Christine Arylo’s Relationship Tips

Now is the time to focus on relationships — with yourself, your sweetheart and those around you.

Your Relationship with Yourself

• Use flowers to lift your mood. Feeling down or out of sorts? One of the best ways to perk yourself up is to stop by your florist and pick up a ‘bunch of happy.’ Think of flowers like self-love on a stem, and order a bunch of flowers that make you smile. It could be the color – yellow creates feelings of happiness, green exudes abundance, and pink conjures up love.  Or it could be the flower itself that creates the mood. Gerberas, for example, are always instant smile creators.
• Bathe yourself in flowers. Imagine yourself soaking in a warm bath with candles around you, music in the background and flower petals in the tub with you. One of the most self-loving acts you can take is a weekly bath. Not of the scrub-a-dub-dub kind that’s only about cleaning your skin. A self-love bath is about relaxing and nourishing your soul. And what better way to do it than to soak in a tub laced with flower petals. It only takes a few roses petals to make a delicious bath. And this is a great way to keep your flowers working for you even after they are ready to leave the vase!
• Give yourself a smile in the places that sometimes stress you out. Think about the places in your life where you sometimes feel stressed out – at your office, in your car during rush hour, standing in line at the DMV – and add flowers to the equation. Create a weekly self-love ritual by picking up a fresh bouquet of flowers every Monday and then bring them to your cube or office to enjoy them all week long. Add a flower holder to your car and put a fresh stem in every week (who said you have to own a VW Beetle to have a car flower?) And in those instances when you know you are going to have to wait in long lines or be stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic, bring a flower with you. You are sure to brighten up your day, and everyone else’s day too. Bonus: Flowers are great conversation starters.
• Create a Self-Love Altar in honor of you loving you! All temples have a shrine in them, so why not create a special shrine to yourself, to express your commitment to honor yourself. This is a great place to sit in front of in the morning or before bed and connect with one of the most important people in your life –yourself. You can create the altar on top of a dresser, bathroom counter, an end table or even a fireplace mantel. It doesn’t have to be big, just beautiful. And of course, one of the best ways to add beauty is to include a bud vase for a few flowers.

Your Romantic Relationships

Add some unexpected surprise to your love life, and surprise your sweetheart with flowers on unexpected holidays. Pick holidays that would mean something special to your love or just that you find totally outrageous and fun. Google “odd holidays” and you’ll be surprised by what you find, as will your honey when you send an unexpected bouquet of flowers on what seemed like just an ordinary day. Here are a few of my favorites:

• April 2, International Pillow Fight Day: Flowers, a pillow fight and then who knows what!
• May 15, National Pizza Day: What a great excuse for a date, if you like pizza. Pizza and red roses. Divine.
• November 29, National Forgiveness Day: Send your special person flowers and write lovingly on the enclosure card, “I’d love to ask for forgiveness for anything I’ve ever done that’s hurt you. I love you… Clean slate?”

Or, the best, most remembered time to send flowers is for no reason or occasion at all — just because. Try it.

Your Friendships

Great friendships can be a tremendous source of love and happiness (and fun!) in our lives, and flowers can go a long way in letting a special friend know how grateful you are for their presence in your life. Sure, there are the standard gift-giving occasions like birthdays, but what if this year, you dared to be bold and put a big shot of unexpected fun and love into your relationships with friends. Here are a few ways and days you can use:

• August 7th, National Friendship Day: Pick two or three friends, and surprise each of them with a bouquet of flowers that reflects their personality, and their impact on your life. One of the best ways you can show someone you love them, is to really see them. Maybe your friend has a way of making everything in life yummy and sensual – send her roses. Perhaps another always makes you smile – Gerberas and daisies are the trick. Or it could be that it’s her elegant style you admire – Lilies all the way!
• Acknowledge the length and depth of your friendship. Take a moment to count up the years or months you have been friends with the most special people in your life. Give them one flower for every year you’ve been friends (or per month if it’s a new relationship), and include a card that recounts your favorite memories for each of those years or months.Friendships can be just as close and deep as romantic relationships – whether you’re single or with a mate it’s important that your friends feel special. Try some of these wacky holidays as ways to have some good girlfriend or guyfriend fun!
• May 15, National Pizza Day: Create a girls night in! Make a date with your friend to come to her place, and arrive with all the ingredients to make pizzas (or grab some healthy pre-made kind if you’re not into rolling dough), with a great movie to watch together (like the Ya Ya Sisterhood or Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants), and a bunch of red roses, which you proceed to put all around the house in bud vases, glasses, whatever you can find to create an inside garden of love. Voila, self-love and sisterhood love!
• November 29, National Forgiveness Day: Be daring. Call your girlfriend, tell her you are taking her to lunch and you won’t take no for an answer. Show up with a bouquet of flowers, a card and tell her, “Today is National Forgiveness Day, and I’d love to ask for forgiveness for anything I’ve ever done that’s hurt you. I love you!” Let her take that in, and I recommend a nice big hug to seal the deal! Forgiveness is one of the most powerful human emotions you can express, and even if there is nothing major to forgive, just this gesture of forgiveness can create a big swell of love and connection for you both.

For All Relationships

Take it from just another bouquet of flowers to a bursting bundle of love from your heart to theirs.

When you decide to send flowers for a birthday, congratulations, a celebration or really any occasion – happy or sad – remember the act of sending flowers is not about just meeting some social standard of what is the ‘right’ thing to do. Sending flowers is an opportunity to connect to the heart of the person you are sending them to. It’s an opportunity to recognize, support and love this special person. Go the extra step to pick flowers that have meaning and then tie back those particular flowers in the note card that accompanies them (yes, always send a note card, with your words.) For example, you could send white flowers to send peace; yellow flowers to send happiness; red to send love, blue or lavender to send tranquility.