How to become Your Own Valentine…Any Time of Year! | RU13

Hello, and welcome to rediscovering you where you will find valuable insights, support and education to help you move through the difficult and often painful process of divorce with grace and courage and hope and find the ultimate gift of rediscovering yourself. I'm your host, Mark Greenberg, award winning author and founder of rediscovering you. If I'd had access to a resource like this during my divorce, I would have not felt so isolated, I would have made much better decisions, I still would have breathed for that for so hard for so long. And I wouldn't have eaten so many boxes of macaroni and cheese. When women heal. Families heal. When families heal communities heal. When communities heal, the possibilities are endless. Let's get started.

How to Be your own Valentine any time of year doesn't that sound good. Whether you're divorced or divorcing, or the end of a long term relationship, or you find yourself alone for whatever reason, Valentine's Day can seem dedicated to celebrate everything you've lost, or never had, right. But it's not just Valentine's Day, you can feel this loss at any time and it can become so intense. I had women say that it feels almost like it's hard to breed. And you would love to have a hand to hold a shoulder to cry on and someone who loves you, when you haven't showered and your hair is sticking straight up. And when your breath is bad and you have spinach in your teeth. And when you make the wrong decisions, or you can't make a decision when you lose your job or lose the race or lose your car keys or lose your mind. Right. But you've lost this connection to another and you've lost the dreams of the future you thought you were expecting. So you may cry or shout. This is not how things were supposed to be. I followed all the rules. I was nice. I recycled. I kept my teeth and my laundry white. I want my valentine. But you really for many of you the price you paid to be in your past relationship was just too dear. It's like the lyrics of a romantic song. You know you lost your heart, but not in a good way. So to get along with your partner, you may have given up pieces of yourself without even realizing it. Parts of your heart may have been ignored, while another's voice drowned out your intuition. Or simply you just might have felt so very alone with no connection. Or you thought you had all these things and your divorce just totally blindsided you. You may imagine another Valentine will come along with reservations for intimate candlelight dinner, bringing you red roses and chocolates and maybe even some lovely jewelry. But if you're like me, you may be thrilled if someone simply appears at your door with a pint of hot fudge ripple ice cream, and a soup spoon and entertains you by cleaning the house and doing all the laundry. Can you relate? For those of you who have felt so terribly alone during your past relationship, expecting anything from a partner seems a wasted effort. But just because you have no Valentine, whatever time of year, it may be, you can still forget about cleaning the house and doing the laundry for a while anyway. And instead buy yourself flowers and chocolates and go out to dinner with a good friend. And you can gather up those last pieces of yourself. dust them off, polish them so they shine once again. Or maybe for the first time. Your heart has never left. It's always waiting patiently for you. And no matter how much of it you may have felt you've given away. It still remains that remains as boundless as the sky. Admittedly roses and chocolate ice cream and jewelry are great fun to receive. But we can't let them fool us. You know the true gifts of a Valentine are different. Their love, respect kindness, compassion, joy, and they're shared like they're shared in small details of our lives. You know, I'll take out the garbage let me get you a cup of tea, those little little things. That's where they really come through.

