What hurts most for many people on Valentine’s Day, in my work, are the relational wounds rooted in early experience — and those wounds may be conscious or not.

Whether you are single or in relationship, Valentine’s Day can bring excitement, joy, and pleasure, but can just as easily stir anxiety, pain, and disappointment. Often, we don’t acknowledge what we think of as “negative” feelings at all, because we are trying so hard to reach for the positive ones.

Many of us are deeply practiced in masking — in putting on a good show, or performing what happiness is supposed to look like. Sometimes we fool the person we’re with – sometimes we fool ourselves.
If we’re on our own, we may tell ourselves we don’t care — insisting we’re better off alone — while something quieter aches underneath.

For many people shaped by relational trauma, closeness can activate threat, while being alone can activate abandonment. Valentine’s Day has a way of amplifying both. When this is the case, there may be no “right” way to feel — only what is actually present.

What often hurts is not just the feeling itself, but the belief that we should feel differently.

This is where regulation matters more than romance.

Rather than performing an emotional state, there can be value in allowing ourselves to be where we are — tender, conflicted, open, guarded, joyful, disappointed, or somewhere in between. Mixed feelings don’t mean something has gone wrong. They often mean something real is being touched.

Sometimes it helps to widen the frame beyond our personal story.

In nature, nothing stays the same. Seasons turn. Light shifts. Growth and decay belong together. Even what appears still carries a quiet presence. We are not outside this rhythm — we are part of it. Our inner states, too, are always moving. No feeling is permanent, whether joyful or painful. This moment will pass, just as another will arrive.

If you’d like a gentle way to support yourself today, you might take a few minutes outside — into a garden, a park, a street with trees, or simply stand by an open window.

Notice one sign of change:
the movement of clouds,
the feel of air on your skin,
the way light falls differently now, than earlier.

You don’t need to feel better.
You don’t need to understand anything.

Simply notice: this moment is alive, and it is moving.
Just like you.

Whether this Valentine’s Day feels tender, joyful, heavy, or quietly empty, you don’t need to rush yourself somewhere else. Being where you are is already part of life unfolding.

hello@frayazellawolf.com