I’m sitting here with my feet in a pot of warm water and lavender oil, laptop perched on my knees, watching my cats chase each other up and down the hallway between our kitchen and living room. While I’m growing weary of freezing cold temperatures and pandemic restrictions, I’ve also become fond of the comforts and rituals of being at home.

A foot soak is my Valentine’s Day gift to myself this morning. It’s aligned with a message I posted earlier to social media. It read: 

Make Valentines Day less about who loves you and more about how well you love yourself.

Valentine’s Day serves as a reminder to love me first. It all started back when I was single and feeling lonely. Rather than wallow in self-pity, something I was prone to do at the time, my single girlfriends and I decided to buy ourselves gifts and have them wrapped so we could open them together at dinner. My gift to myself was a small Celtic cross with an amethyst crystal in the center and it would come to symbolize the deep love and affection I intended to foster within myself.

I still have the cross and I still maintain the practice of giving myself a gift.

While many of us have grown weary of pandemic life and the limitations that make it hard to celebrate in traditional ways, I can’t think of a better ritual to put in place than giving yourself a Valentine’s Day gift. Whether you build a fire, make soup, take a warm bath, curl up on the couch and watch a favorite TV show (I’m loving Last Tango in Halifax on Netflix!), or sit quietly staring at the stars, today’s the day to do something special for yourself.

As a matter of fact, why not make it Valentine’s Day every day…

Love,
Cheryl