Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - How to Turn Up the Heat this Valentine's Day...Even if You're Single!

Episode Date: February 9, 2022

Love is in the air! Whether you are single or coupled up, Valentine’s Day offer us a special opportunity to pause and celebrate love, romance, and passion. On this episode of “The Language of Love,” Dr. Laura Berman will teach you how you can make this V-Day your most memorable yet, even if you normally approach the day with dread. On this episode you will discover: • Why Valentine’s Day is so much more than just a “Hallmark holiday” • What gift(s) your partner REALLY wants for Valentine’s Day – surprise, it’s not necessarily jewelry or lingerie! • The best date night ideas for V-day that are affordable and approachable for couples of all budgets • How you can use Feb. 14 as an invitation from the universe to deepen your bond with your partner • How to celebrate YOURSELF this Valentine’s Day, whether you are single or with a partner Listen in to this special Valentine’s Day episode and get ready to make this Feb. 14 as passionate and magical as you desire. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm Dr. Laura Berman, a sex and relationship therapist. And for the past three decades, I've been helping people learn how to love and be loved better. That's what we're doing here on The Language of Love, where I get to answer calls and emails from people just like you. My goal with The Language of Love is to help you discover more meaningful emotional and physical intimacy, and to help you build more awareness of how precious and sacred your sexuality really is. Be sure to email me or reach out with your very own love sex relationship

questions, and I might just answer them live on the air. It's time we all become fluent in the language of love. I just wanted to spend some time talking about how, in my opinion, you can best use Valentine's Day and this occasion to really benefit your relationship, whether you're in one currently or want to create one moving forward. You know, Valentine's Day obviously is February 14th across the United States, even other places in the world. And the history of Valentine's Day is based on the story of its patron saint, Saint Valentine. And the real Saint Valentine, There are evidently several versions of St. Valentine, Valentinius, all different versions who were martyred saints, according to the Catholic Church. But evidently, the common belief is that or the legend is that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome.

And when Emperor Claudius II decided that single men would make better soldiers than those with wives and families, because he felt like they wouldn't take as many risks, that emperor outlawed marriage for young men because he wanted them to go to war for him. Well, Valentine, realizing this injustice, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. And when Valentine's actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he be put to death. Now, others say it was St. Valentine of Turney. You know, they're all different versions. But in each story, it's because it's a story of someone standing up for love. And that's really what Valentine's Day is supposed to be. It's supposed to be a claiming of the importance of and the celebration of love.

And what it often becomes is a demonstration of value, which is a very different conversation. And so a lot of what I see, especially among women and especially among women who work with a whole lot of other women, is that they want that huge bouquet of flowers or that big romantic gesture so that they can show their friends that they're really valued or they compare what they got to their friends. And it's really not about the size of the flowers or the bauble or whatever the gesture was. What we all are really fundamentally wanting is to feel like not only love is being celebrated, but that our love is being deeply valued, that the person that we're with is really grateful for our love, loves us deeply in return and wants to celebrate that. Now, I also believe that every day should be like a Valentine's Day, right? It shouldn't be just one day a year that you're proclaiming your love and doing nice gestures for your partner. But it is a holiday that gives you an opportunity to do something really special. Now, do you have to spend a lot of money? Absolutely not.

In fact, the research shows that, yeah, a gift or a bauble or flowers is lovely. But then the benefits of that actually wear off more quickly than taking your partner on a beautiful romantic experience. Now, if you can afford tickets to something or a trip, OK, that's great. But most people can't. And you don't have to spend a lot of money to give your partner an amazing experience. Send the kids to grandma and set up a gorgeous, beautiful picnic on the floor or take him or her out for a picnic or go on a beautiful hike. And put a scavenger hunt together where you put little gifts, even if they're little $1 things up the trail for him or her to find. Make a photo album of your life together. Make a beautiful and hilarious gift certificate book where you hand draw different gift certificates for massages, for taking the kids for the day, for giving them a free pass to go on a girl's trip or a guy's trip. and you'll stay home and take care of the kids. You know, there's lots of things you can do

that show your effort and show your investment. And I also feel that for couples in relationships, Valentine's Day, and this is how I like to treat it in my life too, is a great time to make relationship resolutions. So what I mean by that is that it's a great time to revisit what's working in your relationship and what you wanna create more of moving forward.

