”
The definition we all have been taught suggests the idea that a soulmate is the strongest bond one can achieve, it’s the ultimate goal to aspire for. This idea that one will be (or feel) “complete” once they have found their soulmate, or something outside themselves.
First, let me just say, for the record, that I think this is all utter nonsense that we have time-after-time bought into an idea that anything outside of ourselves is needed for us to be complete. That we need to seek, search, and find the arbitrary “one” to be happy.
And, yet … there is a billion dollar industry that feeds off this belief, this cultural conditioning and programming that we’ve all bought into (myself, included, at various times in my life).
So, let’s think about that for a moment …
Soul Mate: A person with whom you have a deep and natural affinity, intimacy and spirituality; the strongest bond one can achieve; and the feeling of being complete.
Now, really think about it for just a moment … doesn’t that apply to you, your relationship with yourself, and your relationship to God, Source, Creator, Buddha, the Tao, or the Universe (whatever you choose to call your higher connection)?
Isn’t that the ultimate desire?
The highest level of relationship we can possibly have is with ourselves AND with God is the biggest opportunity of our lives.
It’s only when you’re connected into the deeper aspects of YOU, the spiritual thread of your higher consciousness, that you can be fully open to receive the love of others and the connection you believe you desire most.
As the song says, you keep “looking for love in all the wrong places.” Love is not outside of yourself. Love is within you. Love is YOU.
When you embody the love that is YOU, and surrender to that which is greater than yourself, you become an open, unencumbered channel for love to flow. A free path to give and receive love at the highest level.
Isn’t this the greatest gift of all? That we are already the love we seek!
So, how do we connect more intimately with ourselves?
1. Nurture Your Mind, Body & Spirit
First, take time for stillness.
Know that stillness looks different for different people. Perhaps, for you, it’s meditating, journaling or gentle flow yoga. Maybe, instead, it looks like a walk in nature, sitting by the fire, or listening to a soul-filling piece of music. Possibly, it is a time for prayer.
The idea is that we need space and grace to hear the whispers within our own heart, to feel the resonance and knowing within our own soul. To hear God or Source speak to us, through us.
❤❤❤❤❤
Second, nourish your body.
Feed and fuel your body with foods that support your body, that bring nutrients into your cells. Hydrate and allow yourself a means to flush out toxins (including negative beliefs and old conditioning).
Move your body. Activate movement into your day daily. And, give your body the rest and sleep it needs.
❤❤❤❤❤
Third, find ways to activate greater joy into your life.
We spend too much of our time adulting … worrying, stressed, hurried and busy. We need to create space for play and creativity. We need to allow connection to our innermost child, to give her freedom to simply “be.”
To give ourselves permission to not always be “doing,” but rather, to allow room to “be” in the oneness of who we are.
To simply wait to respond to what presents.
2. Know What It Means to Be Your Own Soul Mate
As you begin the journey to deepening your relationship with yourself, and create a real intimacy with YOU, here are some things to remember as you explore this path:
- You are divinely loved and you are divine love
- You are enough and worthy of love
- You are your own best friend and soft place to land
- You are perfect, whole and complete in all your beautiful imperfections
- You are a glorious and powerful child of God
- You are your own validation; you never need to look outside yourself
- You are strong, resilient, creative and playful
- You have value and gifts the world wants and needs
- You are abundant and overflowing with prosperity and wealth
- You are a lighthouse and someone needs your light
And, your dreams and desires are oxygen and breath for the world. They help active higher consciousness and a higher vibration. So, dream big, my dear, sweet friend. Practice gratitude for all who are, all you have available for you, and all that is being brought to you.
You are deserving of love. You are LOVE. You are God’s soulmate. You are the Universe’s Valentine.
As Thomas Moore once said:
“A soulmate is someone to whom we feel profoundly connected, as though the communicating and communing that take place between us were not the product of intentional efforts, but rather a divine grace.”
So, my beloved warrior, I want YOU to breathe.
I want you to just be still for a moment, and listen. Listen to the sound of your own heart beating, listen to that whisper that tells knows you are divine Grace, that you are worthy, that you are enough.
That whisper in your heart that know that you a pure LOVE.
Happy Valentine’s Day! Today, is a celebration of your own self-love. Take time today to feed and nurture your body, mind and spirit. And, honor the most glorious soulmate you could ever find, YOU! ❤