It’s Valentine’s Day! We love our chocolate, our fun, sentimental, or frilly cards, and good times with our significant others or best friends. Yet, I know it is hard to do, but the best love we can give is to ourselves.
I’m guilty as charged. Using a mantra of “it could always be worse”, I charge through the day, the week, and now months of the pandemic. Do I have toxic positivity? I’m not sure, but after reading this article in Bloomberg BusinessWeek, I am going to think twice about taking care of my emotional self.
The Art of Positivity is nothing new. Norman Vincent Peale wrote his famous book “The Power of Positive Thinking” in 1952 and we have swooped forward through the 21st century with a plethora of other concepts to try like a diet fad to see if they work. I don’t particularly think of the 1950s as a self-help decade but upon pondering, helpful guides have been around for centuries. According to Wikipedia, though, there has been an onslaught of living better, happier, mindful, richer, more bountiful, more of everything if you can define it. Do we really just want more?
First, I am a general proponent of how our mind and emotional outlook impact who we are – to an extent. Life is like a backgammon game – you can strategize all you want but you can’t always help those awful dice rolls. Second, it is my experience, you can’t happy your way out of grief. I’m not a psychologist but I did teach Change Management once upon a time. Research indicates, (and I can attest through personal experience) grief is a soulful curve you have to just get through at your own pace and with help if needed. Third, change is a little more complicated but there are plenty of late adopters for reasons that are more than this writing at this time.
The pandemic has hit us hard. I’m sure I’m not the only one who wants to just scream, “Stop whining and get on with it!” (and then feel terribly guilty, ugh). These last 365 days have tried our love and patience in so many ways. One additional cause is that if we are not doing something all the time, somehow, some time, somewhere, for someone else, we are not functional, productive, wonderful, praise-worthy, or relevant to someone else’s perspective and critique. Thank you, Work World, for pushing us to be 5 Star, Above and Beyond, Exceeding Expectations, consistently, 100% of the time. Was and is that truly realistic?
This Valentine’s Day, and truly every day, practice some TCOY. Take Care of Yourself. Yes, it may sound simple. Yes, it may seem selfish. But there is a reason mindfulness is so popular. We are emptying our minds during the session, however brief. We are emptying our minds of everything but just one thing. An object. A color. A single sound. A taste. We are connecting with something greater than ourselves, whatever that looks like. It sounds so very basic, doesn’t it? But, it is worth it to ourselves, and to those we love.
Whatever it looks like for you, take pause. Find intention. Reset your compass. Clear the baggage. Enjoy this week’s IYSL podcast guest, Carrie Templaski, reminding us of re “chi-ing” through Chinese medicine and practicing TCOY.
“Quiet the Mind and the Soul Will Speak”
