Ep #298: Reimagining Valentine’s Day as a Day of Connection

Welcome to The Widowed Mom podcast, episode 298, Reimagining Valentine’s Day as a Day of Connection.

Welcome to The Widowed Mom Podcast, the only podcast that offers a proven process to help you work through your grief, to grow, evolve, and create a future you can truly look forward to. Here’s your host, Master Certified life coach, grief expert, widow, and mom, Krista St-Germain.

Hey there, welcome to another episode of the podcast. Valentine’s Day is almost here, and I wanna talk about it, hopefully make it a little bit easier for you, give you some other ways to think about it. I know for me, I’m of course recording this a little bit early, but celebrating in that very near to Valentine’s Day, my dad should be coming home from his radiation treatment in Houston at MD Anderson. So I will be so excited to have him home and to have that behind us. It has been, it’s been a long year for him. And so just really looking forward to having him come home soon.

So, okay, I know Valentine’s Day can bring up lots of feelings. And so I just wanna normalize that straight out of the gate. I also wanna tell you, if you wanna skip Valentine’s Day altogether and don’t even give it a second thought, totally fine. Okay, do that, do whatever works for you. But if you want to think about it differently, then I wanna give you some options, right? You don’t have to do it the way you’ve always done it. And thinking about it in terms of a day of connection is something that I think there’s a lot of value in.

So if you’re looking for ideas to make the day feel a little more intentional, whether that’s connecting with your kids or your family or honoring your person or even just taking a moment for yourself, that’s what this episode is all about. So today we will explore how to reimagine Valentine’s Day through four pillars of connection. Connection to self, connection to family, connection to community, and connection to your late partner.

So let’s start with connection to self because at the end of the day, the relationship that you have with yourself is the foundation for everything else. And often we get so caught up in the needs of other people, our kids, our work, even the expectations that we think we’re supposed to meet, that we forget to pause and connect and check in with ourselves. So here’s what I want to suggest that you do. Take a moment and ask yourself, and you might want to put your hand on your heart when you do this, how am I feeling right now? And really listen for the answer.

If you’ve never done it before, it might feel uncomfortable at first, but I just want you to try it, and then try to not judge whatever comes up. Just listen. And then ask yourself, what do I need right now? Maybe the answer is rest. Maybe the answer is a few minutes of quiet. Maybe it’s connection or laughter, or even just permission to let something go. Maybe the answer is that you need kindness. The point isn’t to fix anything. The point isn’t to be any different than how you are, right? The point is to become aware of how you are. And that awareness just by itself can be such a powerful act of self-love and self-connection.

Then I want you to think about connection to family this Valentine’s Day, if that feels right for you. Because Valentine’s Day, as I see it, is all about love, and of course we’ve been given the Hallmark version, which makes it all about romantic love. But I also see it as an opportunity that we can connect and create meaningful moments with our kids, with our extended family members. It doesn’t have to be elaborate and it doesn’t have to be romantic.

So a few ideas. Maybe you cook a meal together and maybe it’s like a casual meal. Maybe it’s a fancy meal. Maybe it’s a casual meal. Maybe it’s something everybody loves. Maybe it’s something everybody’s been wanting to try. Maybe everybody makes their own pizza, right? It could just be that you order in, but that you do something together. Maybe you light some candles that you wouldn’t normally light. Maybe you listen to music that you wouldn’t normally listen to, right? Maybe you do flowers and you wouldn’t normally do that. Something just a little bit different or special that involves you being with the people that you care about.

Maybe you share some stories. You take some time to talk about moments in your family that made you feel loved or connected. You could even ask your kids what makes them feel loved or connected. What do they appreciate about each other? What do they appreciate about you? Maybe they will actually engage in that conversation, right? You never know. You could also play or create something together. Maybe it’s a board game. Maybe it’s a puzzle.

Maybe you get like the big cardboard box that’s still left over from the holidays and cut some holes in it and draw on it and make some sort of fort. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. It’s not about the activity. It’s about you spent time being present together. And please don’t let your image of what it could be like ruin what it is actually like. Right? What it is actually like and being present for what it is actually like is where connection lives. Connection doesn’t live in perfection. That’s not the goal. It’s about being with each other as you are in whatever way that looks like.

