Debra Smouse

When’s the last time you took a look at your goals and your progress towards them?

Eating a cookie with a cup of coffee in the afternoon is loving. Having a glass of wine while you share stories of the day is nourishing. Scarfing an entire package of Chips Ahoy! while sitting in front of the TV or downing an entire bottle of wine is not.

By beginning fresh, you are making the choice to reinvent yourself. You are choosing to ditch the excuses of why you aren’t happy. You are taking your sad stories of failure and creating a place to start moving towards that Happily Ever After.

The wisest and most loving piece of advice I was ever told was this: “You are always in choice.”

4. Actually go to the pool instead of promising you’ll do it when you have time. Jump in and cool off and linger with a book until you dry.

2. Stop playing the If-Then Game. Stop waiting for the new house, the new job, to lose weight, fall in love, etc. in order to be happy.

I felt so free and accomplished – all from spending 15 minutes washing the bird poop away.

Sometimes we simply need a guide to find our way back to who we really are.

It’s like a delicious secret that you can choose to reveal…or not.

Embracing the shiny – and tarnished – parts of me makes me more in love with who I am in this moment, who I was in the past, and who I will be tomorrow.

Can the amount of sex you have each week “save” your relationship and transform it from so-so to sensational?

It’s time to take that awareness, accept where you are and create a plan to make your dreams a reality.

If you get too closed to new ways of living as a possibility, then your life will shrink and you will become more and more brittle.

Are you going so overboard in the service of others that you don’t tend to your own self?

I learned what qualities I needed in a long-term relationship. I learned what qualities I didn’t want, too.

Each day is an opportunity to go deeper into our own life and who we desire to be in this world.

Because our society equates “being a man” with always being horny, all discussions of men with lower sex drives brings up all kinds of shame on both sides of the bed.

Don’t dial down your enthusiasm for the world; rather, learn skills to successfully navigate the world around you, which is full of people who manage their energy differently than you.