Debra Smouse's Blog - Posts Tagged "elizabeth-gilbert"

I’m sure it’s no surprise to you that the them I chose for February is love.

What I know to be true - and what I have been sharing for the last decade as a life coach – is that you have to find the nuggets of love in everyday life. We spend a heck of time managing our day to day lives. And so to live in drudgery with our sights only on an upcoming big event.

That’s been made especially clear this past year, hasn’t it? Because if we can’t find the joy, the beauty, and the love in the now, how can we connect to it at all?

Just like many of you, I still struggle with this these days. With so much same-ness it’s hard to love the day to day. On the flipside, though, I find that if I look for things to bring me a sense of peace or joy, I am sure to discover it.

Love, though, especially at Valentines, can be tricky.

So much of the hearts, flowers, roses, and confessions of besottedness skew us towards romantic love. The love between two people that far excels and exceeds any other kind of love.

And while I will be honest in the fact that unconditional love I receive from JB has made my life better. And me a better person. The truth of the matter is that this is all because I finally learned to love myself.



IN the early days of our romance, it was, frankly, all up in the air. I’d spent decades trying to hustle for love and prove that I was worthy of being loved. And the truth was, I struggled with loving myself, warts and all, so to speak.

I was just fortunate that the beginning of our relationship coincided with me doing a lot of self-growth work. I had previously worked with a therapist and had hired my first life coach. And, I finally understood the concept that we need to fill our world with good inputs – aka news, social media, books, tv, etc.

What I discovered was that if I wanted to have a strong, healthy relationship, I needed to love myself.
Because if I didn’t love myself unconditionally – again warts and all – there was zero chance that I could love anyone else in a healthy, non-co-dependent way.

Let alone accept someone's unconditional love without trying to constantly prove myself worthy of it.



In doing this work, I found that not only did I need to love myself, I needed to make caring for myself a priority. That the sacrifice of self-care cannot be truly exchanged in the path of caring for others.

This was also not too far away from the moment that I realized that self-care was BORING.

Who wouldn’t rather watch a movie than brush their teeth or exfoliate? Was I the only thinking that the time it took to floss could be time spent refreshing my Instagram feed? And was the 8 minutes it took to shower really a good use of my time?

It was much more interesting to text JB, set the DVR for recording a favorite movie on TCM, or chat with my neighbor than it was to floss, let alone scrub, scour, shave, and moisturize.

Ah, there’s the rub in self-love.

Loving ourselves is boring. Caring for ourselves can feel lack-luster in comparison to the work we did in caring for babies or our elderly parents. There's no fluttering heartbeat loving ourselves like there is when we fall in love with another.

Yet, my dear, that is what I’m calling you to do this month: love and tend the holy and beautiful being that is YOU.



And this, my darling, is what I am imploring you to focus on in the coming weeks: tending and loving yourself. Because what I found was this symbiotic cycle of love: I learned to love myself, JB loved me unconditionally, and I discovered it was safe to love him wholly as part of our life together.

This may look like a long, hot bath. A visit to the dentist. Or unfollowing toxic people on social media. It may also look like journaling with your first cup of coffee or making the choice to stop chatting with your friend that always complains on the phone.

For me, self-loved has looked like a cup of tea in the afternoons.

I grab a pretty mug and a tea bag. And then I literally watch as the water begins to boil. See, the best water temperature for this particular tea is 200 degrees while a full boil is 212. So, I watch the water in the teakettle until it just begins to bubble up.

Maybe that 12 degrees doesn’t matter in the whole scheme of life, but I’ve chosen to make it matter lately. Not because I’m OCD about everything (I am some things). It’s because I’ve chosen to make this moment of the day one to simply BE and BREATHE. To give my mind a rest from all the craziness of the world as I watch and wait.

Most days, I put the tea in the fridge and wait until it’s cold before drinking it. Sure, I could add ice. Instead, though, it's another opportunity to step away from my desk in a mindful way. And that is, again, another small way of loving myself.



As we celebrate the month of love, may you ensure that you love yourself first. So that you can truly love others. Think about all the small ways you can infuse your life with ensuring that you are a priority rather than an afterthought.

If you'd like to read the February 2021 love note in full, you can do so here.

And, if you'd like to receive my Monthly Love Note, sign up here. You'll also receive my free E-Book - A Touchstone For Your 2021 Journey: The In-Depth Guide to Revealing Your Word of the Year .

Sending you oodles of love, wishes for warmth and coziness, and the reminder to do something nice for yourself today.