Valentine’s Day (or all holidays): The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

I am consistently amazed at how many of us set ourselves up to be miserable around a holiday.  How you ask?  By doing one single thing: having certain expectations around it.  For Valentine’s you may be assuming you will get chocolates, flowers, a massage, or even a proposal.  For Christmas you may be expecting to have your whole family together for once.

 How do you feel when your boy/girlfriend, partner, etc. brings you a single red rose  - delivered with a perfunctory peck on the cheek - and a “this is for you for Valentine’s”?  What was your first reaction when one of your kids announced that they would NOT be coming home for the holidays but were going to their girl/boy friend’s family instead?  If we were expecting different behaviors from our loved ones, my guess is that our two primary feelings are anger and hurt. 

My next question to you is how do you behave towards the other person when angry and hurt?  Probably not as a person who another person wants to give chocolates to or sit with at the Christmas dinner table, right?  Guilty!!!!  I have certainly found it challenging to be in a calm, problem solving mode in those circumstances!

What if you didn’t have any expectations?  What if you were grateful for whatever someone else chooses to give you, whenever, whether objects or time?

Dating coach, Stacy Perry, and I discuss how expectations set us up for failure in our Valentine’s Day: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly broadcast.  Recognizing they have choices, she and her husband do not give each other gifts on Valentine’s or Christmas because they give each other things year round.  I told my partner that there would be 3 or 4 “command performances” a year, which would be clearly expressed ahead of time, when I really wanted him to go to an event with me.  The rest were optional.  Expressing this clearly freed both of us up to get what we needed (an escort for me) or alone time (for him).

Having expectations for others or for things we cannot control leads to a lot of stress and negativity in our lives.  Practice not having any!  

Check out Stacy’s and my conversation here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LOSvRc0W5o&list=PL2mJRFNbd_wgS7_aD-miOsd2A3YNXNXy5&index=10