February the month of LOVE

How was your Valentine’s Day?

I hope it was filled with love but I know many experience pressure of expectations and feelings of loneliness.

The month of love….ugh 😩

I feel like there's all these expectations around love and celebrating Valentine’s Day and to be honest I’ve pushed against it for years. 

When I was single I hated the day because I felt alone and left out.

💐 When I was dating it was a challenge to not compare and feel overwhelmed by the pressure of expectation that comes with Valentine's Day.

As a married couple without kids it was always low key, which I appreciated at times and I remember at other times feeling let down that it wasn’t what the hype of movies and commercials made it out to be.

👩🏻‍🍼 Then we had our first two children.  Our girls are a year and 5 days apart in age.  The first was born a few days before Valentine’s Day and the second a few days after. So as parents of two little ones, Valentine’s Day became a quick little side note, with a card exchange maybe.  Mid-February became a time of celebrating love in our house, but a love for our daughters and their amazing lives.

It's not that I'm against celebrating romantic love. I just don’t like how the commercialization of Valentine’s Day has created unrealistic expectations and deep loneliness around the holiday because it typically only focuses on romantic love.

The English language uses the word love in so many different contexts which in my opinion can dilute what we really want to express when we use the word.

When I was in college I learned that the Greek language has different words to describe the many types of love we experience.  

Have you ever heard of them? 

Isn’t that amazing!  I like that the meaning of the word doesn't get lost or misplaced by one interpretation of what it means.  

There are so many ways to describe and express love beyond what Valentine’s Day shows us. Love can be meaningful, caring, freeing and can flow from us into the world in such beautiful ways. Love is a basic human need, we all long for it. When we love well - respecting and valuing all human beings, it can change and heal the world.

I encourage you to look back over these words and reflect, where do you see these different types of love in your life? Are there types of love you show more often than others? Which types of love are the easiest for you to express towards others or yourself?  Which are the most awkward?  Take time to use these words as a starting point to explore how you can love yourself and others around you more fully.

With you and for you!