Ep #73: Reinventing Valentine’s Day

You are listening to The Midlife Sex Coach for Women™ Podcast episode 73.

Welcome to The Midlife Sex Coach for Women™ Podcast, the only show that combines a fun personality, medical knowledge, sexual counseling, and life coaching together. To create unique sex coaching that helps busy women awaken their libidos, address intimacy issues, and learn how to express their sexuality for the rest of their days. Here is your host, certified life coach and sexual counselor, Dr. Sonia Wright.

Hello, Diamonds. How are you? I’m just loving life out here in Minnesota. Welcome to February. And February means that love is in the air. Yeah, okay, I have a lot of skills but singing is not one of them, but that’s okay I can still sing it. Love is in the air everywhere you look around. Love is in the air, every sight and every sound. Yes, it’s that time of year again. Valentine’s Day is almost here. And this podcast episode is dedicated to all the last minute people that I’ve seen in Walgreens every year grabbing the cards, and the box of chocolates in order to be let into the house.

I seldom see excitement on their faces. They’re looking for that perfect card in a pile of picked over cards. It’s usually a, I like you kind of card. I also dub it the roommate card. I say it’s one of the most stressful and reluctant group of people that I ever see in the world. And at one time I was right there with them. Many of you know my story of being in a sexless relationship for years.

And of course, when the sex goes the overall intimacy in the relationship has already been missing for months, if not years before that, hence the need for the roommate card because you’re usually living parallel lives at this point. And the roommate usually puts off that card and that gift till the last minute because it reminds them of what they’ve lost. So, it’s not just about the Valentine’s Day requirements of a card and chocolate which I honestly think is foolish. But anyway, we’ll talk more about that. It’s what the day represents and reminds us about.

For many people, Valentine’s Day is about loss and regret, it’s about uncomfortable emotions and not knowing what to do to fix the situation even if the intimacy and the love are there, Valentine’s Day can still be a lot of expectations, expectations that I believe are totally unnecessary. So, in this run up to Valentine’s Day, I was thinking, what is it that I can do to help my Diamonds, all my Diamonds, not just the ones who are the last minute card shoppers. But also, the ones who have mad, passionate, sexy, intimacy, a lot of the times.

And of course, how can I help everybody that is in between? So, I decided to host a free flowerside chat, I have these chats periodically. And I’m going to be hosting one on Sunday right before Valentine’s Day. And if you want to see how to get involved with that, just look at the show notes for more details. So, let’s talk about today’s topic.

Today’s topic is about reinventing Valentine’s Day. Why? And why not, why not reinvent Valentine’s Day? During this pandemic so many things have been redefined, work has shifted from the office to home. Kids are taking hybrid classes, some of them in school, some of them out of school. Masks are now an everyday thing. Our lives are changing in so many different ways. Why don’t we just change and redefine Valentine’s Day as well? I’m going to call Valentine’s Day, V Day just because it takes a lot to say Valentine’s all the time.

So, as I mentioned before, V Day has become one of the most dreaded holidays in the year. And why is it so dreaded? Because on V Day we can’t avoid our intimacy issues. The rest of the year you can ignore the big elephant in the room but not on Valentine’s Day. It hits us right in the face. If there are any intimacy issues in our lives, V Day unmasks them so fast. It’s like the smelly poop in the baby diaper on the plane, there is no hiding from it. So why is Valentine’s Day so smelly? Well, society has set up expectations.

There are so many expectations around Valentine’s Day that it’s almost impossible for it not to smell bad. It’s almost a given that V Day will be a fail in some way. If we set it up that the dinner has to be perfect, and the food must be tasty, and the ambience must be romantic, that’s a lot to set in place. That’s a lot of expectations. Then we’re also, the card has to be perfect, it must profess our undying love. And the flowers must be bountiful and beautiful without feeling contrived.

And then there’s the pressure to have sex no matter what is going on in your lives. And it just can’t be every day ordinary sexual intimacy, it has to be the best sex of the year. This is really a lot of pressure. By the time the evening comes you’re so stressed out and thinking about this performance anxiety that you’re probably no longer in the mood. And at this point you’re just like, let’s just take one for the team and get it over with. And if you’re solo partnered you’re probably telling yourself things about your self-worth because you’re not on a date or you don’t have a partner on Valentine’s Day.

