lifestyle Self-love and self-pleasure during V-Day

Gracie Moore, Lifestyle Editor, offers her advice on reclaiming Valentine's Day

VALENTINE'S Day can be tricky for single people. The mixture of feeling happy for our friends in healthy, loving relationships mixed with the envy we can sometimes experience from this is enough to be frustrating. However, arguably, this is the time for us to reclaim our sexuality and self-compassion to treat ourselves like someone we love.

Undoubtedly, the one benefit to being single during the most loving time of the year is that spending more time alone means you get to explore your own wants, desires and boundaries on your own. Whether that be emotional or even sexual preferences, this can be a great time to become at peace with yourself. There is no constant worry of needing to show up for someone else, especially as it can sometimes be dif ficult to show up for ourselves.

Personally, my recommenda - tion during this time is to do what makes you happy, no matter who else you feel like you have to please. For me (if I wasn’t in a student house!) this would include a relaxing bath with candles and my favourite jazz music play ing — like a scene straight out of a movie. Also, there would ideally be no body around to disturb me, so I have time with my own thoughts. Perhaps you could even con vert Valentine’s Day into showing love to your friends instead (similar to pop culture’s coinage of the term 'Galentine’s'), choosing to have a lovely homemade meal with them, doing some baking or watching a classic film on Netflix. In addition to this, it is important we encourage self-love and self-pleasure to avoid the idea of being reliant on someone else to fulfill these needs. Realistically, we don’t need anyone else to fill the gaps when we take the time to really discover what makes us happy. Self-pleasure, despite still being relatively taboo, truly is a wonderful way to connect to yourself, relieve stress and be calm. There is much less shame surrounding solo sex and it is a very easy method to practise selflove. Also, there is nothing better than being able to pleasure yourself how you’d like to be pleasured without the added awkwardness or occasional embarrassment that can come from sex with another person. More than anything, it is essential that you take care of yourself exactly how you deserve. Everyone has different love languages and exploring yours can help you become more secure in your state of being single. There is a lot of freedom associated with being single and it opens up different opportunities that wouldn’t exist in a relationship. If you struggle to practise selflove, live your life by this phrase: If it makes you feel happy, safe and sexy, just do it.

As Miley Cyrus has declared in her most recent song, you can buy yourself flowers — trust me, you really don't need anyone else to do it for you.