I know you’ve been feeling it—-those cringes of resistance, sadness, regret, fear, or mourning. If you’re not in the place you’d like to be in your relationship space, it’s no surprise that all the heart mugs, sweethearts candies and gushy pink cards in your face start to bring on a variety of feelings as our culture celebrates Valentine’s.

As a single I’ve felt for a minute like Valentine’s transports me back to a middle school dance, when people are partnering up and you’re looking around to wondering if there’s someone there choosing you. This time of year the awareness of a single’s relationship status goes on hyper drive; the amount of online dating activity surges, ex-boyfriends may come around with a HYD text, you start to consider whether you should give that guy that you’ve had a crush on at work a nice note in a variation of red that day.

In many ways all the color and candy and affection can be fun.

It also can be tempting at times to want to distract yourself by planning a dynamic Galentine’s event with your friends or burying your face in a bush for the day.

SO if that’s you, trying to ward off feeling any challenging emotions coming up, then maybe it’s time to tune into the most important heart—which is Yours.

The heart is the wellspring of our emotional life and therefore our romantic life. If you’re not in a place where you’d like to be romantically, I challenge you to try connecting to your heart first.

Here are three good ways to tune into what’s up for you in your heart space this Valentine’s season:

Give Yourself a Set Time of Silence - Set aside 10, 20, 40 minutes with a timer to just be silent and listen. Close your eyes, focus on your breathing. Notice sensations you’re feeling, notice your compulsion to distract yourself, notice what emotions come up, notice what desires or visions or ideas come up.
Write Down What You Noticed - Writing is a way we can “listen” to ourselves. Write down what you noticed in the silence. Tell yourself what you heard. What is your heart trying to tell you?
Ask a Friend to Give You a Time of Solid Listening - Call a friend to see if they’re up for meeting for coffee because you need to process through something. Ask them to listen to you for a set amount of time, no interruptions, so that you can talk out what is going on in your heart. If they can, ask them to reflect back what they heard you say. We can learn a lot about ourselves and what’s going on in our hearts by simple reflective listening.

These are great practices for anytime to prepare to make your love life better. And when the day comes that you discover that your crush likes you back. Then you’ll be able to go deeper with another as the currency of love is our heart’s ability to offer and receive love. You will be all the more rich in connection to yourself and your ability to communicate to a partner in a way that will set a great foundation for your future relationship life.

If you’d like more help tuning into your heart or finding out what may have you feeling blocked or stuck. I’m happy to support you on your journey to love. Schedule a time to talk here.