And the third pillar I want to suggest that you consider is connection to community. Because Valentine’s Day can also be a time to connect with the world around us. And that doesn’t have to be a big time-consuming thing, right, that can be a small act of kindness, that can be just little bits of thoughtfulness that kind of ripple through the world.

So maybe it’s just you make a donation to a cause that you care about. Maybe you volunteer, you know? We were just talking about this at my team member, or at my staff meeting, that we all have organizations that, you know, do little like backpack, put together a lunch, or snacks that go home from, you know, a food shelter. It doesn’t have to be anything big.

Think about who could you reach out to? Is there a neighbor that might feel lonely this Valentine’s Day? Maybe there’s another widow or widower. Maybe there’s a single parent. Maybe there’s an elderly neighbor that it would feel good to you to check on and it would feel good for them to know that someone cares about them. Maybe you send them a text, maybe you write them a note. Those little things feel good to us and they feel good to others and they create connection within our community.

And maybe there’s something going local, going on local. That sounds like fun. Maybe there’s an event or an activity in your community. Sometimes it can just feel good to be in the presence of others, knowing that everyone in that space where you are has experienced pain. Everyone in that space where you are, they might not know the exact loss that you have been through, but I guarantee you they know loss. And there can be a connection in that, right?

It’s also easy to go into a space and look at how you don’t fit in, but it is possible to go into a space and remind yourself that everyone in here is also a human that has hard days and challenging life experiences just like you. And community connection can remind us that love extends beyond the immediate circle, beyond our immediate family. And it’s something we can give and it’s something we can receive.

And then the last pillar that I want you to consider is your connection to your late partner, your partner, your person. Because I know this holiday can bring up, shine a giant spotlight on the ache of missing them. And that’s totally normal and that’s totally okay. And also I want to remind you that your connection to them did not end when they died, right? That connection is something you can still generate through your thoughts, through the love that you carry for them, through the way that you think about them, the way that you talk about them, the stories that you tell about them, right?

When you think about a favorite memory or something that made you laugh, that connection is alive. When you hear their favorite song or you cook their favorite meal, it’s a way of bringing them into your present moment. And so if this feels comforting, give it a try. Intentionally focus on the connection that you can create with your person, even though they’re no longer physically here.

Maybe you write them a letter and you tell them what’s been on your mind and what you miss, or what you think they would say to you right now. Maybe you have a ritual, maybe you light a candle, maybe you spend time looking at photos, or you take a walk somewhere that was meaningful or important to you. Remind yourself of how they loved you. Remind yourself of how it felt for you to love them. Remind yourself that that love still exists within you. Because our connection to our person is something that we carry with us. You carry that with you, it’s yours. And it’s always available to you when you need it. No one can ever take it from you. Sometimes we just need to be reminded of that.

So whether you choose to focus on yourself, your family, your community, your partner, or you just skip Valentine’s Day altogether, there’s no right, there’s no wrong. You can approach this day any way you want.

The most important thing is that you honor what feels right for you. So remember, connection does not have to be elaborate or fancy. Sometimes it is most found in the small, intentional moments that we create. And that’s what I wish for you this Valentine’s Day.

If this episode resonated with you, I would love for you to share it with someone who might need it, or leave a review to help others find it. Subscribe so that you never miss an episode and so that it tells the podcast gods that this podcast is valuable.

And as always remember, I love you. You’ve got this. Take care, and I’ll see you next week. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

If you like what you’ve been hearing on this podcast and want to create a future you can truly get excited about even after the loss of your spouse, I invite you to join my Mom Goes On coaching program. It’s small group coaching just for widowed moms like you where I’ll help you figure out what’s holding you back and give you the tools and support you need so you can move forward with confidence. 

Please don’t settle for a new normal that’s less than what you deserve. Go to coachingwithkrista.com and click Work With Me for details and next steps. I can’t wait to meet you.