2013 Wellness Challenge Week 32: Love
It’s a touchy subject, so most people don’t ask. In fact, they just assume I’m against it or something. Just like most people assume I’m a vegetarian, which I think is hilarious. To set the record straight, I’m not.
A couple weeks back my boyfriend and I celebrated our 8-year anniversary. We beat most of our married friends combined for how long we’ve been together, and yet we still are not married. From a practical standpoint it’s a bit of a head-scratcher when you start to consider insurance benefits, the whole military convenience factor of being a spouse rather than a “girlfriend,” and the big elephant in the room – technically we’re not supposed to live together because that’s against the beliefs of a certain parent.
But then, since when was love ever practical, logical, rational or sane?
This week I decided to practice love. I say practice because it can be a difficult thing for us wildly independent souls. Love comes in many forms, so let’s dive in to what practicing love looks like in the context of a wellness challenge.
Cultivating Loving Relationships
I’ve always considered myself a sarcastic and independent person. That means that I can be argumentative at times for the sake of standing up for myself. That means I make comments sometimes just to get a laugh. And it definitely means that I instigate and start fights on purpose for a little more fun. Maybe you do the same?
Instead of criticizing for the sake of humor, sarcasm and independence, I tried on appreciation instead. The act of appreciation can greatly shift a relationship from one of resentment to one of deep love if only we express what we’re grateful for about the other person on a regular basis. Research by Sara Algoe out of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and some of her colleagues found that couples who express gratitude for their partners feel more connected and satisfied with their relationships. Further research by Annie M. Gordon our of the University of California – Berkeley found that appreciating each other on a regular basis creates a cycle of gratitude that leads to longer-lasting relationships filled with generosity and reciprocity. Most of us aren’t necessarily lacking in love, but we are lacking in acknowledging the love we have for others and ourselves – but we’ll get to that in a minute.
I’ll be honest, for someone not used to expressing gratitude and appreciation about another person on a regular basis, this is a pretty difficult practice to upkeep. Surprise, surprise.
I’ve heard of families practicing gratitude at the dinner table – how can you appreciate your significant other more on a daily basis?
Loving Yourself
This is the biggie, especially as it relates to wellness. We’ve all heard the adage that we can’t love someone else until we learn how to love ourselves. It’s funny how it seems easier to love someone else though.
For me, loving myself this past week meant taking responsibility for what I wanted and doing something about it. I want to be a healthy person and I want to exercise on a daily basis. It makes me feel good and most of the time yoga can fill that checkbox. But my daily practice has suffered as of late due to a variety of reasons ranging from finances to availability to lack of discipline to boredom. So instead of struggling to find ways to fit yoga in, I turned to other options, such as running and pulling out old fitness DVD’s to switch things up. Funnily enough, I got more yoga in than I have most weeks.
Loving myself also meant making conscious decisions about eating cupcakes – as in Hell Yes! I’m going to buy myself some cupcakes even if that seems counterintuitive to the whole “healthy” paradigm mentioned above. Enjoying life is a healthy practice too and I happen to really enjoy cupcakes. Loving yourself is not feeling guilty when you’ve just polished off 4 cupcakes in the span of 24 hours. Besides, I deserve it for running a mile for the first time in five years!
What Love and Wellness Have in Common
Love and wellness both are about respect and growth. Respecting and appreciating yourself and other people and loving and respecting the growth that occurs when you appreciate and support each other to be the best person you can be creates wellness. That doesn’t mean you have to be the same person, just the best unique you that you already are. Someone who is able to help you be more you is someone worth loving. This is the basis for a healthy relationship.
So the question remains – why am I not married? The answer is I’m really not sure – we just haven’t gotten around to it. I appreciate my boyfriend because he allows me to be me in all my wildly independent ways and I appreciate him for being uniquely him – he is quite unique. I appreciate him for his dreams and visions and positive thinking. And I don’t think he appreciates me for my “logical” practicality that at times begets negative brooding about the future. Between the two of us, we’re an intelligent, funny, lighthearted pair that love to have fun together and work hard at the things we love. That includes our relationship.
If marriage is about sharing a life together, then we’re already well into that journey. I guess we’re not missing out on anything other than stereotypes and a lot of presents.
Image credit: @Doug88888
