Reflections 

Will you be YOUR valentine? Will you give yourself love, kindness and compassion?

Before I knew there was the opportunity to lead this service on 14th Feb, I already had the idea of focussing on the ‘as yourself’ part of ‘Love your Neighbour as Yourself’.

My Grandma was a committed and humble Christian, her faith was clearly important to her and it guided her. 

The impression she gave me was that she did her utmost to love her neighbour. And my memories of her are that she would have been quite comfortable to stop there. The ‘As yourself’ bit carried no weight.

What does it mean if you love your neighbour as yourself, if you are self -critical and unkind to yourself? Would you be more comfortable if it were changed to ‘Love your neighbour MORE than yourself?’

We started the service with the African Children’s Choir performing at the opening of a Community Centre in Walsall. ‘This Little Light of Mine’ is a simple reminder that our inner contentment, joy and happiness is infectious when we let it shine. Yes – sometimes infections are good.

I chose Ken Dodd’s famous song ‘Happiness’ for the first reading today not just because the lyrics are simply lovely – but also because there is a common misconception that happiness is about the silliness of a tickling stick or about fun and joking around. As an usher at Ipswich Regent Theatre about 30 years ago, I witnessed a 65 year old Ken Dodd perform to a packed auditorium for 3 hours solid. It was joke after joke, laugh after laugh. But the song he nailed his colours to is about a deeper, lasting happiness. Happiness is deeper than a quick fix – whether that’s a side-splitting joke, a tickle from a feather duster, or whatever your indulgence is – even an extra slice of cake or bag of crisps. These are momentary treats – and are not about self-compassion or long term contentment. 

This leads me on to the reading Maggie shared on self-compassion. As a core of Tibetan Buddhist teaching, including the Dalai Lama’s  ‘The Art of Happiness’, there is a direct connection of self-compassion, with compassion towards others. In the excerpt, scholar Thupten Jinpa goes on to explain the importance of working on our inner contentment. Why?  So that this little inner light of ours shines brightly and each of us shares that light outwards on others.

Happiness is not just the concern of the religious. It is now a macros trend in my work as a Business Psychologist. Happiness is big in Business Leadership. Scholars at leading Universities – Yale, Harvard and Oxford – are researching happiness and finding that people who are deeply happy tend to make better decisions, are more productive and handle stress better. They lead others better too.

So what can we do to work on our self-compassion and build our happiness?

Giving yourself a moment to take deep breaths is a good starting point -getting some oxygen into the nooks and crannies of our bodies. You may have heard that singing helps this too. So I’ve included a some hymns and songs that I deliberately hope that you might find get stuck in your head for a while even after the service has ended. I hope you find yourself humming or singing, to yourself, or preferably out loud.

Mindfulness is finding something that enables you to be in the present moment. A place where you can just BE. Accepting how you are feeling – without judgement, without overreaction.

I know meditation can bring comfort and contentment. If Meditation/prayer or quiet contemplation is not your thing, you can still Be Your Own Valentine by gifting yourself some time to do something that means you lose thoughts of yesterday – and tomorrow. Whether it be yoga, watching cricket, knitting, gardening, watching garden birds at the feeder, reading a novel, baking or tinkering with your motorbike – they are important kindnesses to yourself.

This leads me into the next piece of music – my choice of REM’s ‘Everybody Hurts’. This is a reminder that central to self-compassion is accepting suffering. Everybody hurts – sometimes.

Sometimes, some days – some weeks or longer we have to handle hurt, which leads into the next element of self-compassion.

Self-Kindness – We need to be aware of when we are being self-critical, especially when we’re having a hard time. You know, going though things like navigating through a global pandemic …

Jinpa’s suggestion in the reading is to imagine ourselves as a small child. Would we be so hard on that child? You might also find it helpful to give yourself time to write down the noise in your head (or journaling as some call it) then to read back the inner thoughts. This can make it easier to notice just how self-critical we can be. I tend to call it my inner sock puppet – a grouch who tries to protect me from moving on. It may be trying to keep me safe, but in my case it’s just a sock.  In short – self kindness is about cutting ourselves some slack.

And finally

Common Humanity – this could be called counting our blessings. We are not alone in our suffering and to help this, a daily/weekly practice of ‘gratitudes’ can help.  In our little family – we now take turns to share three things, our three Highlights of the Week, which helps each of us recognise the good things – some big, many small, that can get lost in the noise of daily ‘stuff’. It has moved on from ‘something annoying Mum makes us do’ – to something my daughter prompts us to do.

So today – Will you be your own Valentine?

Self-compassion leads to compassion for others, helping us love our neighbours in healthy, positive, constructive, kind ways – as we love ourselves.

Thank you for giving me your time to invite you to consider your happiness.