Valentine’s Day is a day to celebrate love in all of its forms. This Valentine’s Day, the most important person for you to love is yourself.
Loving yourself means having grace for yourself. It means not beating yourself up with negative self-talk every time you do something you consider a failure. Failure isn’t final, it’s a growth moment. Even if you forgot something important or showed up late to class, instead of saying “Wow I suck. I’m the worst. Why did I even show up at all,” give yourself kinder words of wisdom like, “This was not a wise decision, showing up on time is important and shows respect to the rest of the group. I’ll choose to learn from this experience and show up on time next time.” The important thing is that you showed up, because you are a vital voice to your class or work community. You can bring a perspective no one else has.
If you aren’t showing your own self kindness and forgiveness, how will you be able to give that kindness and love to other people? I think that it’s easy to love people who are nice to you, treat you with kind words, and build you up. So even when you are hating yourself or doubting yourself, you are still going to be there for your best friends. But it’s easy to love those who love you back; anyone can do that. What’s really difficult, and the true measure of a person, is how well they love those who don’t love them. How well do you serve people who will never serve you back? How do you show kindness and favor towards a person who won’t ever thank you? That is the true measure of a person. But how can you expect to be generous towards someone who’s not an “easy person to love” and show respect, love, and kindness when you yourself are filled with loathing, unforgiveness, blame, and shame towards yourself? Because what we are filled with is what will come out of us. An apple tree is not going to produce pineapples and an orange tree isn’t going to produce hazelnut lattes, as much as I might like that.
Before we dish out love to everyone around us and feel empty at the end of the day, remember to love yourself first! As the great RuPaul says “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you going to love anyone else?”
To anyone feeling deep feelings this season, don’t be afraid to reach out to a friend or family member as well as the college’s counseling center. Getting help and talking to someone about what you are going through is never a sign of weakness, but always a sign of strength.
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@HeyMariah is a student at The Evergreen State College. Her hobbies include making TikTok videos for her 65,000 followers and drinking hazelnut lattes. You can follow her on Instagram @HeyMariah and on TikTok @HeyMariah_
She loves that Evergreen’s mascot is a Geoduck who wears a shiny glitter shell because she’s never met a glitter-anything that she didn’t love. You can catch her in the morning listening to The Morning Toast on the daily and flying to Hawai’i as much as possible.
