Hay House Radio Episode Recap
- Episode Name: “Valentine’s & Love Rituals”
- Live Broadcast: February 12th, 2019 at 12:00 pm Pacific Time
Episode Summary Re-cap
Today, we gather to explore the true meaning of love, what can get in the way of love, and how to bring more love into your life. We’ll look at love rituals, ancient love elixirs, and experience a meditation to heal the past and attract the kind of love that heals and nourishes your soul.
What Valentine’s Day Really Means
Valentine’s Day is the second most popular American holiday after Christmas with 150 million cards being exchanged and $20 billion spent on flowers, candy, champagne, and romantic dinners. While the origins of Valentine’s Day is still a mystery, it’s reputed to have originated in third century Rome, when marriage was denied because the Emperor believed that happy marriages would stop men from going to war. St. Valentine was believed to be a priest who married couples in secret, believing in the importance of love. As the years followed, different traditions ensued, from fertility rituals to arranged marriages.
In the Middle Ages, the first Valentine’s greetings emerged. These days, Valentine’s Day is celebrated in many countries, including Mexico, Canada, Australia, France, and the UK.
One of my favorites is Mexico because the focus of love is not just on romantic relationships, but on love for all those you care about. Now that’s a reason for celebration!
As thousands of years of history and meaning build, holidays develop profound cultural meaning. I think just about everyone would agree that Valentine’s Day has always had a focus on love. In fact, the meaning is so strong that in 2011, a study was published in the journal, Social Science and Medicine, showing that spontaneous births increased during Valentine’s day because of its positive symbolism vs. decreased births on Halloween due to negative symbolism. The findings were so statistically significant that researchers felt moms have much more power over something considered “spontaneous” than previously thought.
It kind of underscores the idea that everything is energy, doesn’t it? And, that your thoughts are more powerful than you think.
4 Relationship Rules to Boost Love in Your Life
Relationship Rule #1 – It’s Not Your Relationship with Another, it’s Your Relationship with Yourself
Studies have often shown that our minds – especially the subconscious mind – is more powerful than we think. When it comes to love and relationships, we often think it should just happen. We’ll have love at first sight or we’ll stumble across our soulmate. The reality is, our ideas about love tend to get in the way and can either help us or hinder us in successful relationships.
Most of the time, I think it’s because we have unidentified beliefs about love. What brought this to the forefront for me was reading You Can Heal Your Life, by Louise Hay. And then getting to know Louise later in life. Her whole life’s work was teaching us to love ourselves. And you know what? It’s a lot harder than I thought…I think harder than any of us thought.
Think about how hard it is to look yourself in the eyes – in your mirror – saying your name and that you love yourself. I’ve watched Louise hold a mirror in front of people hundreds of times as they say these words and break down crying. Or sometimes, can’t even look themselves in the eyes. It’s something we can all identify with, isn’t it?
Therein lies the question: If we don’t even know how to love ourselves, how do we love another?
Okay, I’ll admit something here. I was only so-so at the loving myself thing for the first 10 or so years of my marriage. I still work at it today. But what made all the difference for me was getting clear about what I wanted for my own life, including my own self-love FIRST, and then, getting clear on what I wanted for my relationship.
Here are some ideas for getting clear on love:
- Write your vision for your ideal life and self-love. Using my vision exercise as a guide, you can write your vision of how you want to feel every day. Here are more ideas and guidelines.
- Write yourself a Valentine, describing all the reasons you love yourself.
- Do mirror work. Look yourself in the eyes and say your name and “I love you.”
- Schedule some self-care routines that make you feel loved and nourished, like cooking a healthy meal, taking a bath, going for a walk in nature, or spending quiet time with like-minded friends.
- Pick one overlying value that you have for love. Mine was friendship. I wanted a best friend who I’d have fun doing everything with. That mattered to me more than anything else. What matters to you most, when it comes to a love relationship?
- After doing your own self-love and vision work, write your ideal relationship vision. You can write your vision of your ideal love relationship. Just use my vision exercise as a guide and change the focus to your ideal relationship! I’ve had countless clients find their soulmate or even turn their spouse into their ideal soulmate just by writing their vision of what a loving, ideal relationship looks and feels like.
- Make sure you know the difference between a supportive relationship and a toxic relationship. I can’t stress this one enough! That’s why Relationship Rule #1 is the most critical of all. When you love yourself, you teach others how to love you and you choose people who will reflect your self-love. To learn more about toxic relationships, read: Toxic Relationships: How to Heal, Toxic Relationships Part 2: Heal Your Mind and Reconnecting to Love After Trauma.
We often dismiss the importance of writing a vision or meditating, journaling and visualizing exactly how we want our relationship with self and a significant other to look and feel, but even science supports the value of this kind of effort because it works! Even Einstein said, “Imagination is the highest form of research.” It’s also the foundation toward getting the results you want!
Relationship Rule #2 – There are No Rules
Love cannot fit into anyone’s box. If we worry about rules, we close off the opportunity for attracting love that works for our unique path.
I’ve never considered myself a relationship expert. And yet, I just celebrated my 26th wedding anniversary. I’ve been married more than half my life. My parents are still married, my sister is still married. We have no divorce in our family line as far back as I can remember. I knew this growing up, but I never thought much about it. What I think set us apart – my whole family line – is that no one followed conventional rules when it came to choosing a spouse or getting married. In fact, you could say we all bucked the system, at least a little bit.
Here’s my story…
On New Year’s Eve 26 years ago, two early-twenty-somethings sat on the front hall stairs of a Burlington, Vermont apartment holding a large yellow envelope in their hands. The note inside was from the Justice of the Peace, who conducted a hasty elopement ceremony the night before and rushed into a blizzard to deal with a flat tire.
