I have a special connection to Valentine’s Day since I was 6 years old, and my little brother had corrective open-heart surgery in Houston, Texas, in 1977. My parents came back from the US with a bunch of wonderful, red-hearted pillows, toys, and cards. They left me amazed by the beauty of all the red and elegant stationery, while we were incredibly grateful that my tiny brother’s life was miraculously saved. As of that day, my family secretly celebrated Valentine’s Day in a country called Yugoslavia in Southeast Europe, where no one was allowed to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Even though the tradition of Valentine’s Day stems from the Roman festival of fertility, which became a Christian holiday in the 14th century, it is associated with the time of year when birds start mating and with love and gift-giving.

Once I immigrated to the US as a 25-year-old war refugee, I could not believe that I was finally able to enjoy Valentine’s Day and celebrate it openly. Little did I know that my attachment would cause me to compromise on the beauty of this sweet holiday by expecting too much and feeling unseen.

Now, as a 53-year-old female therapist, after addressing my trauma wounds in therapy and subsequently earning a Doctorate in Psychology, I spend every year the whole week prior to Valentine’s Day educating my female clients about how to curtail their expectations of Valentine’s Day, and my male clients on how to deliver love romantically. I hope my clients hear me and understand that Valentine’s Day should not be a pressure-filled, stressful day, but instead a day of celebration, laughter, joy, compassion, and sharing more than expecting and giving. Saint Valentine was a Christian saint, and Valentine’s Day was associated with love in 14th-century Europe and has nothing to do with martyr Saint Valentine, who dedicated his legacy to saving the lives of persecuted Christians.

Let’s all finally make sense of this wonderful holiday and celebrate the fact that we can be with our loved ones and create one more special moment where we commemorate how much they mean to us.

In life, I have seen people look for happiness through many avenues. What I know to be true is that love and happiness starts with you. Many times, people will find a partner with the thought that if I find the right partner, they will make me happy and give me all the love that I desire. This is a classic case of “looking for love in all the wrong places.” The love that we desperately desire is inside of us. Yes, you can find a love in another person, absolutely. But the love that completes you and makes you happy comes from within.

We also run into the problem of putting an unbearable amount of pressure on our significant other with this expectation that it is their job to make us happy. It is unrealistic to require that someone else do all the things you need to be happy. This is an unfair standard for anyone because all their efforts combined will still not meet this impossible task. Happiness must come from within. It is up to us to find the things and do the things that bring us joy. Even with some struggles and challenges it is up to us to declare, “I am responsible for my own happiness!”

How do I find happiness? How do I make my life more fulfilling? A coach or a counselor can give you the tools necessary to start to get some answers to these questions. It will require a journey of self-exploration and getting to know the deepest desires within. What do you enjoy? How do you want your life to look? Not what someone else may have told you, like your parents and well intentioned loved one’s who have given their opinion about your life but truly defining these things for yourself.

How do I find happiness if I have mental health struggles? Very good question. It will require work and effort for everyone. Your journey maybe different from someone else’s but it is your journey, and happiness is attainable. Your journey may require you to take medication to help; some will require therapy; some will require more intensive forms of therapy; some will need to get outside in the sun more; some will need to listen to music and dance; some will need to repair damaged relationships, etc. Each path is different. But the path to happiness is our own. If we choose to allow others to walk along with us on the path, that is fine, but it is our journey!

The reward of finding fulfillment for yourself is that no one will be able to take it away. It is yours. Troubles will come; that is a part of life, but with a strong foundation you can weather the storms. This means we won’t be happy or even have peace all of the time, but we will not be far from knowing the steps to get back to center, no matter what life brings. Once we change our mindset, this becomes easier to do. This means that when life throws us lemons, we will accept the bitterness but make lemonade afterwards. Let’s start the fulfilled life journey today. Below are 5 tips to get started:

1. Start a morning ritual that reinforces wellbeing- this may include prayer, meditation, tea-time, exercise, going outside, and/or reading– something that is uplifting for at least 5 minutes.
2. Utilize Daily Affirmations- Write on your mirror in lipstick, place sticky tabs, write it in a book, (it doesn’t matter how it’s done, but utilize positive affirmations daily). Affirm something positive about yourself every single day. My personal favorite is looking into the mirror and stating something positive as if I am having a talk with myself. “Lady you are gorgeous, today,” “Self, you are the most amazing person,” “Self you are going to kill your exam, today.” Give yourself a pep talk. If you do not feel comfortable addressing yourself in first person, then try something like, “today is a perfect day to start something new.” You can find a plethora of affirmations online.
3. Date yourself- If you enjoy flowers, do not wait for someone else to buy them for you. Go and buy the flowers you enjoy. You like to go out to eat, so take yourself for your favorite meal. Take a good book or your earbuds and downloaded movie or just enjoy the view and spending time with yourself.
4. Stop Comparisons- it may be worth it to take a break from social media if it is reinforcing you to compare your life to other people. Take some time to appreciate all of the positive things that are going on in your life. If you struggle in this area, ask a supportive loved one to help you to list some things about your life that are positive.
5. Start a gratitude journal- list at least 3 things each night of positive things that happened to you throughout the day or things that gave you peace or joy. This will help to shift our mindset. The more we think positive the more we make space for positive things to occur.

By Markesha Evans, M.A.

In these current times, given our current Pandemic, we have learned more than ever about relationships. We have been in close proximity with our spouses and our children more than ever. Many of us have also been separated from our close family members and friends that we love dearly due to concerns of spreading the Novel Coronavirus. We have grandmothers and grandfathers that we can’t visit due to them being a high-risk population. We may also have friends who have high risk family members who can’t risk being exposed in fear that they may give the virus to their family members. 

