In this week's episode of The Grit Show, host Shawna Rodrigues dives deep into the essential pillars of successful relationships. She provides an acronym to help you remember essential elements she finds crucial for sustaining healthy and lasting connections. Shawna shares personal experiences and insights, highlighting the significance of self-maintenance, acceptance, and understanding in building primary relationships. Listeners are invited to explore their own relationship dynamics and consider the impact of things like gratitude and acceptance in fostering genuine connections. Whether you're single or in a relationship this episode offers insightful relationship advice and valuable nuggets of wisdom to enrich your personal journey.

Other episodes of The Grit Show referenced-

Celebrating Time- The Anniversary of The Grit Show & How to Make/Keep Adult Friendships -54

Love Languages & Alignment in Relationships w/Bethany Ann -13

Unbreakable Spirit: Boots Knighton's Heart Journey & Path to Healing -81

Conquer the Stress Cycle & Focus on Your Well Being- How to Escape Burnout: Part 1 -57

Shawna Rodrigues left her award-winning career in the public sector in 2019 and after launching The Grit Show, soon learned the abysmal fact that women hosted only 27% of podcasts. This led to the founding of the Authentic Connections Podcast Network intent on raising that number by 10% in five years- 37 by 27. Because really, shouldn’t it be closer to 50%? She is the Director of Impact for the network, which offers full-service support for podcasting from mentoring to production. In September 2023 they are also launching the EPAC (Entrepreneurs and Podcasters Authentically Connected) community for those in early stages and wanting a place for weekly connection. She still finds a little time for her pursuits as a best-selling author and shares the hosting of Author Express, a podcast that features the voice behind the pages of your favorite book. Find her on Instagram- @ShawnaPodcasts and learn more about the network and other happenings at https://linktr.ee/37by27.

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Your primary relationship is a big part of your life. If you don't have a primary relationship, then perhaps finding one or curiosity about whether or not you want one is also picking up a decent amount of space. Today, we're going to talk about 3 things that I think really make relationships last. The romantic one as you'd probably refer to it. And the awesome thing is it also applies to your closest friendships and relationships. There's some great wisdom to be gained. I'm excited to learn what you get from it. So, come along for the ride. Let's get into relationships and some really key things that make them work and make them last. Because after all, success leaves clues, but there's something to be set for failure too. Let's talk about it.

Welcome to The Grit Show, where our focus is growth on purpose. I'm your host, Shawna Rodrigues, and I'm honored to be part of this community as we journey together with our grit intact to learn more about how to thrive and how to get the most out of life. It means a lot that you are here today. As you listen, I encourage you to think of who may appreciate the tidbits of knowledge we are sharing, and to take a moment to pass this along to them. Everyone appreciates a friend that thinks of them, and these conversations are meant to be shared and to spark even more connections.

I am so excited that you are choosing to spend this time with me today. And I am really hopeful that I can offer some valuable nuggets of wisdom that might speak to where you are in your life right now and with what you are hoping to grow with and to gain from. I'm excited for today's topic because I feel like it's an important one. I feel like, although to some people, Valentine's Day is very cliche, very commercialized, very capitalism driven, very American ridiculousness. And if you live in other countries, you don't even celebrate Valentine's Day. It doesn't even register on your radar. It was lovely for me to spend Valentine's Day once in Rio de Janeiro and have it been just another day. I did go see some amazing jazz at night, but folks weren't there because it's Valentine's Day.

So, on one hand, I honor and appreciate cultures that don't necessarily put a lot of time and emphasis on this holiday. And on the other hand, I feel like having a lens to evaluate relationships is an important thing for us to have. I find a lot of value in the relationships I have in my life. I think that romantic relationships aren't always the most important. And I feel like at different points in our lives, it's important to have that emphasis shift. And I will tell you my favorite Valentine's days are when I had a girl cot in Boston. It was a girl cot because boys weren't allowed, you couldn't even say their names.

