27: Celebrate Love Every Day—Starting with Yourself

In this episode, Darla emphasizes the significance of self-love and the importance of nurturing one's relationship with oneself. She discusses how self-awareness and setting boundaries are crucial for attracting healthy relationships. Darla also shares her personal experiences and insights on celebrating love independently, especially on Valentine's Day, and encourages listeners to prioritize self-care and personal growth.

Takeaways

• Every day should be a celebration of self-love.
• Understanding oneself is key to loving others.
• Setting boundaries is essential for healthy relationships.
• Self-love involves honoring your own needs and desires.
• Healthy relationships require ongoing effort and communication.
• It's important to invest time in yourself, even in relationships.
• Celebrate love in all its forms, including self-love.
• Personal growth can lead to better relationships.
• You have the power to create your own happiness.
• Valentine's Day can be a reminder to love yourself.

Sound Bites

• "Self-love is honoring ourselves."
• "Invest in yourself to attract love."
• "Healthy relationships require work."

Chapters

00:00The Importance of Self-Love

03:43Setting Boundaries in Relationships

06:44Celebrating Love Independently

09:53Every Day is Valentine's Day

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Transcript

Hello friends, happy Valentine's Day. So, so many people associate Valentine's Day and the month of February with the month or day of love. But I would like to invite you to have a new perspective. What if every day was a day of love? Why do I say this? Because the most important relationship you will ever have

is the one that you have with yourself.

Part of me being a relationship coach is that I help women to fall in love with themselves so that they can attract their dream partner. Because until we really get straight about who we are, what are we like? Getting to know ourselves, which morphs into loving ourselves, knowing our own value, knowing what our boundaries are, knowing what our standards are.

and having high standards and maintaining them, no matter who pushes back at them. Not that is a definition of love. When we have self love, when we love ourselves more than anyone, and I'm not talking about in a conceited, unhealthy way, what I'm talking about is in a way that we are honoring ourselves. And in our highest good, there are always going to be people in our lives who are going to push back at

things that we want that we desire at our boundaries at our standards. But when we love ourselves more than other people, we will always put ourselves first and not allow that to happen. And that's really easier said than done for sure. It's easy to say, I'll do it. But when you're faced with that moment, when you're faced with a man you love, who's really crossing your boundaries a lot and has repeatedly

Darla (01:59.447)
shown red flags, which to me a repeated red flag is a deal breaker has repeatedly crossed those boundaries. And you've confronted them or you haven't. But the end result is that they're not going to stop doing it, that they're not going to take ownership for their behavior. The best act of self love that you can do is say, this is what I need from you. And if I don't get it, then I'm going to have to take care of myself first. And that means

leaving the relationship. You give them the option to show up. And if they choose not to, you show up for you. You always show up for you, no matter what's happening around you. You know, in this past year, I've really gotten straight with myself. You have probably heard me talk a lot, not only in this podcast, but in many podcasts where I'm a guest parents is about the book that I read that was a game changer for me. And it's John Kim's single on purpose.

And the whole premise of the book is you can't love someone you don't know. So get to know yourself. And one of the things that I do is I take myself out on a weekly date. I'm better about it when I'm single. I will say when I'm in a relationship, I'm not as good about it. But you know, I think that's a new standard I need to set for myself, because I think that will really help me to maintain balance in that relationship. There is a tendency, I think we all have it, that when we get involved with someone, we give them our all.

we neglect our personal life because we're so into the endorphins and to the, you know, the, what is it? The dopamine hit. That's the word I'm trying to think of that dopamine hit, particularly in the beginning, whether the love bombing or not, it's like a drug and we can't seem to walk away from it. But if we make a decision, well, we can walk away from it, but it's difficult. Let's put it that way. We we've chosen not to, but we can.

of circumvent that a little bit by investing in ourselves and continuing to do things. Go out alone for dinner or go spend some time with friends or go take a walk by yourself because then that is going to create a little bit of distance for you. And when you love yourself, you're going to start attracting the person that's going to love you. And quite frankly, if we don't, we can't expect others to. We just can't.

