Hi Reader,
Did you celebrate Valentine's Day?
I remember my mom dropping off little valentine stuffed animals or candy or as we got older it was flowers to the front desk of the school. They would call us down there to pick up our item of LOVE, it was the highlight of the day. It was actually pretty sweet of her and I am thankful she loved us enough to do that for us.
I have good memories overall about Valentine's Day but as an adult I no longer celebrate it.
WHY?
Well there are 2 reasons and if you know me well enough, the first won't surprise you.
Reason #1- I personally consider it a "Hallmark Holiday". A reason to make us spend money to show your love. I feel it has gotten out of hand and personally know people who are truly upset if their "person" doesn't do this elaborate thing for them. My thought is that showing love should be done all year long, we don't need a day for it.
Kind of some neat facts, did you know....
Because roses don't grow in February in the United States, we get them from Ecuador, Kenya and Columbia. 250 million roses are grown for the US for this holiday.
Americans spent nearly $26 billion on Valentine's Day gifts in 2023. People are also expected to spend an average of approximately $193 for Valentine's Day.
According to Hallmark, a whopping 145 million Valentine's Day cards are exchanged every February 14 (and that's not even including all those kids' Valentines exchanged in classrooms!)
Here is a link to some more fun facts, I actually enjoyed reading them.
Reason #2: What about celebrating Self Love, I am a HUGE believer in this. If we don't love ourselves we absolutely CANNOT love someone else nor can we allow another to love us in an appropriate way.
This may be tough to hear for some because we think that pouring our entirety into someone else, we will be happier and they will love us back. We may be happier for the time being but what happens if they don't love us back like we want or think they should. Then our whole value of ourselves is gone as well.
And what happens in those times when we don't have a partner in our lives that shows us love- do we feel unloved all because of Valentine's Day or because we don't have a partner? Or do we still love ourselves because we know who we are, we are worthy of taking care of ourselves and loving ourselves for who we are.
We do not celebrate Valentine's Day because we work really hard all year long to take care and love ourselves. That love and care for ourselves allows us to have the energy, happy feelings, and confidence to show love to each other all year long. We don’t need this one day to remind us to love each other.
Don't get me wrong, there are times we fight and get annoyed with each other but at the end of the day(or week-haha) we know we truly do love each other because we love ourselves and can allow each other to be who they are and not base our love on what we get from each other.
Loving yourself includes:
*Loving yourself enough to exercise because the dopamine effects are acute but the confidence, strength and self care are chronic.
*Loving yourself enough to eat foods that fuel your body instead of your emotions. Food does make us feel good but it shouldn't be used as a medication, it should be used to fuel us so we can feel good, have energy, and do our best to ward off diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.
*Loving yourself to give yourself some time in the day to decompress when you are stressed, get a good night's sleep so you can be ready with your best foot forward for the next day, rest when you are tired, say no when you are overbooked and overwhelmed. It can also mean taking advantage of talking with someone else like a therapist when you have something that is bothering you, especially when it is affecting your life, your stress levels and how you interact in your relationships(work, family, friends and yourself)
Take the rest of the month and think about what you may or may not be doing to love yourself. You AND your relationships will become better from it.
There's my soapbox about Valentine's day.
My apologies, this week's email was already long so I technically do not have a 1% better on physical, nutritional and well-being health, but this is all encompassing and enough to process for the week.
You can always focus on walking (at least 7,000 steps per day), water (at least 80-90 oz per day) and writing (getting those thoughts out of your head so you can rest well)
Thank you for reading my soapbox, have a fantabulous week
Remember, if you are enjoying this information odds are someone else will too. Please forward this email to them so they can enjoy it as well.
Get That Goal!
Until next time friend,
Thank you for telling your friends and family about
Goal Oriented Health & Fitness so we can help them too!
Did someone forward you this email?
Click here to join the Newsletter community