Yes. We were in our mid-20s in graduate school. We were bright, amazing women, and yet we had a girl cot and it was fabulous. And that was one of my favorite Valentine's days. And also, being in Rio de Janeiro and not celebrating it, I truly enjoyed. So, as much as I have a myriad of ways to look at this day and appreciate the value that it can offer, I've also, you know, shied away from its existence and seen all the frustrations with it. I'm choosing with my podcast to have it be an opportunity for all of us to kind of reflect on the importance of and challenges with relationships.

If you've listened and been around a little bit, you’ve heard the episode from this summer when we had the fabulous miss Laurie Leal as our guest and we talked about adult friendships, I do believe that was I should know the exact number. It was somewhere around the upper 40s or 50s because it was our anniversary episode that we had her on and that episode was fabulous. And that conversation around making adults as friends and adult friendships is also a great one for you to listen to around this season, around this time, if that's something you want to revisit.

But today specifically, I really wanted to talk about partnerships and the relationships with that angle, the romantic relationships that become more than that. And as most of you know, or if you're new, you’re now finding out. I am getting married this year. I have my love of my life, my life partner that I'm thrilled to have. And it has been a long journey to get here. And we've been together. We had our 5-year anniversary not that long ago. So, we've been together for 5 years now. Our 1st Valentine's Day, he got in a car accident that day coming to see me. So that's how we started our 1st Valentine's Day together. But I find that, you know, success leaves clues, and we've had a wonderful 5 years together. And I'm excited for our future. But also, failure leaves fountains of knowledge. And I have far more relationships that have not been my lifetime love and have not been the relationship that last my lifetime, I've had a few incredible long-term relationships. I've had a lot of amazing people in my world. And I think there's a lot of successes in those and a lot of challenges in those as well. And I think that I've learned a lot and had the opportunity to share my life and time with a number of individuals and grow in a lot of ways. And I had a lot of growing to do, a lot more than I realized. I've been very good at friendships. I think most of my friends will tell you that I'm very skilled at friendships. And I haven't always been skilled at romantic relationships and some of that was my own way of sabotaging myself a little bit, I would say. And a lot of ways I could grow and do things differently. I also see incredible friends that I have that have challenges in their long-term relationships as well, that I've been with somebody wonderful that had a great first 5 years, a great first 20 years, and find themselves in challenging times with those relationships as well.

It's not always easy. And I think we all know that. And so, that's part of what I want to talk about today is some of those challenges. And a little bit of the success leaves clues, but also the fountains of failure. We can get knowledge from the fountains of failure a little bit as well. So, I've kind of called and thought and put some things together about what I really feel like are the 3 things that really make relationships last and the 3 things that really shifted in me to make it possible for me to have the incredible, phenomenal relationship I have now. And as much as Robie and I have this phenomenal story that makes you want to believe in, like, the one. And when you find the one, everything just, like, falls away and melts away and just works because you found the one.

I think one of the reasons why my relationship works so well is that I stopped looking for the one and believing there was only one. And because I stopped believing that and realized I would have to choose every day and find someone that would choose me every day, has really been the biggest key. So, I'm starting with that. And that's not even one of the things I was going to share, but I feel like that is actually the really biggest key of my successful relationship is that belief that you have to choose that person every day and they have to choose you. And you have to be willing to choose that person and find somebody willing to choose you. And us choosing each other is what made this relationship what it is that makes me so happy, it makes a huge impact on my life. Like, he's an incredible human and adds a lot to my life, and I've grown a lot and can add a lot to our relationship as well. But I think that choosing factor is a huge element.

But the 3 things that I want to chat with you about today are a little bit more specific. And amusingly, I have an acronym that I don't think is the best acronym. So, if you have a better acronym for me, I encourage you to find that. But because I find that this is going to be an acronym that fuels the relationship, that the fact that the acronym is gas, GAS, to fuel the relationship. If you could look at it that way, hopefully, it'll be easy to remember. So, and when I was thinking about the 3 things that I think really make my relationship work that I really feel like make that relationship successful and probably would have always made my friendship successful without me stopping to think about them and realizing that's what I gave them more so than my romantic relationships, probably similar things. So, these are the tools that I'm going to offer you in our conversation today in honor of relationships that I love to honor during this season. Because, you know, warm cuddly February, we need to have something to reflect on. Right?

