Valentine's Day can be challenging if you're single. OK, that's an understatement.
Sometimes it can be downright painful, watching other women get deliveries of flowers or chocolates at the office or hearing about their plans for an intimate dinner with their beloved. It can be a "trigger day" for feelings of isolation, abandonment and inadequacy. I know women who have sent themselves flowers with a note attached from a mysterious admirer because it was too difficult to be the one left out.
Valentine's Day is all about being the chosen one, and letting the world see you've been chosen by someone. Or not, as the case may be.
Even if you're single, it doesn't have to be that way. Your mission, beginning this Valentine's Day and continuing through Feb. 14, 2011 is this: Start being your own chosen one. I'm calling this the Chosen One Challenge.
That's not meant as some woo-woo New Age banality. I mean it. Start choosing you, start celebrating yourself, and see what happens in the year leading up to next Valentine's Day.
It won't necessarily be easy. The hardest thing for us to do is to celebrate ourselves. We're brought up to succeed, to be superstars propelled by proving ourselves in order to feel we've arrived in the eyes of others. We keep thinking that when we reach our goals we can then celebrate ourselves but before then we just haven't made it in our own eyes. We may even have set certain deadlines for achieving goals and when we pass the date without success, we label ourselves failures.
Stop. Be your own game-changer. This Valentine's Day choose yourself. Don't look for outside validation.
If it sounds too hard, just think of it as a game. Pretend, act as if. If you get how to play the game of choosing yourself, you'll be amazed at how many people start looking at you as if you're a chosen one -- even if you don't have a partner!
Don't act as if you're queen for just today. Do it all year round. How often do we put ourselves down, deflect compliments and make ourselves the butt of our own jokes? Don't do it. Being a game-changer is an inside job. You can do it.
Here's your first assignment to do begin your year as your own chosen one: Choose one friend to do the Chosen One Challenge with and keep each other inspired and motivated all year long. You can serve as each other's monitors as well, to make sure you're not putting yourselves down or acting in any un-queenly ways!
Whether you read this on Valentine's Day or later, here's a list of ways to celebrate yourself and your life and start taking action. Add your own ideas and make your own lists.
1. Book an aromatherapy massage.
2. Write a gratitude list for everything good you have in your life and mail it to yourself.
3. Buy white roses for your home.
4. Ask a friend to lunch or dinner at your favorite restaurant and explain that it's part of the Chosen One Challenge
5. Get a mani-pedi
6. Buy your pet a V-day gift.
7. Allow yourself a selection of the best chocolates you can afford
8. Decide to take action toward fulfilling something you have always wanted to do.
Good luck and keep the energy going toward being your own Chosen One all year.