So when you can let go of how you think things should be, which usually takes time for me it took quite a bit of time because it involved a lot of work to heal. Though I have a feeling you know of women who no matter how much time goes by they seem velcro to their pain. And it's really a struggle, no matter the length of time it takes to heal from that. But when you do and when you do, you can receive the greater gifts of rediscovering your voice paste in your spirit and your heart again, and a new future for yourself. So, what happens when you decide to be your own Valentine any time of year? A couple things. Desperation disappears. Doesn't that sound nice? Not having a self is much lonelier than not not having a Valentine. And lonely loneliness happens now and then. But it will not define you. Because you will feel whole and you will not get lost in a relationship again, or feel desperate to find a Valentine to complete you. Instead, you're already complete. So you can be in a relationship with another complete person. How healthy does that sound. And you know that line from the movie Jerry Maguire, when his girlfriend Renee Zellweger says, You complete, you complete me. That's not good. Not at all. Plus, if you have children, what a gift you are offering them as they learn what it means to be a complete person and what it takes to make that happen. That's a huge thing. Also, you can become discerning, which is also very cool. A potential new Valentine will not fool you with all those flowers and chocolates and goodies, and will not deceive you with like the jewelry and the roses. I think we did flowers already anyway. And you will not make mistakes of finding a Valentine who has a different haircut, but is basically the same person as your ex or soon to be ex. Also, I think this is really important. You'll be less likely to be swayed by others and end up in an unhealthy situation or relationship. For me, that was a big one. That was a really big one. And then your focus changes. When you meet a new potential Valentine. You know a lot of laundry think to yourself, I know you've done this, I've done this. Will this person like me? I hope they like me, what if they don't like me? Can you relate? Instead, you will ask yourself? Oh, I wonder if I like this person? Doesn't that sound empowering? Right? You will no longer give away parts of yourself in order to be loved. And you will not expect a new Valentine to rescue you. Because you've already done that yourself. Plus, it's not their job anyway, they can't do it for you that's become support you but that's your job. And you'll be hearing voices, which many of us do anyway. But it's not as spooky as it sounds. Because once again, you'll be able to hear you your intuition and and act on what you hear. So how can you do this? How do you become your own Valentine? Well, the answers, believe it or not, are printed on those little candy hearts. Those little Valentine candy hearts. Who knew right? And my three favorites are that candy heart that says Be mine. It's stamped with the words be mine. And I used to think this man, someone else might wanted me to be theirs. But I was wrong. It meant that I can be me. Wow. It sounded so exciting. Yay, I get to be me. Because not being me had been so much lonelier than not being with a Valentine. And it's so much more work to be to pretend I'm being someone in that. But it also started overwhelming. Because I had to ask myself, What do I I had no idea. I had no idea. But I sense that asking this question would change everything. And this question, it becomes an invitation to learn and grow. And then your what happens, at least for me, your internal self shifts a little bit and it expands the sense of who you are. And it can be very confusing and disorienting at first and maybe even a little frightening. But discovering who you are. Wow. That's a thrilling adventure of a lifetime isn't it?

An adventure requires patience as you deal with the detours and roadblocks and compassion when you feel lost. And trust that you are being guided. So patience, compassion and trust. Because you discover, you know these places you just don't want to look at. And you also discover that your self esteem does not depend on a relationship with another person. So you begin to ask yourself questions. More questions. Like I wonder what I truly believe about myself in my life and the world around me Do these beliefs come from my sense of who I am? Or from what others have told me? Is true for me. How you answer these questions will no longer be determined by what you think you are supposed to say or feel, or what you are expected to do. You can really, really listen to yourself. Because the answers will not come from your heart. Because you're no longer afraid of going into those dark corners, that you're not sure what's there of your emotions, like Oh, I wonder what's going on in there. And you no longer have to fear becoming yourself. And the adventure you take whatever choices you make, and whatever questions you ask. As you create the life you desire, you will discover this is wonderful a sense of wonder, the sense of wonder, as you experience the miracles that come from following your heart, and you can become I love this phrase, at ease in your own life. Listen, that just sound wonderful, that you will be at ease in your own life. So that's candy heart number one, candy heart. Number two, my second favorite and other favorite is stamped with stamped on that can be hard or the words true love. So not only do I get to be myself, but I get to truly love myself. Wow, that was pretty cool. But I thought about it. But I wasn't sure how true love was supposed to feel. I didn't know how it was not supposed to make me feel ignored or belittled or smothered, or insignificant or fearful. It doesn't make me feel like I have to walk on eggshells. It does not bully shame the little betray, nor does it take away what you love and cherish in order to feel powerful. But unfortunately, many of us have experienced these behaviors, disguising themselves as love, either in our adult in our adult relationships, or even sadly, as children, so they become so familiar to us that we may continue to treat ourselves the same way we had been treated for so long. After a relationship has ended, ended, we just we continue the pattern. What which is, which makes sense, right? It's of course, it makes sense. What I understood of True Love came from my feelings towards my children. And I did my best to be nurturing, accepting and encourage encouraging. I did my best to listen when they needed to talk, which after a certain age wasn't to me. And I fought the urge to fix things. Which didn't always go well. One of my daughters told me, I don't want you to fix anything. Could you just please listen to me? Like, whoops, sorry. I respected my children for the people that they were. And as best as I could. I know I made lots of mistakes. But as best as I could I let them grow into the person that they were meant to be. And when I finally realized it was time for me to do this for myself, I was like, Oh, how do I do it for myself? I started with a very small step. And since I talked to myself all the time, all the time, a lot, even in the grocery store, which can get embarrassing, but I assumed that listening to myself wouldn't be too much of a stretch. But acting on what I heard and discerning what was true from what was not a little more challenging. And nurturing my nurturing myself sounded a bit sappy, but I was like, Okay, I'll go for it. I'll try. So I listened to music I love curled up under a cozy Afghan when I needed. I walked barefoot on a sandy beach on a warm summer day. Oh, did I love that? I laughed was good friends. I journaled. I read inspirational books, even though I prefer murder mysteries. They're still my favorites.