All I want to know is why? Why do we put so much pressure on ourselves for one day? Why do we buy into this hype that the media has said about Valentine’s Day being so important? Why do we allow society to dictate what this day has to be about for us? You know what? I am completely through with society, social media and marketing’s concept of what an acceptable Valentine’s Day is. I’m throwing it all out. And I’m asking you, what would you like Valentine’s Day to be about for you?

Always remember, Diamonds, that you have a choice in all things. You don’t have to buy into this Valentine’s Day hype, you can rework Valentine’s in your own image, in your own ideas. This one special day gets to be about you and you get to define it for yourself. Or even better, what if Valentine’s Day were 365 days of the year instead of being so pressured and compressed into a 24 hour period in February? What would it look like if we did a thought cascade around Valentine’s Day?

Some of you are familiar with the model for The Life Coach School. It’s the same concept. There’s a neutral situation or a circumstance and that would be 24 hours in February which is labeled as a romantic time. Then what is your thought around that? Is your thought something like, I’m so excited to experience Valentine’s Day? Or maybe your thought is, I’m dreading it. It always leads to problems or there’s something wrong with me because I’m alone on Valentine’s Day. Or maybe your thought is, I have to order those damn expensive flowers today.

Just put down whatever thought is running in your mind right now around Valentine’s Day. And then look at that thought and ask yourself, what is the emotion that’s coming up? Is it dread? Is it excitement? Is it curiosity? Is it annoyance? And you know what? Also let it be okay that whatever your thoughts are and whatever your feeling is around Valentine’s Day, that that is not a problem. And then next look and see, how do these emotions, the way you’re feeling, how is it making you act? What actions are you taking as a result of this emotion?

Are you dreading things, so therefore you’re buying your cards at the last moment? Are you annoyed so you’re grumpy for the whole month? Are you excited so you’re planning the whole day? And then ultimately what is the result that you get from doing this? Are you more connected with yourself and/or with your partner or are you less connected? And I think this is an important question to ask yourself. So, answer this question. What is the purpose of Valentine’s Day for you? What is the purpose of V Day?

Understanding what V Day means for you will get you closer to the results that you would like in your life. So, look at what you’re currently creating around Valentine’s Day and see if this aligns with your values and your concepts of what you think the purpose of Valentine’s Day is and what you would like Valentine’s Day to be for you. And I want to know, what the heck is up with this 24 hour thing around love? Let’s get real. It really has evolved into a marketing gimmick. But you know what? You can take this love day back.

Why do we need one special day to remind us of the love in our lives anyway? If you’re currently in a relationship, Dr. Sonia’s triad of sexual intimacy can be in effect at all times. And actually, let me tell you, you are all in a relationship whether you have a partner or not. So, Dr. Sonia’s triad of sexual intimacy is in effect at all times, satisfaction, connection and pleasure with yourself or with somebody else. And that can happen any time, any day of the year. And what if we decided that Valentine’s Day were more about the small things like the touch, the laughter, eyes meeting, connection?

Or what if Valentine’s Day was about loving yourself and not focusing on whether or not you even had a partner? I love the idea of Palentine’s Day which has emerged in the last couple of years. What about Minentime’s Day, as in this day is mine and it’s all about me? I’m going to repeat that, Minentime’s Day. I was trying to figure out a word like Valentine’s, Palentine’s, Malentime’s. I was like, no, Malentime’s, not exactly but how about Minentime’s? So, I’m all advocating for a Minentime’s Day. This is my time, this is my day, it’s Minentime’s.

What would you do to treat yourself? How would you love yourself? Diamonds, I am so done with society or anyone telling me how to define Valentine’s Day for me. Valentine’s needs to be more than a box of chocolates, and a flimsy card, and a dinner, and a halfhearted fuck. What if Valentine’s Day were about recommitting to your relationship with yourself and/or with your partner? What would Valentine’s Day look like then? What if on Valentine’s Day you wrote down all the ways you need to be loved, and you need to feel love, and you need to give love?

What if on Valentine’s Day you wrote down all of your dreams? How loving would it be to yourself if you fulfilled all those dreams? And if you have a partner they can write down all their stuff too, what their dreams are. I don’t think there’s anything more loving than sharing your dreams, and being vulnerable, and loving yourself, and loving others through the whole process. What if Valentine’s Day were day one of a loving, dreaming year? And then you work through that year to fulfill your dreams.

