Reclaim Valentine's Day

1. Think of Valentine's Day as a great reminder to focus outward. Choose someone - parent, neighbor, child, friend - who likely won't have a lavish holiday celebration. Make them a handmade card, expressing your appreciation for their part in your life and deliver it personally.
2. For singles, don't rush into love just because of this over-commercialized day commemorating romance! 
3. Choose to don some virtual blinders and ignore the commercial pressures. Instead, express your love with genuine gifts to those you care deeply for. Handmade personal gifts mean so much more - both to give, and to receive!
4. Don't have a guy or gal in your life to celebrate with? Put a creative spin on the day and give yourself a gift instead. You're worth it! You don't have to spend lots of money when buying a gift for yourself. Choose something simple that will make your heart smile.
5. Take some time to evaluate your position in a painful relationship. Carefully discern how you want to grow - either toward healing the hurts, or toward stepping away from the relationship. This can represent one of the greatest gifts of love you can give yourself!
6. Still aching from a disastrous relationship or childhood memory of being the one kid with no Valentine's? Take a deep breath - and choose to let it go as you breathe out. Forgiving past hurts will help you open up, once again, to receiving expressions of love from those who genuinely care about you.

Valentine's Day can mean a dozen roses and springing for a lavish night out on the town, or lonely hopeless aching hearts. If you struggle this year with wishing the day would simply pass without fanfare, you may want to try these six secrets to help you reclaim the day.

Let this Valentine's Day mark the day you choose to believe, I am worth love! then start by loving yourself.

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