I listen to my body. And I did my best not to do one more thing when it was when my body was hollering to me, would you please stop already Just stop already. I have the tendency to push a little too much, which is not always so good. I was reminded again that I'm not supposed to be perfect, which was a huge relief, because I'm really good at not being perfect. And what happened is I ended up judging myself less. And what I did that I judged others less as well, which I'm very grateful for and I accepted all my emotions and learn to embrace my sadness and my grief and know just Kind of give them a hug because instead of ignoring them or hoping they would just leave me alone. Just leave me alone. I'm going to, I'm going to eat some chocolate, and then maybe you'll be gone. I just need some chocolate. But instead I listened to them. And was, you know, I understand. I understand. Interestingly, I tried to do this when I felt shame. But it I couldn't quite get it to work. And then I realized, Oh, I bet it's because shame did not come from Me. It was imposed on me, by others. And for so long. I believed it was mine to carry that that was a really, that was really interesting for me to figure out. And then the third candy heart, that's my favorite word stamped on this one. Is you shy? Are you shy? Yes, you do. I want to say to you, yes, you do. You shine. You might say, Yep, that's me, I shine just like a flashlight with really weak batteries. I'm sure, you're not surprised when I say you're not a flashlight. And your light is not something outside you. That's controlled with a switch. Your light comes from your heart, and your spirit. And you might say I've been in a fog for so much of my life, it's hard to see any light at all. And sometimes when the fog is not too thick, you will be able to see it, lift a little and dissolve. But sometimes no matter how hard you try, you're not able to see or feel your light. So just please know that many of us have been have been in this really in the darkness. And please ask for help. If you need. Just it's it takes time and patience, and help and help. You might say I'm fine with shining, but just not too much. I don't want people to think I'm being too shiny. And judging me again. You feel like I go through this. They're judging me because I'm not doing enough. And then they'll judge me because I'm doing too much. And then I swing back and forth. My friend calls it the Tarzan swing, go from one extreme to the other. Anyway, all my life I did this all my life. I just I don't want to be too shiny. I don't want to stand out too much. And I never questioned why it felt so dangerous to be noticed. Was it because I never believed I could shine? Or that I needed permission that I'd never received. Like, where did I learn this? Where do we learn this? It might be from family from society from the second grade teacher who scolded me when I didn't. I remember it vividly. I didn't paste the stem of the flower in the right place on my little colored whatever it was piece of paper to take home to my mother. I know probably she's just having a really bad day. But it's always, it's always just sort of been there, right? The list can go on and on. And I don't use the list as an excuse. But it's just to understand and to learn from when my marriage ended, I had tremendous feelings of loss. And the flashlight battery just died just died in the fog boom came down. And it took time to notice that what remained was me. What remained was the rest of my life. Oh my gosh, I live most of my life as if I was acting in a play. My lines were carefully rehearsed to make sure I said the right thing. And it was just to fit the role that I had been assigned. It was hard for any light to shine through that anyway. But when things fell apart, like that song, the cracks appear in the light has a place to shine through. So it wasn't a conscious decision to shine.