DouceLifeAt50.com

Blaise Pascal said, “The heart has its reasons, which reason does not know. We feel it in a thousand things” (Pensées).

Valentine’s Day has come and gone, this year that holiday has brought my attention to the fact that my love/hate relationship with it has passed its expiration date.  I now feel a sense of calm and benevolence towards all the people who partake in the commercialisation and craziness that it has become. This year I sang out “Happy Valentine’s Day” without feeling like a hypocrite.  I used to judge the cheap theme cards with the candy attached to them that would end up in our trash as my kids got oversaturated with them, “The Valentines’ Circle of Life”.. I cringed at the frosted cookies, “I still do as I really dislike sugar frosting”.  For years I just went through the motions but I could not get into the spirit of it. I have made peace with an holiday that until now I compared to going to confession, you profess your love one day and voila you go on and forget to show it to the humanity around you the rest of the year.   I just could not participate in what I felt to me like a fake uphoria. I even wondered if like the Grinch my heart was two sizes too small. Cupid did not provide me with the feeling of love, which to me means belonging, I was yearning from.

I thought for many years that there was something wrong with me, with the way I related to people, I even wondered at some point if I had “attachment disorder”.   Nobody made me feel like an invasive weed in a vegetable garden, I was treated kindly. I understand that it is about sharing, caring, laughter, a good glass of wine or two and high quality chocolate.   This year however, I was free from any Valentine duty, nada, nill, zero, zilch. No kids, no romantic partner, nobody, except for the dog and the cat. Yet my heart rejoiced for other people’s special Valentine’s Day.    My heart did not feel too small anymore, it felt happy and elated. Did Saint Valentine answer my prayers? No, because I associated Cupid with Valentine’s Day, not a real Saint.

“Saint Valentine of Rome was a priest and bishop in the Roman Empire who ministered to Christians who were persecuted there.[4] He was martyred and buried at a Christian cemetery on the Via Flaminia close to the Ponte Milvio to the north of Rome, on February 14, which has been observed as the Feast of Saint Valentine (Saint Valentine’s Day) since 496 AD. “

I was too busy living my mid-life crisis and worrying about red dye to think of what was the root cause of my mid0-life crisis instead of asking the ether for help.  So what caused my heart to heal? I am not talking about the muscular organ that pumps blood through my arteries and veins. The course I took on line about “The Science of Happiness” made me discover articles on the relation between the brain (thought), the heart (listen with your heart) and the stomach (gut feeling), it is not just our brain that dictates how we react or think but our heart and stomach let us see and feel with our instinct.   “A gut feeling” is actually a real intuitive reaction. Our capacity of thinking with the heart means that decisions will be based on feelings rather than rational thoughts. Each lesson was accompanied by articles that detailed psychological and biological research and studies. One of them covered self-esteem. I had an epiphany while reading one of them that opened my eyes and my heart. Without loving myself unconditionally my self esteem would remain low.  I would have to learn to love myself in order to find true joy and the sense of belonging I was missing. It was time to change the habit of negative self talk and see myself through new loving eyes. I could have slapped myself if I had not been so relieved to finally realize that there was nothing wrong with me as far as “attachment disorder”, that I was capable of feeling the same love and connection as anybody else. The homework I assigned myself was to work on letting go of the old stories about myself and accept who I am.  I know that my heart and my brain are malleable. As I practice loving and accepting myself, I feel freer and freer, the self negative talk has lessened a lot. I care about how I feel about myself instead of what other people think of me. Now I can feel that love is all around, I am finally able to tune in to the right station to receive it.

Cheers!

Relief!