Send Love to Everyone This Valentine’s Day — Including Yourself
By Joree Rose, LMFT
Valentine’s Day has a way of making people feel things they didn’t expect.
For some it’s warmth and connection — a reason to express love that might not get expressed often enough. For others it’s loneliness, or pressure, or a sharp reminder of what’s missing. For many people it’s some complicated combination of all of the above.
Whatever the day brings up for you, I want to offer a reframe: what if Valentine’s Day was less about the romantic ideal and more about love as a practice — something we extend outward in all directions, and something we also turn, genuinely and deliberately, toward ourselves?
Love as a Practice, Not a Feeling
We tend to think of love primarily as something we feel — an emotion that arises spontaneously toward certain people. And it is that. But love is also something we do. A practice. A series of choices about where we put our attention and how we treat the people in our lives and ourselves.
The Gottman research shows that the couples who maintain strong connection over time aren’t necessarily the ones who feel the most intense romantic love — they’re the ones who consistently make small deposits into the relationship. Who notice bids for connection and respond to them. Who express appreciation regularly and specifically. Who choose to turn toward each other rather than away.
Love as a practice means you don’t wait to feel it perfectly before you act on it. You act on it — and the feeling tends to follow.
Extending Love Outward
Valentine’s Day is traditionally about romantic partnership — but love doesn’t only live there.
Think about who in your life could use a genuine expression of care today. Not a grand gesture — something real and specific. A message to a friend who’s been going through something hard. A call to a family member you’ve been meaning to reach. An honest thank-you to someone whose support you’ve been taking for granted.
These aren’t substitutes for romantic love. They’re expressions of the same impulse — the desire to make someone feel seen, appreciated, and not alone. And they matter more than most of us acknowledge.
Turning Love Toward Yourself
This is the part that often gets left out of Valentine’s Day — and it may be the most important part.
Loving-kindness — metta in Buddhist tradition — is a practice of deliberately extending compassion and warmth toward yourself and others. Research on loving-kindness meditation shows it increases positive emotions, reduces self-criticism, improves relationships, and builds resilience.
You don’t need to meditate to practice this. You can simply ask yourself today: What would it mean to treat myself with genuine care right now? Not indulgence — care. What do you need that you haven’t been giving yourself? What would you tell a good friend in your exact situation? Can you offer that to yourself?
Self-compassion and self-love aren’t selfish. They’re the foundation from which you’re able to love anyone else well.
A Simple Practice for Today
Take a few minutes today — just a few — and bring to mind three people you love. For each one, silently offer them something like: May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you feel loved today.
Then turn that same intention toward yourself: May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I feel loved today.
It sounds simple. It is simple. And simple practices, done consistently, change something.
Happy Valentine’s Day — in whatever form that takes for you today.
For more on building loving, connected relationships — with others and with yourself — explore the Journey Forward podcast or learn about couples therapy and individual therapy.
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