And if you have a friend or partner you share the experience of fulfilling your dreams and their dreams together. What if it were not about manipulating or coercing someone to make you feel better? What if you didn’t have to have the perfect dinner, or the perfect jewelry, or the perfect flowers, or whatever in order to feel love? What if the purpose of the loving year was to create the love for yourself and share your loving experiences with others? How do you want to show up on Valentine’s Day in February of 2022?

And also, how do you want to show up on Valentine’s Day a year later in February of 2023 after experiencing 365 days of the loving year? You know what? I bet gone would be the need for Valentine’s Day to be exactly right so that you can say that somebody loves you. You would realize that your amazing value is not based on how good Valentine’s Day is. It’s based upon how you love yourself and your partner over the next year. Wouldn’t it be fun to find out what you would like to do for yourself over the next year and what your partner would like to do for themselves over the next year?

Wouldn’t you like to find that fun adventure experience for you? Maybe you just want to read a book? Maybe you want to travel? Maybe you want to sleep? Maybe you want to take dancing lessons. Maybe you want to snorkel. Maybe you just want to walk the Louvre. Maybe you want to go on a safari. Maybe you want to go back to your ancestral lands, whatever it is that will soothe your soul and make you happy. How about between February of this year and February of next year, you do it?

What if the experience of Valentine’s Day were all about sharing what excites you and what the possibilities are in your life? And here’s another thought, what if sex were actually removed from Valentine’s Day? I know, the sex coach is telling you to remove sex from Valentine’s Day, but I am. What if we put a moratorium on sex? I’m not telling you not to have sex. I’m just theorizing, what would it mean? How would that impact your Valentine’s Day, what then? What if there was no sex but lots and lots of love, what then?

Every time I suggest to one of my clients to stop having penetrative sex it alleviates so much stress for them. Of course, we add it back in. But we stop it for a while so that we can reduce the stress and we can look and see what our thoughts are and what’s been happening in our lives with that stress there and then we do something about it. We look at our thoughts, we work on changing our thoughts as we add back in the sexual intimacy, and we create something new. What if you could have sex on 364 days of the year but not on Valentine’s Day?

I wonder what the meaning of Valentine’s Day would be at that point. Maybe Valentine’s Day would become a lot about sharing, and connection, and fun, and excitement. And okay, my final thought would be, let’s make Valentine’s Day a no expectation zone, no flowers, no jewelry, no sex, no dinners, nothing expected. What if we just got to this place where we didn’t expect anything specific for Valentine’s Day, except maybe having a good time and having fun or connecting? But if you don’t have any expectations then what does your Valentine’s Day get to be about?

You know, that they have those build your own burger bars? What if you had a build your own Valentine’s Day bar, what would you put in it? I think I would put cuddles, and sleeping, and a babysitter, and recommitting to myself, and to my lover. I think I would put a time to dream just in general, dream about vacations and dream about businesses. Maybe I would take a cooking class, or maybe it would be a time for goofy jokes, some dad jokes, or some mom jokes, or some non-binary jokes and lots of laughter.

Perhaps it would be a massage but I would definitely put the focus on fun and connection. Maybe Valentine’s Day would be about creating and fortifying the foundation of a relationship and maybe about communication. What would you put in your V Day burger bar? This is a question that I have for you.

Okay Diamonds, I’m going to wrap it up, that’s all that I have for this week. But if you’d like to discuss what Valentine’s Day looks like for you now and what you would like it to look like then why don’t you join us and join me specifically for my flowerside chat on February 6^th of this year of 2022? And we’re going to have a special flowerside chat and Q&A where we’ll work on creating your own special Valentine’s Day for you. You can sign up with the link in the show notes. Okay, lots of love, Dr. Sonia out.

Diamonds, have you wanted to work with me in a small intimate group? Well, this is your last chance at least for probably a year or so but it’s not too late. If you’d like to join us in the OYSN intimate edition which is a small group of committed women that want to work on their sexuality and dive deep into whatever intimacy issues are going on in their lives then this is the program for you. And I am the sex coach for you of course. Come join me, Dr. Sonia as we do the work together for the next 90 days. Click on the link in the show notes and look and see if this is a right fit for you.

We would love to have you join us, the women in this group are amazing. And I am just so excited about the work that we’re going to be doing over the next 90 days. Come on, join us, we would love to have you. Diamonds, Dr. Sonia out.