The note said, “This is illegal, but I forgot to have you sign your marriage forms. Please sign them and take them to your town hall before it closes today.”
It was 3:30 pm. The town hall was 1.5 hours away on snowy back roads. Still shy after dating only 4 months, we took a few minutes to look at each other and ask softly, “What do you think, back out or sign the forms?”
On the drive over to the town hall, we joked. He signed “Ted Nugent” and I signed, “Mickey Mouse.”
Arriving at the rural town hall at dusk, we noticed the lights were out. He ran up the stairs with the envelope and knocked on the door. A man with a broom answers and I hold my breath. I see words, gestures, and the envelope is passed through the door.
Back at the car, he tells me, “It’s closed, but the janitor promised to put it on the right desk.”
The marriage certificate was $25, so we figured we’d wait until we saved more money before getting it. A year later, we moved and put it off again. “We’ll get it when we have time,” we said. After 26 years of wondering, we finally got the certificate that proves the man with the broom in that little town hall made good on his promise.
For practical tips on how to attract a soulmate, including online dating, read Your Relationships & Your Health.
Relationship Rule #3 – Ceremony and Rituals Matter
In Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) culture, there is a belief that when times get tough – during trauma, loss, or grief – the mind can get cloudy. A cloudy mind makes challenges very difficult to navigate, which is why ceremony and ritual are so important. Ceremony and ritual are opportunities to show up regularly – preferably every day – and remind your body, mind, and spirit about what matters. As you focus on actions, routines and thoughts that support your highest good, you are essentially, clearing your mind. This is what we, in Haudenosaunee culture, call “having a good mind.”
Think of clearing your mind as decluttering your house. You know how that feels, right? As if a weight has been taken off. Suddenly, you feel lighter and you think more clearly. Your spirits are lifted. This is what ceremony and ritual can do. They can open up a pathway to the divine, allowing light to flow into the darkness of challenge. Suddenly, you have the space to see your way through. Often, you find faith when you see the light.
If you want to bring more love into your life, think about some love rituals or ceremonies that support a feeling of love.
Here are some ideas for ritual and ceremony:
- The best rituals and ceremonies are those that align with your culture and have deep meaning for you. If you’re not sure what those are, ask your elders or research your lineage online. You can also choose ceremonies and rituals from other cultures that deeply appeal to you. Remember that when borrowing from other cultures, be respectful for their true meaning and purpose if you are going to share these with others.
- To create your own ritual and ceremony, put one hand on your heart and the other hand on your abdomen and ask: “How can I love you more?” And just listen. Write down whatever comes up and make that your ritual!
- Many people love going to yoga, qi gong, meditation groups, Kirtan, drumming circles, and sacred dance events that focus on a mind-body-spirit connection. This can be a wonderful option if you’re not sure where to start.
- Journaling about love can also be a wonderful exercise. This doesn’t have to be about the love you want. It could simply be writing down all the people and things you love and are grateful for in your life. Remember, what you focus on expands!
- If you have a significant other already and want to bring more love in, all of the above works. And I have one more incredibly powerful ritual…daily appreciation. Tell your significant other what you love or appreciate about them every day. Find at least one thing and say it. You’d be surprised at how this can build love and good feelings in a couple!
Relationship Rule #4 – What You Believe Matters
Finally, remember to look at your beliefs about love. Do you think love hurts? Is it scary? Hard? Are good options for partners scarce? Are you too old? Too smart, too successful, too fat, too thin….is it too late? Have you failed too often? What you believe or what you find yourself saying to yourself or others often reflects what patterns are running in your subconscious mind. And since this primal part of your brain is operating exponentially faster than your conscious, thinking brain, a lot of outcomes are determined by it.
Become aware of your thoughts and beliefs so that you can replace them with positive ones, like:
- Love is everywhere.
- Love is all there is and love is always here for me.
- There is always more than enough love for me.
- I love myself and others love me.
- It’s easy to attract my ideal partner.
- I am enough. Loving myself is enough. Everything emerges from there.
- I am in a loving, supportive, joyful relationship.
- Love is easy.
- I trust love. I am safe in my relationship.
- I forgive myself for the past. I now give and receive unconditional love in my life. I am safe.
Here’s a wonderful poem about love, that was shared with me by a member of my Sacred Wolf Pack group on Facebook (thanks, Sharon!):
Love of the World, by Charlotte Tall Mountain
For the love of a tree,
She went out on a limb.
For the love of the sea,
She rocked the boat.
For the love of the earth,
She dug deeper.
For the love of community,
She mended fences.
For the love of the stars,
She let her light shine.
For the love of spirit.
She nurtured her soul.
For the love of a good time,
She sowed seeds of happiness.
For the love of the Goddess,
She drew down the moon.
For the love of nature,
She made compost.
For the love of a good meal,
She gave thanks.
For the love of family,
She reconciled differences.
For the love of creativity,
She entertained new possibilities.
For the love of her enemies,
She suspended judgment.
For the love of herself,
She acknowledged her worth.
And the world was richer for her.
Aphrodisiac Recipes
This Energizing Chai Hot Chocolate or Latte recipe is a great aphrodisiac because of the raw cacao, maca, and cinnamon, which are known for their ability to boost energy, blood flow, hormone balance, stamina and libido.
For vegetarians for vegans, try this Delightfully Sweet Zucchini Squash Soup as your aphrodisiac. This soup contains ginger, fennel, and cardamom, known to be powerful libido boosters.
Chicken Broth Libido & Love Elixir – if the way to the heart is through the stomach, this recipe takes the cake! Chock full of nutrients that heal your immune system, the herbs and spices used in this recipe are all known to be powerful aphrodisiacs. Ready for an immune, energy, and libido boost? Try this recipe from The Bone Broth Secret!
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