Valentine's Day for All

The focus of love for this day is an important one. Self-care and sharing gifts with your partner are wonderful gestures. However, too many people are suffering for us to only think of ourselves. Valentine's Day is not just for lovers. As our focus goes outwards to others, I am reminded of the original meaning of Valentine's Day.

The holiday began with Saint Valentine. According to legend, during the third century, Saint Valentine performed weddings for Christian soldiers who were not allowed to marry. Also, he restored the sight to the daughter of the man who put him in jail. Pretty good saint behavior, I guess.

But even though we are not saints, we have other gifts we can share too. How can you help someone else feel more loved through your kindness and generosity today?

Give to a food bank today. Make a co-worker a meal if you know they are struggling. Donate to wildfire recovery through the Salvation Army or American Red Cross. Donate to the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation. Ujamma Place in Minnesota empowers young black men to overcome systemic barriers and gain success through holistic services. There are so many people and places that could use a little assistance. What underserved communities can you share your kindess, love and generosity with at this moment? Even just your time is a beautiful thing to share right now. Someone you know is struggling, I bet.

The bottom line is you have a quality that is beneficial to someone in the world today. What is it? Be a Saint Valentine. Connect, reach out, and heal someone with your presence. That is real love.

Self-care for Suffering

Illustration: Courtney Coloring

My parents became ill. Simultaneously, I underwent two surgeries. All of this happened before the end of the year. Merry Christmas? While the surgeries were successful, it was a tough holiday season.

There are a plethora of things to take care of when loved ones decline (within weeks of each other), especially when they’re your parents. I wanted to do everything right for the ones who have always done right by me, so this added extra stress. I can’t mess this up! Every move I made was an important one because it’s for their health and well-being. And furthermore, I’m the only one making these important decisions, as their only child.

(Can we have a course in high school called Aging Parents where students get prep for this life changing event?) Anyway…

It’s been an exhausting journey.

The thing is many of my friends are going through similar grief with their aging or ill loved ones.  The decline. The suffering. It’s a part of life that most of us will experience.

If this is your journey, you may have feelings of overwhelm, feeling lost, angry, apathetic, with brain fog and low energy. You may find that at any moment you’re just a breath away from yet another miscommunication because you’re constantly “on edge”. It’s okay. Apologize when needed. Your friends and family will understand.

It’s just suffering. You won’t feel like yourself. You’re not supposed to. Embrace it. Radically accept it. As a society, we don’t talk about suffering often, but we are now. We have friends that lost their homes during the recent and ongoing L.A. fires. The fact of the matter is suffering is normal. That’s your first self-care tip.

You may want to cocoon. Second tip. There’s so much going on in your mind when going through emotional pain, that it might be more effective to go inward to process the situation before sharing with a trusted friend or even therapist. There is clarity within silence. You might not reach out to friends as much during this time of cocooning. All good. No one can expect you to skip through the fields like a unicorn in a children’s book. There will be time enough for that down the road. Right now, face your feelings. Even if you think: I feel awful and I don’t know what to do about it. That is strength because you’re aware and present to it. Your body will likely respond to this awareness with tears which is good and cleansing for the soul.

When we decide to embrace our emotions and deal with our feelings around them, we allow ourselves to experience the journey of how to deal with pain and suffering. This makes us more resilient to life’s unforeseen tumbles. We become more empathetic and compassionate to others and ourselves. And yes, we get stronger, too.

Life moves on, so we want to move on with it. Because after all, the ultimate goal is to transform the pain and cocooning into a fully emerged and brilliant ‘butterfly’ ready to fly… and that is you.

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Transformation - When it's Time to Leave Your Partner

April 2006. Just another ordinary month in an ordinary year… or so I thought.

But, let’s back up a bit.

I met him at our university in 1991 at a Halloween party. He was wearing lipstick, had long brown hair, and charming as all get out. His costume, a woman. Mine, a hippie. We talked and laughed all night. I gave him my number and our relationship was on.

Everything about Theo seemed to be a perfect match for me, right down to our birth. We were born on the same day of the same year. Just 3 1/2 hours apart. My youth told me: This was a sign that we were meant to be.

Also, he was an artist and made pencil sketches of me. He said that he got lost in my eyes and would draw pictures of them over and over again. We spent tons of time together on dates, hung out in his dorm room, and took the occasional road trip on the weekends. Theo was the guy with an entourage, he had lots of friends. And was clearly the leader of the pack. I suddenly had a whole new set of buddies. As an only child, this was another sign that we were meant to be, right? Theo was my first love.

However, after just one semester of first love bliss, he transferred to a school with warmer weather because his sports scholarship no longer applied based on an injury. So he left. But, our relationship continued long distance.

It evolved into a strange and uncomfortable experience for me as the years wore on.

After graduation, I moved to California, expecting that our relationship would easily return to normalcy since he was in California, too. It did not. I’d call Theo to hang out. Occasionally, he’d answered the phone, but most times, he wouldn’t. But when he’d call me, I was right there to respond. We were clearly drifting and the relationship was clearly on his terms. I started dating other people and knew he was doing the same. But, I just wanted to be with him. We became the couple that was mostly off, and occasionally - on.

Then, in early 2006, we decided it was time to be in a committed relationship once again. He promised that he wanted to be monogamous too. I was more than ready to be his # 1.

In April 2006, Theo had a business trip where he’d be gone for just 5 days and when he returned, our monogamous relationship would be resuscitated. I was thrilled. But when he returned from that business trip he informed me that he met someone new and would need to see both of us at the same time. I was done. It landed on my soul what was happening. Theo had no intention of really being monogamous… ever. His father wasn’t monogamous. And his father’s baby mamas were cool with it, so Theo thought I would be too. Because after all, that was his modeling.

After 15 years, he should have known me. That said, after 15 years I should have known him! So when he asked me to be his other # 1, I said: No. I am the only one. And with that, I left him. As the universe would have it, 4 months later I met my fabulous husband who is indeed the love of my life.

When the heart is well and clear, your beloved will arrive.

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