5 Days To Increase Love in Your Life

Make your Valentine’s week more loving by connecting with yourself and others in a positive, respectful way. From Monday to Friday of Valentine’s Week put into practice these simple daily tasks and watch your heart embrace goodness and joy with appreciation and compassion. Get your family and friends involved too.

It’s easy to cultivate love in your life with the YIMS Valentine’s Week Tender Loving Care Challenge.

Monday: Give the Gift of Love

Tell each member of your family you love them. Look them in the eye and let them know the depth of your feelings. Write a note and slip it into their lunch bag. If they live far away, send them a quick e-mail, e-card or Facebook message. If you can, pick up the phone, Facetime or Skype them so they can see you and hear you as you express your love. Simple or profound, doesn’t matter. Just let your family know how much they mean to you.

Tuesday: Increase Confidence w/ Compliments

Tell the people in your life what you admire about them. It could be your kids, spouse, co-workers, boss, teacher, neighbor, friend, or a stranger on the street. Express how much you like their natural style, how they take on challenges, their new haircut, a piece of jewelry, their smile, the kindness they show to others, etc. The best compliments are those which are specific and sincere. Compliments are a wonderful boost to anyone’s day so be generous.

Wednesday: Share the Love of Positive Affirmations

Affirmations are a powerful way to access your sub-conscious. Share positive, encouraging, heart-felt messages with those important to you, including yourself. Write them on post-it notes, cards, homemade Valentine’s, paper plates, poster-board, Facebook messages, Twitter updates, lipstick on the mirror…everywhere and anywhere. Have fun, be creative. Some ideas to get the ball rolling: Believe in Yourself, Love with an open heart, You are Fabulous, Sweeter than Candy, Smile from deep inside, Share the joy, Abundance abounds. Photo from ChildLight Yoga Facebook Page.

Thursday: Indulge in a Hand or Foot Massage

Healing touch is a wonderful gift. Take a few moments and connect physically and emotionally with someone. You don’t need to be an expert, simply use confident strokes, gently giving attention to all areas, especially on hands: the fingers & fleshy part at the base of the thumb, and on feet: the toes & the tender areas of the arch. For specifics watch this video on how to give a fab foot massage.

Friday: Relax w/ Loving Visualization

Spend 5-10 minutes lying in savasana while focusing on opening your heart. Let go of old hurts. Clear your heart and mind of those things which are holding you back. Soften and let go. Allow space within your chest for the heart to rest comfortably and perform it’s proper function. Focus on your heart center, anahata chakra, and tap into your true heart’s desire. Fill your body with compassionate awareness and peace. Take this feeling of contentment and hope with you throughout your day and share it with others.

Leave a comment letting us know how the YIMS Valentine’s Week TLC Challenge went in your life. Have fun cultivating love!

More Yoga Valentine’s Day Ideas

For more yoga inspired ideas on celebrating Valentine’s Day visit

• Kids Valentine’s Day Yoga Class: a heart centered practice
• play Sending Joy: fill the the entire world with good intentions and watch it make our own life more loving
• In Search of a Softened Heart healing & opening for teens and adults
• Give Love: A Valentine’s Day Yoga Lesson Plan from OMazing Kids Yoga
• enjoy this Loving Kindness Meditation
• play Hearts Hide ‘n Seek: increase intuition & sensitivity

photo courtesy of lifelikeapps

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Creating thematic yoga classes can be a lot of fun, especially annual holiday themes such as Valentine’s Day, Easter, Halloween and Christmas. Hope you enjoy this Valentine’s Day class with a focus on the heart.

First, provide some anatomy books from the library in order to examine the physical mechanism and attributes of the heart. Many kids don’t know what a heart actually looks like and this is a wonderful opportunity to introduce basic anatomy. If possible get your hands on a physical model of a heart, one that a Doctor would use, and let the kids handle it to engage the tactile learners as well.

From there move onto some breathing exercises.

1. Deep breathing/diaphragmatic breathing: emphasize a lifted and open heart.
2. Partner breathing, sitting back to back to feel one another’s breath move: talk about how we are all connected through the breath, life force, divine in one another. You could play the Namaste Song here.

Now that they are relaxed, try to find a pulse—a nice, quiet, slow pulse. To bring in some math concepts with older kids you can have them calculate their heart rate or beats per minute of a resting pulse.

For poses, lovely heart openers and heart healers such as those mentioned in The Yoga of a Softened Heart.

• warrior with shoulders back, leading with the heart
• cobra pose
• fish pose
• bridge pose
• child’s pose
• legs-up the wall pose

We’ll then play either Yoga Tag, Freeze Dance/Statues, or Sea Shells (with a Valentine’s theme = Cupid/Candy/Love). The goal here is to increase the heart rate so as to find the pulse again—this time a strong, fast pulse. You can also talk about heart health and the importance of vigorous physical activity in staying healthy.

To change the pace, you can then play Heart’s Hide ’n Seek to increase intuition, sensitivity and awareness. This will also help kids to calm down and prepare for a Loving Kindness Meditation.

For a group activity you can re-create the above photograph getting the kids to work together to create a heart shape with their bodies. If desired, you could take a digital photograph and have each child write a Valentine’s message to their parents which would be sent out via e-mail for Valentine’s Day with a photo attachment.

As always finish with Corpse pose. This time take them through a gratitude guided visualization where they imagine a TV screen upon which come up scenes (like a slide show) of things, people, places, etc. for which they are grateful. You can help them by providing suggestions such as: family, home, favourite toy, teachers, healthy body, nutritious food, safety, flowers, books, ability to walk or run, and so on.

A shout out to The Kids Yoga Resource and Young Yoga Masters for their suggestions. Happy Valentine’s Day!

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“With Valentine’s Day around the corner I’ve been attempting to soften my heart, to open it to the richness and wonder of the world, to increase my ability to connect in a meaningful way to those with whom I come in contact. And so I’ve been contemplating my heart…

As one diagnosed with a heart murmur as a child, I learned early on the mechanics of the heart. Scientifically, it is a muscular organ with four chambers which pumps blood throughout the body by means of rhythmic contractions. However, it is also symbolically the center of our emotional and spiritual life.”

Read the rest of the article on Elephant Journal.

The article also inspired a poem, Yoga of the Heart by Bob Weisenberg of Yoga Demystified, who encourages us to contemplate the infinite wonder of the heart. I am deeply honored, Bob.

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