Find Your True Valentine

 

John Baptist

13^th February 2022

Once again, Valentine’s Day is here; romance is in the air. You might find Valentine’s Day a wonderful experience if you are in a satisfying love relationship. If it is the other way then you might feel sad, frustrated, angry and unfulfilled. It is nice to have people to care for and love us. However, Kristin Neff, a renowned researcher in self-compassion says that we need to recognize that it is not necessary for our happiness that we need someone else to complete us. Romance is a gift from God, yet, it can not be the ground that gives us a sense of completeness. In fact, what gives us the sense of completeness and wholeness is knowing and connecting with our true selves. It is connecting with the Life (Divine) that flows within our being and in the universe at large. 

Neff asserts that often we “are raised with the notion that our worth stems from finding someone to love and cherish us. We’re taught that our value is derived from the adoring eyes of another, and if we aren’t in a relationship with someone who cares about us, we must be a failure [and worthless]”. It is vital for healthy growth, particularly during our childhood, that we receive love. Receiving love is essential in our adult lives as well. However, the problem can start when we do not find the adoring eyes; consequently, we can begin feeling empty and unfulfilled. If you find feelings of dissatisfaction and incompleteness in your life, seize this opportunity and shatter the illusion that others can make you whole and fulfilled. Each one of us need to understand that others cannot make us whole. 

Wholeness begins when we embrace ourselves as we are. 

“In moments of wholeness, we enter into the crypt of our being, with arms wide open to embrace all of the parts of ourselves, even those which were neglected and pushed away from long ago. In this quiet and compassionate embrace, we meet the stranger who longed for this reunion for our whole lives” (John Baptist). 

Remember your true Valentine is “you”. Find, connect, and love this “you”, your first and the last Valentine, who is perhaps most neglected. And, gradually, you will realize that if you connect to others from this ground of self-connection and wholeness, your relations will be more satisfying and fulfilling. 

 

Notes

1.     Kristin Neff, Meeting Romantic Yearnings With Compassion, Email Communication
2.     John Baptist, 2021, Brokenness to Wholeness, Media House, Delhi 
3.     Mark 12:31 – Love your neighbour as yourself