Sara Sweat, MA – Founder, Monarch
I have not traditionally been a fan of Valentine’s Day.
In fact, I used to send my friends an e-card with a sarcastic purple Anti-Valentine’s Day bear every February. He spouted facts like “did you know that Valentine’s Day actually celebrates the hanging of St. Valentine” and “Cupid? That guy creeps me out”.
Whether I was in a relationship that year or not – it was my way of saying: this holiday is absurd, commercialized nonsense – and I refuse to participate.
But, as I’ve gotten older, my perspective has changed. I still think Valentine’s Day is kind of absurd, but not because it celebrates love. Because it focuses on celebrating the wrong kind.
We spend so much time thinking about romantic love—hoping for it, finding it, keeping it, optimizing it—that we completely miss the relationship that determines the quality of every other relationship in our lives.
The one with ourselves.
The Self-Abandonment Default
If you’re a high achiever who’s been through hard things, self-abandonment is probably your default setting. You learned early that value came from what you could do for others, not from who you were.
You became excellent at reading the room, anticipating needs, and making sure everyone else was okay—usually before you even registered what you needed yourself.
This strategy was adaptive and helpful. People praised your attentiveness. They relied on your perspective and cheered your ability to handle whatever came your way. You built a life and a career by being the person who sees what others miss and knows how to get things done.
But, the cost? You stopped showing up for yourself.
You said “yes” before you even realized you meant “no”. You kept going when your body begged you to stop. You achieved and performed and delivered—all while ignoring the quiet voice inside asking, “What about me?”
And now, you’re exhausted. Not just physically tired, but soul-tired. Because you’ve been trying to earn love, acceptance, and worthiness from the outside while treating yourself like an afterthought on the inside.
How We Love Ourselves Is How We Love Others
Here’s something I’ve learned working with hundreds of high performers: The way you treat yourself sets the template for every relationship in your life.
If you’re harsh with yourself, you’ll be harsh with others—or you’ll tolerate harshness from them. If you ignore your own needs, you’ll either resent others for having needs or feel threatened when they voice them. If you can’t forgive yourself for being human, you won’t be able to extend real grace to anyone else.
Self-love isn’t the opposite of loving others. It’s the foundation that makes loving others possible. Because we can only give what we have. And, if you’ve never learned to love yourself—honestly, fully, and without conditions—you don’t have a reservoir to draw from when loving somebody else.
Think about the last time you were sick. Did you ask for help with your chores, make yourself some soup, pour a glass of something fizzy, and rest? Or, did you push through your daily tasks while feeling exhausted, resentful, and unappreciated?
If you’re anything like me, you probably chose the latter. And, that resentment colored the way you spoke to everyone you encountered that day – and maybe even how their own requests for support felt when they were unwell.
If we had gone with door #1 (caring for ourselves), we would have been resourced. We would have been rested, grateful for support, and relaxed. Still sick…but still you. Because taking good care of yourself creates a repository from which you can draw.
The love you’ve been trying so hard to give everyone else? It starts here. With you.
Learning to Listen to Yourself
For most of us, tuning into ourselves feels awkward at first. We’re so used to scanning everyone else’s frequency that our own signal feels weak, distant, unfamiliar.
But, self-attunement—the practice of actually listening to what you need—is a skill you can develop. And, it starts with something simple: noticing.
Notice your body. Not to judge it or fix it, but to hear what it’s telling you. Are you hungry? Tired? Tense? Does your stomach feel tight when you think about that meeting? Does your chest feel light when you imagine saying no to plans?
Your body holds wisdom you’ve been ignoring. It knows when something feels wrong long before your mind catches up. So, start paying attention. Not to override the signals, but to honor them.
Notice your emotions without judgment. High achievers are often taught that emotions are inconvenient interruptions to productivity or irrelevant details in the grand scheme of someone else’s needs. But, emotions are data. They’re information about what matters to you, what you value, what you need.
Practice naming what you feel: “I’m feeling overwhelmed.” “I’m feeling resentful.” “I’m feeling lonely.” Not to fix it immediately, but just to acknowledge it. To say, “This feeling is here, and it’s allowed to be.”
Notice what drains you and what fills you. Pay attention to how you feel after spending time with certain people. After certain activities. After saying yes to things you wanted to say no to.
Who or what leaves you feeling energized? Who or what leaves you feeling depleted? There’s no judgment here—just information. And, that information can guide you toward choices that actually honor who you are instead of who you think you should be.
