In Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert says…

When I get lonely these days, I think: So be lonely.  Learn your way around loneliness.  Make a map of it.  Sit with it… Welcome to the human experience… Never again use another person’s body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.

If you are single, sad and feeling lonely on Valentine’s Day then I am going to say this is the best opportunity to use that to your advantage.  Because:

1. It is highly likely you are caught in a ‘comparison’ trap.  You are comparing yourself to people in relationships and many of them might not be any happier than you.  A relationship does not always equal happiness.  Relationships do not guarantee feeling loved.
2. Your feelings are your greatest teachers.  So sit with these feelings and try to gain a deeper understanding of them.  Only you can ‘complete’ yourself.  No one else ‘completes’ you.  Work on making you the greatest you can be.  And that might be free online courses or inspiring books or seeing a counsellor/psychologist  – whatever works for you.  But make you and your emotional health your top priority.
3. Do you want a relationship where the other person has huge issues and excess baggage that makes things more difficult than they need to be?  No you don’t.  Well neither does that person.  So work through your excess baggage to be your best possible self and attract the best possible partner.
4. Who really wants a relationship where companies tell you how to show your love?  Don’t you want something so special that your partner wants to show you how special you are often?  Is feeling loved about chocolates and red roses on one day of the year?  I want regular things that matter to me – healthy treats and my favourite flowers and a love note in my lunchbox.  Not a cliche.  Getting what everyone else gets does not make me feel special.

Alice Nicholls, ran a program called The Life Transformation Project.  I learnt SO much from it and would give it 10/10 for value, support, love and teachings.  But one of the biggest things I learnt from her was a little exercise called fact versus illusion.  It’s one of the BEST ways I have found to work on my mindset.

Fact:  I’m single.

Illusion:  I’m not worthy.  I’m not good enough.  I’m not as good as people in relationships.  I’m not loveable.  I’m not sexy.  I’m not smart enough.  I’m not attractive enough.  I’m not funny enough.  I’m not hot enough.  I am not enough.

Where on earth are the facts to back this up?  You are single.  It’s not a crime.  But it doesn’t mean ANY of those other things.  We’ve compared ourselves to other people and how we think the world ‘should’ be and come up with beliefs that don’t make us feel good, don’t make us become our best, and keep us in a negative headspace.

So use Valentine’s Day to your advantage.  Set yourself up for the greatest love.  What if you became your greatest version of you?  What doors would that open to more happiness?

And a quick aside for people in a relationship:

1. If it’s new, don’t expect someone knows how you feel about Valentine’s Day. If you don’t get what you want, don’t assume they don’t love you enough. People are not mind readers.  Please tell them.  Tell them what it means to you.
2. Same advice about if you are feeling really lonely while being in a relationship and that it’s not what you want.  Based on what?  Movies?  Ads for Valentine’s Day?  Stop any comparisons.  Use it to make you stronger as a couple.  Think about reading the book ‘The 5 Love Languages’ by Gary D Chapman. It’s really practical and clever – and all about how different things are important to different people in relationships.

So happy Valentine’s Day beautiful.

Be kind to yourself.

Wx