Darla (04:23.01)
Because in order for us to respect others, we also have to respect ourselves. We have to know what a healthy relationship is. And if we're healthy with ourselves, what a better example. Other things will fall into place. I'm not saying it's like a magic wand. You're still going to have to work at the relationship. I've heard this over and over again. And I think it's so true that actually a healthy relationship is more work. And you know why? You know why? Because you have to.

be willing, both partners have to be willing to have those difficult conversations, to call each other out in a productive manner. One of the other things that John Kim says that I have lived by since I heard it in all of my relationships is that it's not how often you fight. It's how you fight. Are you fighting fair? Is there a constructive conversations going on? If you need a breather, are you saying, Hey, you know what, I'm really triggered right now. I need 10 minutes to go take a walk.

And you always, if you have to table a conversation, you always need to say, I will come back and have this conversation with you again at X time. And I really recommend it not be more than 24 hours. If it's more than 24 hours, then that's stalling and it's stagnant. And that's not respectful to either one of you. But we can choose to take a break, but we do have to revisit it. Sometimes we get heated. all lose our temper.

We say things we don't mean in the heat of the moment. No matter how healed you are, no matter how much you love yourself, you're still gonna make those mistakes. It's just because you're human.

But this Valentine's Day, whether you're with a partner or not celebrate love. I'm single, but I'm celebrating the love I have for myself. So I bought a ticket to a comedy show. It's if you remember whose line is it anyway, it's that it's not that group. But it is a local group in a small local theater that is doing a spoof on love in that type of format. And

Darla (06:28.974)
Yeah, I'll probably be the only single person in there by myself, but I don't care. I decided I'm not gonna be bitter. I'm gonna go out to dinner before the show. And I, well, there's no reason to be bitter. My time hasn't come. I've had a really major healing process going on. And each time that a relationship is ended, it hasn't been a failure. It hasn't been a reflection on what a bad person I am. It's just been a chance for me to really look at myself.

and learn from that experience. So why not celebrate Valentine's Day? You know, last year I went out with two girlfriends, had, you know, the new term, Galentine's Day, and that was wonderful too. This year, I'm not in a place to do that. I really don't want to go with anybody. I didn't invite anyone. As you'll hear me say, if you haven't already, January of this year, my personal life kind of fell apart.

I changed so radically after this last breakup in November. I'm not the same person. And because of that, I don't resonate with most of the people in my life anymore. And it's not that they've done anything wrong or malicious. I, I'm different. It's like, I don't understand. I just don't resonate with them and kind of the

The measuring stick for me is if I can go to this person for advice, I will if I would trade my lifestyle for theirs. If I'm not going to trade my lifestyle for theirs, the way they live the decisions they make, I'm not going to them for advice. And if I can't go to them for advice, where is the baseline of that that that relationship or that friendship? There wasn't one anymore. It's gone. It's eroded.

And I wish them well. I love them just the way they are because that is who they are. And they are where they are. They can choose to come along with me now or at a later time or not.

Darla (08:40.3)
but that's why I wanted to go by myself.

because I just, I didn't want to have to.

conversations with people. I just wanted some quiet time having some fun and if I happen to talk to people in the audience that's fine too you know someone sitting beside me that's cool but I really didn't want any obligation to do so. I just wanted it to be a time for me.

So whether you're going to be out with your partner or you're not in a committed relationship where someone is spoiling you on Valentine's Day, what can you do for yourself? You know, you could go to the store and buy yourself flowers, buy yourself a box of chocolates. That's what you wanted. You don't have to wait for someone else to give them to you. Get them yourself. Even if you're in a relationship and you're with a guy that just not into that, that's not his love language.

Do it for yourself. And let him love you in the way that he loves you. You can drop hints that, I really like it when you do this. But we do all have those five love languages, that book. Maybe he shows it in a different way. But either way,

Darla (09:59.607)
Every day should be Valentine's Day in your life. Every day should be an honor of who you are and how much you love yourself.

So happy Valentine's Day to all of you. Celebrate the love you have for yourself. And if you don't have a love for yourself, that's okay. Maybe this is the time to start. Maybe this is your calling for this year. What is your theme and your word going to be for this year? Mine is, this is my year of saying yes, yes to me. This is my word for the year is unstoppable.

So why don't you think of something that you can do to better the relationship with yourself? You have the power.