Treating Yourself Like You Matter
Once you start noticing, the next step is responding. Now, I’ll be honest – at first, this part is going to piss you right off. I can’t tell you the number of years I spent saying “after everything I’ve been through & all the hard work of healing from it – I still have to take care of myself?!?!”
It is the epitome of irony that after taking such attentive care of everyone else’s needs – usually to your own detriment – you now have to go back and take care of yours, too.
This reality is harsh and unkind but uncomfortably true. The path to being cared for by others can only be carved by you.
No one will ever care for you – as well as you will care for yourself. You know your hurts, your needs, & your desires. You know what works and what just makes it worse. You know the why behind every trigger and the experience of every slight.
That’s why you feel resentful when others miss it. Because you see how easily you could be cared for if someone would just invest the time.
Community is vital for life and others can be a great part of our healing and support system. But, the people in our lives will always follow our lead. They will care for us the way they see us caring for ourselves.
Start small by asking “What do I need right now?” This simple question is an act of self-love. Even if you can’t meet the need in that moment, asking the question reminds you that your needs matter. That you’re worth paying attention to.
Maybe you need rest. Maybe you need movement. Maybe you need connection or solitude or a moment of silence. The answer will change from day to day, and that’s okay. The practice is in asking—and then, when possible, responding to that need with love, compassion, and priority.
Talk to yourself like you’d talk to someone you love. We’re often brutally harsh with ourselves in ways we’d never be with a friend. The inner critic that says, “You’re so stupid” or “You’ll never get this right” wouldn’t survive a single conversation with someone we actually cared about.
So, practice self-compassion. When you make a mistake, instead of spiraling into shame, try saying: “This is hard. But, it doesn’t have to be perfect for me to be safe.”
It will feel strange at first. Your brain might resist. But, keep practicing. Because the voice in your head shapes everything—your confidence, your resilience, your capacity to show up fully in the world.
Set boundaries without guilt. Boundaries aren’t mean. They’re not selfish. They’re clear. They teach people how to treat you—and remind you how to treat yourself with some respect.
Saying no to things that drain you isn’t a rejection of others. It’s an affirmation of yourself. It’s you saying: “My time matters. My energy matters. I matter, too.”
And, yes, people might be disappointed. They’ll probably push back. But, their discomfort with your boundaries is not your responsibility to manage. Your responsibility is to yourself first.
Celebrate the small things. You don’t need to wait for the big achievements to acknowledge yourself. Did you rest when you needed to? Did you speak up for yourself? Did you honor your feelings instead of stuffing them down?
Those are victories. Name them. Celebrate them. Let yourself feel proud—not because you performed well for others, but because you showed up for yourself.
What Happens Next
Learning to love yourself doesn’t make you soft, needy, or less capable of loving others. It expands your capacity for wholeness. For community. For love. And, for receiving care.
When you stop abandoning yourself, you stop expecting others to fill the void you’ve been ignoring. You stop performing for acceptance because you’ve already accepted yourself. You stop trying to earn worthiness because you’ve claimed it.
And, from that place of fullness, your relationships transform. You connect from authenticity instead of need. You give from overflow instead of depletion. You receive love without suspicion because you finally believe you deserve it.
The people in your life benefit when you learn to love yourself. Your partner gets the real you—not the version you think they want. Your children learn that their needs matter by watching you honor your own. Your friends experience genuine reciprocity instead of one-sided caretaking.
Because how you love yourself is how you love others. So, the world needs you to love yourself well.
A Different Kind of Valentine
So, this Valentine’s Day, forget the chocolates and flowers and grand romantic gestures.
Instead, I’m inviting you to the most important love story of your life: the one with yourself.
To the high achiever who’s forgotten how to rest.
To the cycle breaker who’s still trying to earn their right to exist.
To the one who shows up for everyone else but never for themselves.
You are the most important relationship you’ll ever have.
The one from which every other relationship in your life flows. And, if this relationship is broken, everything else will be, too.
You don’t have to keep proving your worth. You don’t have to keep earning your place. You don’t have to wait until you’re “healed enough” or “successful enough” or “together enough” to finally treat yourself with love.
Start right now. Right here. With one small act of self-attunement. One moment of choosing yourself. One choice to treat yourself like you actually matter.
Because you do, Monarch. You always have.
The love you’ve been searching for—the kind that finally makes you feel safe, seen, and enough—isn’t out there. It’s here. It’s been here all along.
Waiting for you to finally come home to yourself.
If you’re ready to build a relationship with yourself that transforms everything else, Monarch is here. Subscribe for free and let’s do this together.
