I spent Valentine’s Day heartbroken—Here’s what saved me

You want a grand amour.

Not the kind that looks good on paper or just checks boxes—but the kind that feels magical and steady. Where you feel seen, heard, understood. Cherished. Adored. A love you can fully choose—and relax into being chosen back.

And if you’re honest, you’re tired of “almosts,” wrong timing, or wondering if you’re asking for too much or settling for too little.

I know this desire intimately, because I wanted the same thing.

And for a long time, my life was heading in the opposite direction.

In February 2022, my live-in partner and I broke up. On what felt like the coldest winter day, on Valentine’s Day, one month before my 35th birthday, I packed up my entire life and moved into a dear friend’s empty apartment.

It’s safe to say I felt like a pathetic, heartbroken garbage slug.

There I was, crying my eyes out, surrounded by everything I owned packed into boxes, wondering what the fuck just happened, and what the fuck I was supposed to do next.

Years earlier, a former lover had shared a piece of wisdom I still return to:

When in doubt, follow the season.

What is nature doing? How is she behaving? Do that.

In the dead of winter, nature doesn’t strive. She doesn’t reinvent herself. She doesn’t rush toward spring. She gets still.

So I did too.

Instead of asking How do I fix this? or How do I get back out there? I listened.

And what I heard was simple and unglamorous:

Stay still. Go inward. Don’t force. Don’t push. Land where you are. Recover.

Between breaking down boxes and breaking down myself, I stayed put and grounded. What I didn’t realize at the time was that I wasn’t healing a breakup. I was restoring my relationship with myself.

Not the version of me from before the relationship. I had outgrown her. I had evolved too much, lived too deeply, changed too fundamentally. Losing the relationship meant losing us but it also meant facing a deeper question:

Who am I now, without the familiar shape of “we”?

So I let myself unravel. Really unravel.

I didn’t leave the house for nine days. I lived on cans of tuna and boxes of mac and cheese. I wasn’t trying to optimize my healing or rebrand my life. I wasn’t chasing clarity or closure.

I was practicing something far more radical:
Self-loyalty.

I let my inner creature slither through the swamp, grieving, messy, uncontained. I allowed myself to be ugly. To be lazy. To stop performing resilience. I stopped trying to fix myself and started staying with myself.

And then, quietly, pleasure arrived.

Not the “get over it, meet someone else” kind. Not distraction. Not numbing.

This was gentle. Stabilizing. Soul-level care.

Pleasure showed up as devotion to my body, my pace, my inner world. Touching myself the way I wanted to be touched. Moving slowly. Offering praise instead of pressure. Letting curiosity replace self-judgment.

I let grief wash over me in a solo breakup ritual, and instead of closing me down, it opened a door. Pleasure didn’t replace the grief. It softened the edges so I could actually hold it.

That’s when something clicked.

If I wanted the kind of love I dreamed of… the kind where I felt cherished and adored… I had to learn how to offer that to myself first.

Choosing myself didn’t look like a glow-up or a comeback.

It looked like stillness.
It looked like honesty.
It looked like taking responsibility for my own patterns without self-punishment.
It looked like loyalty to my own inner authority.

I knew I couldn’t outrun grief or override it. I was far too raw to put myself back out there. And I had completely outgrown the drink-and-party solution to pain.

So I let orientation instead of urgency lead.

I found peace in the dead of winter by meeting it fully.

And that’s what I want to offer you here.

Not a push. Not a plan. Not another way to “do dating better.”

But a return to yourself.
To your body.
To your inner authority.

Because the grand amour you’re longing for doesn’t begin with effort.

It begins with orientation. A reset. A return, but better.

How are you spending your Valentine’s Day?

I’d love to hear from you. If you’re ready to stop playing small, break free from dating burnout, and step into your full radiance, I’ve created tools and practices to guide you. From self-pleasure rituals to mindset shifts, you’ll learn to embody the energy that attracts love naturally.

👉Book a Clarity Call here to see if we are a match to work together