So here are some great exercises for doing that. First of all, one thing you can do, and I suggest you maybe even say this to your partner on Valentine's Day and offer it as an exercise you can do together, is to list five things that your partner does to make you feel loved. New from Nespresso, blend wellness into your coffee routine with the Coffee Plus range, infused with functional benefits. Choose the coffee you love with added B vitamins, like Coffee Plus B12 to help support immune function and coffee plus b6 to keep your day moving or go with the flow and choose ginseng

delight our new double espresso with ginseng extract whatever lies ahead don't change your morning let your morning change you discover coffee plus on espresso.com okay now these are in the positive so you don't say he doesn't criticize me right you say he points out things that I'm doing right and compliments me, right? So you say everything in the positive, those five things, and share them with each other. The other is to think about and list goals that you wanna create for yourselves

moving forward in the next year. Do you wanna make a commitment to a weekly date night? Do you wanna make sure to go on a vacation alone, even if it's a staycation at a local hotel, at least once this year? Because couples who go on a vacation alone without the kids actually have just one time a year for a couple of days, have deeper levels of intimacy and connection than couples who go on a weekly date night. So is it that you want to

spend more quality time together? Right. So positive goals that you may have. And the other part of those positive goals, if you're struggling or if you think it may be something that could devolve into criticism is to make each make a list of three ways you most want to feel in your love relationship this year. So I maybe it's I most want to feel playful, adventurous and passionate. And then you share it with your partner, not in the form of like you're not making me feel this way. But these are the three ways that I most want to feel this way in love. And what you mean by that is that each of you are making a commitment to not only try to create more scenarios that create that feeling in your partner, and you're going to get clear on what those are, but you're also making a commitment as the one who wants those feelings to take some responsibility for that as well. So if you want more playfulness in your relationship, what are you willing to do?

So when you present your list, you say, OK, I want to feel these three ways. And then with each of those three ways, you write down a few things that your partner does or could do, once again, in the positive or that you could do together that would support those feelings, right? So if it's that you want to feel more playful, maybe you're going to go to a fair or amusement park at least once this year. Right. Or you're going to go to a comedy club and laugh and then go silly string the neighborhood. I don't know. I'm making these things up. But think about as you because it's not enough to just say you want to be playful because our partners don't really even understand what that means. And a lot of times we don't even understand what that means. What does it mean in action? What does it look like? What would be some scenarios that would really feel playful or passionate or exciting or cherishing or whatever that is that you want to feel?

And what are you willing to do also to create more of that in your lives? I'll do the research on the amusement parks. Right. I'll find us three or four to choose from. What are you willing to do to create more of that too? Because what your partner is going to want to see in order to not get defensive is that you're taking responsibility for this. It isn't a criticism and you're excited to share this with them. And if both of you do that, even just with three feelings, that becomes the litmus test and the lens through which you're going to view a lot of the decisions you make in the

year to come. New from Nespresso. Blend wellness into your coffee routine with the Coffee Plus range. infused with functional benefits. Choose the coffee you love with added B vitamins like Coffee Plus B12 to help support immune function and Coffee Plus B6 to keep your day moving. Or go with the flow and choose Ginseng Delight,

our new double espresso with ginseng extract. Whatever lies ahead, don't change your morning. Let your morning change you. Discover Coffee Plus on Nespresso.com. Now, what do you do if you're single? Does not mean you need to stay in and eat pizza. There are so many things you can do. There are so many singles feeling like you do

as Valentine's approaches and everybody's in their cute little relationships and making their plans. So offer to babysit your friend's kids and do something to support your friends. Go and volunteer somewhere on Valentine's Day. You'll meet lots of new people. You'll connect with people

who maybe know potential mates for you or maybe you'll meet a potential mate. Do something really cherishing and yummy for yourself. Go get a massage or give yourself a mani-pedi or do something that makes you feel really good. Do something to kind of indulge yourself a little bit. Eat a little yummy chocolate. Watch some really great rom-com movies with your girlfriends or guy friends and probably

don't like rom-com movies if you're a guy, but you know what I'm saying. So the key is not necessarily staying inside and feeling sorry for yourself, but really getting out there in the world and doing to some extent what I talked about the couples doing, getting really, really clear about how you want to feel in love, okay? Because you're wanting to attract that in. So if you have the perfect person and you imagine that that person was with you, how would you be feeling in love every day? And choose those top three feelings and make a commitment to yourself to do something every day that inspires those feelings in you. Because I can promise if you are feeding those feelings that you most want to experience in love,

I guarantee you, you will attract in people who also value those feelings, who inspire those feelings in you, who participate in those feelings with you. And if they aren't potential mates, They will know potential mates who you are going to be attracted to. So you are attracting in more of what you want when you live in those feelings and you are attracting in and being attracted to people who are also aligned with those feelings. Feelings create our frequency. Frequency is energy. That's the secret of quantum love, as I'm always talking about.

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