So, the G is not going to surprise most of you. If you listen to this podcast, you know that I am huge on gratitude. And I really feel that being grateful as an individual contributes significantly to your ability to have healthy, lasting relationships because you're able to be grateful to that individual and grateful for that relationship. And that makes you able to see the gifts in that relationship. There is some conversation, we have a wonderful episode way back when the podcast first started around love languages. And I feel love languages are hugely beneficial. And if you have an understanding of your partners love language, which is a whole different episode, and like I said, we have one, that knowing love languages will help you show that gratitude. And for my current partner, it helps that I actually verbalize the things that I'm grateful for, I'm sure that helps our relationship. But in general, you being grateful, you seeing the things to be grateful for in your relationship is going to put you in such a different place to be able to enjoy, appreciate, honor, and be present in your relationship. So, you being someone who has a gratitude practice, who understands the benefits of gratitude is going to better position you to be able to be grateful for your relationship and to be successful in your relationship because you have that gratitude.

And when things get slippery, when things get difficult because life lifes you. Like, life comes at you, things happen. If you listened to our episode last week with Boots Knighton, she is an incredible human who's had a lot of life that has come at her. And when life comes at you, you need to be able to be grateful for what's happening and for the person in your life. And you need to be able to hold on to that debase. So, even when that person's driving you crazy for one reason or the other, and there's things you got to work through and figure out, if you are so grateful for them, it makes it so much easier to choose them and to continue to choose them and to be able to see their value and their worth, and to be able to see why you still have them and why you still choose them and why it's worth it to figure out these other pieces and to be able to see this as a problem to solve and something to figure out instead of it being as big as it could be and feeling as overwhelming as it can be. Because your intimate partner, the person that you're spending your life with, that person that's closest to you is the person that's the easiest to put the frustrations on, to see the problems with them as being the biggest, to be the most overwhelmed by.

And so, if you can also keep the things, you're grateful for them about at the same time as seeing the things you got to figure out, it gives you much better perspective. So, for me, I feel like that is the biggest thing that I have. And in my past relationships, I did not have that. And I feel as I've grown as an individual and got closer to finding my partner whom I now have and value so much that I was getting better at that gratitude practice. You've heard my story about how my dear friend and I started sending our gratitude back and forth to each other via text every single day at a very pivotal point in my life that was very valuable for me. And in doing that, when I was dating before I found my partner, I think it helped me weed out the people that weren't the right people a lot faster. Because I historically have stayed in relationships longer than I should, and I didn't do that. I was able to let go of incredible individuals.

I'm great at finding the positives and the beautiful parts of people. And I was able to realize that there was not enough to be grateful for. I was not in the right priority for them in their life or things just weren't lining up. I was able to see more clearly when I was in a clear place of gratitude in my life. And it was able to see where they didn't fit in easier. So, being with the right person is part of that formula as well. But with a gratitude practice, you're able to stand more clearly. And when you're with the person that you want to be with, you're able to hold them in the right esteem, in the right regard to be able to work through those harder things better when you're able to see the things to be grateful for.

