Meeting Romantic Yearnings with Compassion

As Valentine’s Day approaches, romance is in the air. Stores are full of bouquets and chocolate-covered strawberries, selling us myriad ways to celebrate love.

Some people are in fulfilling romantic relationships and Valentine’s Day is a wonderful opportunity to express appreciation for one’s partner. The problem, however, is the not-so-subtle message that romance is necessary for our happiness – that we need someone else to complete us.

The truth is we don’t need to connect with a romantic partner to be whole, we need to connect with our true nature to be whole.

Women especially 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.

These deep-rooted cultural beliefs are spotlighted on Valentine’s Day, and can be painful if we don’t have a partner or if our relationship isn’t what we’d like it to be.

We often yearn for that feeling of intimacy, of closeness, of oneness, and feel dissatisfied if it’s lacking. These unfulfilled yearnings, though painful, are actually invaluable guideposts.  They’re signals that we’re looking in the wrong place for happiness.

Feelings of incompleteness stem from the misperception that we are separate from life, isolated individuals removed from the whole. When we give compassion to ourselves for our unfulfilled yearnings, we become that which we seek.

By opening our hearts to our pain and remembering this shared aspect of the human experience, we experience true intimacy with life. Happiness doesn’t depend on circumstances, it arises from connecting with the loving quality of awareness, which can hold feelings of loneliness and romance equally.

So if feelings of sadness or dissatisfaction arise for you this Valentine’s Day, try to seize them as an opportunity to see through the illusion of separation. Our real Valentine is the loving nature of our own hearts.