The divorce rates are up, children are being homeschooled, many of us work from home, the unemployment rate is up for others… needless to say our country is under an enormous amount of stress. The worst part is many of us do not have our normal support system. Normally, we would be able to go to work and though it isn’t perfect, we are still able to communicate with other adults. The same for our children. They aren’t used to this type of isolation, either.  We are not used to not having access to our normal outlets and social support. Whether that is having brunch with our girlfriends, men playing basketball or golf, or kids having play dates, it is missing. We all have come accustomed to time spent with our village. We feel better when we can nurture our relationships (not just our immediate family, but the families that we have created with our close friends). 

One thing that we have learned through all of this is just how valuable these relationships are. We’ve heard time and again that human beings were not meant to be alone and are meant to live amongst other people. That’s just our nature as humans. Now more than ever, we are seeing why it’s true. This is so essential that we have found it difficult to obey the guidelines by our Governor of limiting our social interactions. Initially, some of us were so upset that people were not willing to just stay at home and stop spreading the disease. What we know now, after several months, is just how difficult it is to not be around the people we love or even like, to be honest. Some people just need the comfort and interaction of others and that need is more severe for some than others. I’m an introvert and can go a lot longer than someone who is an extravert without having social interaction. My extraverted friends were going stir-crazy the first few days of the government imposed lockdown.  

Now, here we are months into combatting this virus and the rates are rising again. We are tasked with trying to find a balance between staying safe, but also maintaining our relationships and mental health.  What are some ways to help you get through this time? I have listed some recommendations below: 

1. Facetime is your friend: Utilize facetime to “electronically visit” your loved ones. My mom is not a “phone person” but she is a grandmother who wants to see her grandbaby just about every day. We both utilize facetime regularly to give her that interaction with my toddler being that she is not able to spend time with her right now due COVID. Once upon a time you needed an iPhone to facetime, but now you can use Facebook Messenger, Instagram, Duo, etc. 
2. Play online games or have conferences with one another: My sister hosts Friday Night Girl’s Night In with me and 5 of her closest friends either on Zoom app or Houseparty app. Some nights we just talk other nights we are on Houseparty playing virtual games with one another.
3. Practice self-care: nurture your relationships but also the relationship with yourself by taking much needed breaks to do whatever it is you feel that will be conducive to your peace and well-being. <<<<< This will be the focus of our next blog<<<<<<
4. Play games with your family: If you can, rack up on some games or create some household games to allow your family time to laugh and enjoy one another. Get those pre-teens and teenagers out of their room to have real interaction and time off social media.

Turn on the TV for 5 minutes or tune into social media for 2 minutes and you are very likely to hear the term narcissism or some variation of it. Just as ADHD, Bipolar, and Anxiety have become common terms in popular culture used to describe “abnormal” behaviors in others. Each of these is mental health diagnoses that have a specific list of symptoms for someone to meet the criteria to actually be diagnosed. Let’s take “Bipolar” for example, a woman could be experiencing changes in her mood due to her hormones changing around that time of the month, and if noticed by a family member she might hear “oh there you go acting bipolar again” or a child who may have just had too much sugar and is now bouncing off the walls someone might say “his ADHD is through the roof.” Narcissism has now become a pop-culture term. Someone may look in the mirror or post a picture on social media and before they can even put the phone down from a post someone has already called them a narcissist.

Now, this is not to say that some people who post pictures are not narcissists because some really are, but to be a narcissist just like the other mentioned diagnosis one must meet specific criteria. The point is though mental health diagnoses are used casually it has opened the door for a casual conversation surrounding mental health and it has finally come to a point where the stigma of having mental health disorders is dissipating. Now that mental health has become more popular than ever before many people are educating themselves on mental health diagnoses and seeking help. Many people are finally able to place a title or label on your mother’s controlling behavior or your father’s emotional distance. Growing up with parents who suffered from mental illness without seeking treatment can be very hard on the mental health of their children. Many people laugh and joke about this generation but one thing that they are getting right is taking care of their mental health.

The saying “the grass is greener on the other side” has been fully processed by this generation and they have discovered why. This generation has now added the grass is greener because “it’s fake” and the grass is greener “where it is watered.” I find both statements to be very impactful. We now know that you never really know what is going on behind closed doors. On the outside people can appear to have the perfect life with the perfect parents and children. Their children are now telling their stories and truths about just how cruel those parents were at home. They now discuss how the image was intentionally put on for the public while the kids who are now grown adults will need mental health counseling to deal with the childhood that still haunts them. The good thing about all of this is that their children learned what not to do.

What they have said about the grass being greener where it’s watered is ringing true. Things and people that are nurtured and cared for blossom and grow beautifully. You can clearly see the difference between plants and grass that are properly cared for and those that aren’t. The beauty that nurtured plants behold stands out like a sore thumb. I love riding through neighborhoods where the entire neighborhood takes pride in their lawn and landscape. It is clear that they are taking out the time to take care of their yard (or hiring someone who is able to do it for them, either way, the job is done). It is the same way with humans. You can see the results of the people who were nurtured by loving parents. Unfortunately, you can also notice the ones who weren’t. Don’t you just love being around positive people with great energy? It’s just like that car ride through a well-kept neighborhood.

As adults, we are capable of saying, “I have been through some rough patches and would like help moving beyond those challenges so that I can thrive in life. I no longer want to be held back by my past.” Counseling gives you the opportunity to work through your disappointments and challenges. Let’s move beyond the pain from our childhood so that we do not create it in another generation. We can’t do anything about the past, but we can do something about our present and future. Counseling and or coaching can help you with both.

by Markesha Evans

https://familyecenter.com/1204-2/