Because even on the hard days, I'm so grateful for the fact that, in my case, I have a partner who still makes me dinner, and I have a partner who still takes the trash out on occasion. And I have a partner who is thoughtful and got up and took me to the airport when I had to leave town. And I have a partner who was thoughtful and got sweet gifts for certain people in our family for the holidays and all those pieces, and instead of looking at what else I would like have done or something specific I wanted to get done, I can look at all the things that were being done. And it's really easy to look at the one thing that's not happening and miss all the little things that are happening if you're not stopping to be grateful for them. So, I think it's important to have gratitude be one, the first thing in that list. And you as an individual to have that for yourself and for them to be able to reflect in that as well, I think it's useful. So, if you're somebody who's working on your relationship or looking for that relationship, I encourage you to put gratitude first in your way of thinking, to be able to find that relationship that will last and to be able to put that person in a different regard, and when you are challenged with them or have things that sometimes I think we go to directly at our problem. And sometimes, it can be helpful to have that gratitude piece be our way to get that further back, bigger lens to look at it with a little more distance and a little bigger picture to get the better perspective, to be able to see it and to see the person we've chosen in a different way and to remember who they are more holistically. And so, the one thing that's bothering us or making us crazy or that isn't quite hitting things and isn't quite connecting and that we aren't able to communicate quite right on. And then if we can start seeing the things we're grateful for and communicating the things we're grateful for, then maybe we can start finding a way around to communicate about the thing that's left that we need to communicate about. So, that was first, was a G in gratitude.

The second one is acceptance. And that is one I have been terrible at in my past romantic relationships, and amazing at in all of my friendships. So, my friends will tell you that I accept them fully, wholly, who they are, how they are, where they are, and love them fully for who they are, how they are, where they are. After all, I'm not paying bills with them. I'm not seeing them every night for dinner. I'm not having to live my life with them. I'm not having to base my future decisions on them. I'm not having to raise children with them. And it's so much easier to fully accept your friends. Am I right? So, consequently accepting people, I felt that I was somebody who is good at accepting people. And if you went to and please don't. If you went to my ex-partners, ex boyfriends, people I've dated, they would probably tell you I haven't told them I realized this, but I do, that I was not good at accepting them.

I think that I saw every little thing magnified to 10 and how it could negatively impact my life. And the ones that I seemingly accepted really well, it's because I saw their potential. And this is where you get to learn that Shawna listens to country music, and there's an excellent song about potential. But that's what I saw was potential. And I dated some amazing individuals with incredible potential. But guess what? No one wants to be loved for their potential. I always thought I wanted to be loved for my potential, but no I want to be loved for all of my flaws and my mistakes and my, what I am right now and not what I might potentially one day be. And that acceptance, that seeing somebody for who they are, where they are, what they are unconditionally, that acknowledgement of their inherent worth, regardless of them living up to that potential or being those things is what every one of us deserves.

And to some extent, we all need to be able to see ourselves that way and accept ourselves and feel that ourselves. But your number 1 partner, your person that you're spending your life with needs to accept you fully as well. Like, that's pretty key. And that's something that I unwittingly wasn't very good at and didn't even realize I wasn't good at that because I did love deeply, but I was in love with potential a lot of the time. And I saw so much potential. I was so good at seeing potential and really believing in people and not necessarily being good with what's here right now is what is and where we're at is where we're at. And that acceptance of that other person is pretty key to your primary relationship. And being able to do that, is pretty key to that relationship lasting. And you feeling fully accepted is also pretty key.

So that acceptance and you being able to work through why you aren't accepting or why you don't feel accepted, because again, there's also times where we're blocking ourselves from feeling accepted even though we may be accepted by our partner, that we have stuff in the past that makes us feel unworthy of being accepted and so, we can't see that and experience that and accept that, which is stuff that we need to kind of work through on our own and not necessarily something that falls on our partner. But that acceptance and that primary relationship is so important. And it's something that I didn't even realize that I was holding back because I was accepting someone's potential, not accepting somebody right where they were. Whereas, my partner could lose his job, not have a job. He could have whatever happened to him and he'd be absolutely fine. And I will still love him completely, deeply, fully without a doubt. Absolutely. I know who he is. I accept who he is. I love him deeply, fully as he is without anything else. And I also remember having a partner who had a dream that I'd been in a, I don't know if I'd been in an accident or dream, but somehow, I had to have somebody else when my friends come and take care of me because I was ill and they were freaked out about it. And my mom was ill during those times. I'm sure that was part of where their dream came from and their fears came from with that. And at the time, like, I just brushed it off as, yeah. It's awesome. I have amazing friends who will take care of me, but I didn't even think that they would take care of me. And it's like, why are you staying with somebody you don't think is going to take care of you?

