Valentine’s Day is a pretty loaded holiday—it comes with a lot of pressure and expectations about what the day should look like. In our minds it should have chocolate, a romantic dinner, gifts, cards—and most of all, we should feel loved. Unfortunately, though, we’ve been conditioned to look for love, validation, and even permission outside of ourselves.

We’ve come to rely on other people for love, and we spend a lot of time waiting to receive it instead of giving it to ourselves. I believe that until we become our own steady source of love, it’s very difficult to fully love anything or anyone else.