Valentine’s Day leaves single people feeling left out. When I was single, it took all the tell-myself-something-positive-about-me brain power I could muster to not feel desperate during this holiday manufactured and hyped to show that everyone but me was in a devoted happy couple.   With over half of the American population now classified as single according to Bloomberg online, I say it’s time to claim Valentine’s Day as a day for everyone to realize they’re in a relationship with themselves and to shower themselves with love. 

After all, we humans are amazing just by being.  Humming along and keeping us upright connected to and responding in this world are processes we never even have to think about.  One staggering fact is that we have a body wide network of approximately 93,000 miles of periphery nerves.  Those nerves control thousands of processes, and the brain and spinal chord nerves, our Central Nervous System, aren’t even included in this whopping number. 

Most of us don’t love our bodies.  There is an epidemic of disconnect in this country—a separation of head from body—and it’s detrimental to our well-being.  We power through our over-busy days drinking caffeine in one form or another instead of resting when we’re tired.  We eat distractedly, under exercise out of lethargy and fatigue, or over exercise focussed obsessively on how we look to others instead of how our bodies feel—how WE feel.  Our bodies are ignored or become something to fix in our effort to look good on the outside and appeal to others.

Learning to love your body can change your life by helping you feel better and be more healthy yes, we all know this, but did you know that practicing self-love in the form of better self-care also affects your work, family, friend and love relationships?  Practicing self-love first influences all those around you to react with more love back to you—they’re influenced indirectly through your personal energy vibrations and directly through role-modeling—you show others how to treat you with kindness and respect, and they in turn learn this for themselves as well.

Also, when you slow down long enough to pay attention to what your body signs are telling you, you get the gift of hearing what that tiny voice inside, your intuition, says.  This is important because in a big noisy world your intuition is where the right answers for YOU are—not someone else's answer for you.

If you’re one of  the millions of people who are single and looking for love, the great news is that when you learn to appeal to yourself first, then your self-image becomes more positive and your energy levels vibrate at frequencies that attract a “someone” who resonates with the respect and love you’re giving yourself.

Now, if you've gotten this far in the article it may be time to take a break or reward yourself with a massage or some other pampering activity.  You’ve worked hard and deserve it.  You’ve been doing hundreds of things all at the same time!  To list a couple, your heart has been beating at approximately seventy beats per minute, and in this last twenty-four hour period it has beat approximately 100,000 times.  You’re also using  approximately 160 million light sensing photo receptors in each eye to read this.  You’re amazing!

I’ve been married for almost seven years now, yet Valentine’s Day hubbub and hoopla still leaves something to be desired because it promotes expecting someone else to fill a void.  Whether single or coupled, make a decision this Valentine’s Day to start building self-love.  In the world where it probably seems you have no control, this is the one area where you do.