Like, instead of like, my current partner, like, he would, like, do anything to take care of me. He would not let somebody else take care of me. Like, he would allow others to help too. But, like, he would want to be the person to take care of me if something happened. Whereas, like, I dated somebody for a really long time who, like, had a dream and, like, my other friend came and took care of me in that sense. And they couldn't handle something, like, you know, that was to happen to me or whatever else. And I didn't see the sign of, like, why are you with somebody who doesn't want to be the one to take care of you and is overwhelmed with the thought of having to take care of you, instead of realizing you want a partner that accepts you even if you get to a point where I think I was, like, paraplegic in the dream they had or something, you know, even if it was paraplegic, they should still want to care for me. Right? They should be the person that's, like, we didn't talk much about in our last episode with Boots, but she talked about her husband, like, waking up to see if she's breathing in the middle of the night. Like, that's the level you want somebody caring for you for that level. And if you listen to her podcast and she talks about when she broke her leg and she was located elsewhere and him going down and making her food because they weren't bringing her food in the hospital. Like, you want somebody who wants to care for you. And that's part of that acceptance space that they accept you even when you can't do everything for yourself, like, they still accept you because they care for you and see you as wholly who you are as an individual and they want to be with you even if you can't be the person taking care of everybody. Because one of my skills is taking care of everybody.

And so, I thought that it's fine that I'm with somebody who expects me to take care of everybody. And if I can't, they shouldn't take care of me. They should expect one of my friends to do it instead of being with somebody who would want to be the one taking care of me because they love me that much, that acceptance of somebody, accepting them as they are fully, completely, not their potential, not what they may be one day, as they are right now, who they are and accepting them fully as they are, is the greatest gift for them to be able to reach that potential. And accepting them as they are, even if they can't, for some reason, do all the things that they once could do, that you still accept them for who they are, not what they can do. And that level of acceptance is so key to having that true connection with somebody and having that level of relationship that can truly withstand. And that way of really choosing each other as part of that accepting each other is choosing each other is that acceptance.

And that brings us to the S. And the S is probably the one that we could just spend hours on because the S is really a whole category. The S is something you're familiar with from this podcast. The S is self-maintenance and self-growth. The S is taking care of yourself. Because if you aren't taking care of yourself, if you aren't maintaining yourself, if you aren't finding new ways to grow, then you can't do all the other things. Like, this is the category where the communication falls into play, where the being able to grow comes into play. If you're listening to this podcast, you are somebody who cares about growth. Like that's why you're here. Right? So, kudos. Cause you're definitely caring about that. And hopefully you're hearing the messages about self-maintenance and starting to understand but you do need to do things to take care of yourself on a regular basis. And it's not a one size fits all. So, you're starting to learn what it might be for you? What things resonate for you? What things you need to do to be able to maintain yourself?

This category is knowing when you're at capacity. When you can't keep having the conversation because the conversation isn't going anywhere because you flipped your lid. You can tell I worked with kids for a long time. Right? You flipped your lid and you're not in the part of the brain that's able to process things. That's part of the self-maintenance piece is knowing when you can be present for that. And then the self-growth piece is to learn new ways to communicate. So, part of self-maintenance is taking care of you, knowing what you do to be your best self and to be present in your relationship, to know if you get hangry. That's my favorite thing about intermittent fasting y'all is that I don't get hangry. If I go off the wagon with my eating window and when I'm around family and lots of stuff's going on and I'm traveling, sometimes I don't do a good job with my eating window. And so, then my body will get a little off tempo. But if I'm doing an eating window, I don't get hangry, which is so nice because I'm not as excited to my blood sugar and not like yoyoing all over the place and dealing with that. But if you're someone who knows that you have that and for much of my life, I did have that, I need to regulate, like, am I responding to my body and the way my body's feeling right now? Or am I responding to like, what's actually happening with another individual in my life right now? So, am I taking care of myself? Am I getting enough sleep? Am I feeding myself well? Am I taking my quiet time when I need my quiet time? Am I saying no to enough things that I have enough space for what makes me happy? Am I making sure there's enough joy in my life? Am I taking care of me so I can be present in this primary relationship? Am I drawing boundaries at work? Am I drawing boundaries with my family in a way that I need to, so I can give what I want to give to a relationship.

