I almost didn’t write a Valentine’s Day blog.
The world doesn’t need another “treat yourself” promo wrapped in a pink bow, not with everything we’re all carrying right now.
But there’s a statement of love that goes beyond the romantic that is inspiring me and millions every day, and that’s what's fueling this email. Well, that, and some Spicy Rose Cacao Rasa, of course :)
Maybe you’ve seen them (I mentioned them in my last Lopa is Typing email): a group of Buddhist monks who have been walking from Fort Worth, Texas, to Washington, D.C. Over 2,300 miles, on foot, in the cold. Through snowstorms and along highways.
For peace.
They started walking in October and arrived in DC on Wednesday, on Day 108 of their journey. And today, on Valentine’s Day itself, they’ll return home.
108 days. In Buddhism, 108 is a sacred number: the number of beads on a mala, the number of earthly temptations to overcome, the number of steps toward awakening. Whether that timing was planned or simply grace, it feels like a message worth receiving.
What’s moved me to tears the most isn’t the monks themselves, though their courage, dedication, and love are….truly extraordinary. It’s the people along the way, and how they’ve been impacted.
A gun-toting police officer in the South, bowing his head in reverence. Native Americans on horseback, galloping after the monks to ask for blessings. A woman who drove 100 miles just to stand quietly on the side of the road as they passed. An elderly gentleman who showed up four times a day along their path, five days in a row. Children offering flowers. Men and women of all walks of life, bursting into tears at the love and inspiration they felt. Thousands lining the streets of Richmond, walking with them, in silence.
These people may never study Buddhism, they may never learn the monks’ names or understand their tradition. But something cracked open in them anyway.
Because here’s the thing: you don’t have to understand peace to feel it. You don’t have to share someone’s beliefs to be moved by their devotion. You don’t have to agree on politics or religion or anything at all to recognize that when a human being walks 2,300 miles for love—not romantic love, not self-serving love, but the deep, boundless, unshakeable kind—it stirs something ancient in every single one of us.
That is the love I’m thinking about this Valentine’s Day.
The love that isn’t about “you and me.” The love that’s about us.
I don't know about you, but being in America right now feels….heavy. There’s a subtle (or not-so-subtle) tension present in so many interactions now, a kind of chronic vigilance.
The extremes are getting more extreme. The polarization is sharper, louder, more brittle. And it feels like the space in between, where complexity, nuance, and actual human beingness lives—has almost disappeared.
Almost.
Because that space still exists in every single one of us. And I think that’s what the monks are reminding millions of people. Not a position or an argument.
Just…presence. Just love, walking down the road.
There’s an ancient practice called metta—loving-kindness—and it works like this: you start by sending love to yourself. Then to someone you cherish. Then to a stranger. Then to someone you find difficult. And eventually, to all beings, everywhere, without a single exception.
It’s a practice of expanding the circle. Not because it’s easy, but because every time we do it, we become a little more free, a little less contracted. A little more like who we actually are, underneath the stress and the reactivity and the fear.
And I think that’s what those monks have been doing with every single loving step. Expanding the circle, not by preaching, or arguing, or proving their point.
Just by…walking.
When Christian protesters showed up with megaphones, the lead monk said: “We do not come to bring a new religion; we come to walk for the peace that your Christ also taught.”
We don’t have to agree in order to stay in loving presence with another; or flatten ourselves to be accepted. The road beneath us is the same.
That is love beyond the romantic.
So what does any of this have to do with adaptogens?
Everything, actually.
I started Rasa because my nervous system was so fried that I had lost access to the person I wanted to be. I was reactive, anxious, and deeply depleted. I didn’t have the inner resources to be patient with my baby, let alone extend love to a stranger or someone I disagreed with (though that is something I’ve always tried to do.)
And here’s what I've learned: we cannot give what we do not have.
When your body is stuck in fight-or-flight, when cortisol is flooding your system and your adrenals are running on fumes, love is not the first thing that arises—reactivity is. Contraction is. The short fuse, the sharp word. The inability to pause before you snap.
And honestly? I think that’s a lot of what we're seeing right now. So much of what looks like ideological conflict is actually nervous systems tipping into threat. When we’re dysregulated, complexity becomes intolerable. Disagreement stops being about ideas and starts being about survival. We stop seeing people and start seeing enemies.
The adaptogens in Rasa don’t make you enlightened. (I wish.) But they do something quietly profound: they help your nervous system come back to center. They nourish the physiological ground from which patience and kindness grow, and the ability to choose your response, rather than just reacting, grows.
As I’ve been looking into what Rasa is really about, I’ve found myself talking a lot about “the gap”—the space between stimulus and response. That gap is everything. It’s where you decide whether to fire off the angry text or take a breath; whether to slam the door or stay. Whether to assume the worst about your neighbor, or extend the benefit of the doubt.
The monks walking for peace are that gap…made visible. They are a 2,300-mile pause between the chaos of the world and the response of love.
I’m not comparing a cup of herbs to a sacred pilgrimage. But I am saying—every single thing you do to regulate your nervous system—every adaptogen, every deep breath, every moment of stillness…is an act of love. Because it builds your capacity to offer love to others. Starting with yourself.
Someone needs to be tending the space underneath the conflict. Slowing things down. Helping us remember how to be with one another without collapsing into threat. I believe, with my whole heart, that this is part of what Rasa is for. Not to fix everything—no product can—but to tend the ground.
This Valentine’s Day, I’m not asking you to buy something. (We’ll survive.)
I’m asking you to expand the circle.
Send a kind text to someone you haven’t spoken to in a while. Make eye contact with a stranger. Let someone merge in traffic. Forgive something small. Forgive something big.
Go to a place online where someone in a different political echo chamber than you is sharing their view, and listen. How could what they’re saying possibly be valid, from their perspective? Say something kind to them.
And if you find yourself reaching for your morning cup tomorrow, whether it’s Rasa or not, take a moment before that first sip. Close your eyes, and send a little love outward: to your family, to your neighbors, to the people who drive you absolutely crazy….to the monks who walked 2,300 miles to remind us that peace is not just an idea — it’s something we create together, step by step, heart by heart.
Happy Valentine’s Day. I love you. I mean that.
With love and adaptogens,
P.S. — If the monks’ journey has moved you the way it’s moved me, you can follow their story on the Walk for Peace Facebook page. Bring tissues.
Photographs in the header appear left to right courtesy of Sean Rayford/Getty Images, Nils Huenerfuerst & Gene Gallin via Unsplash, and Bonnie Cash/UPI.