So, the self-maintenance and the self-growth are really a big part of having that primary relationship that you want to have. And it's okay if those are still things you're working on and that's part of why you don't have that relationship yet. And it's okay to admit that. And it's okay to see that and to know that you need to focus on other things right now and that relationship isn't a priority. Robie will do a great job of telling you the story about right before we got together, right before we got together, when we met at a winery, it's actually a great long story. But the short version of it is that he was meeting his friends out afterwards, and really wanted me to go. And we were still in the friend zone, even though I was having a really hard time staying there. We were in the friend zone and I had my fill.

My family stuff was at a crescendo and I could meet an old friend who I knew would bring me joy at a winery for a couple glasses of wine, but that was it. I was not in a place that I could meet his friends, that I could do small talk with strangers, that I could be friendly with people I didn't know, like that was beyond my capacity at that point in time. And I wasn't like, we weren't even on a date really. Right? Like, if it was a date, I don't know if that would have been in, like, in the guards for me because of me taking care of myself and knowing what I could handle at that point in time because the family stuff, like I'd been at doctor's appointments with my dad that day, I had a lot of intense stuff going on at that point in time. And so, that was my capacity. And things shifted and I made room when it was time to make room and shift my priorities in a way that was best for me. But I definitely didn't go with him and his friends, even though I wasn't in a place to do that, that may have been us not getting together. Right? His friends might've not had a positive opinion of me if I would have been in the mood I might've been in by the time I was an hour and a half into doing small talk with strangers that evening.

So, that was me taking care of myself. Right? If it had been 10 years earlier, I might not have done that. 10 years earlier, I might have been whatever. I deserve to go out. Just because I have family stuff, I deserve to go out. Instead of me going, no, I need to take care of me and taking care of me involves this is what I'm up for. And knowing that about yourself. Right? Because for somebody else, it might have been that that's exactly what they needed was to go hang out with people they didn't know and how small talk was a great escape from dealing with family stuff. Right? Different people need different things. And it's important to know yourself and what you need and to make that happen for yourself. Right? But to be in a place to have that relationship is to be in a place where you're taking care of yourself, right? Where you're being mindful of what you need and giving yourself what you need to be in that relationship. So, as much as I am incredibly grateful that I have the phenomenal relationship that I do, that I have the love of my life. We've been together for 5 years. So, we get married very soon in the not-so-distant future. And I get to celebrate it with my loved ones and dear ones. I'm very excited for all of that.

I've had a lot of relationships that weren't that. And I have people I know in my world that don't have the level of joy and comfort and support from their primary relationship. And I know people who haven't found that, who want that. And so, that's why I really wanted to spend some time to offer what I feel is the most important pieces of the formula to make it possible. Part of it is my partner, but part of it is that I think he also does some of what I'm sharing with you. And some of that requires some encouragement. My dad does listen to my podcast, but he'll be amused if he ever does listen to this. My partner golfs. He loves golf. Golf is his way of processing stress. I think we probably mentioned it when we had our episodes this summer when we talked about burnout and the stress cycle and different pieces, like his ways of processing things is largely golf and video games, largely his way of processing those things. And he needs reminders at times to do that, to prioritize himself and to do that. So, when we bring that self-maintenance piece, like he has a partner, that's me, that will tell him you need to play golf today more than I need you to help me finish this project. As much as I would really love for us to get this done today, you have a large amount of stress going on in your life and you need this more than that. And he's very much been socialized to push through and just things done and do things I need him to do and do that instead. Right? That's how much he's been socialized. And my dad 100% does not get why my partner gets to play golf or goes and plays golf and why he's gone for so long, playing golf.

But because I feel this formula, this GAS, this gratitude, acceptance, and self-maintenance, taking care of yourself and self-growth is so imperative to our relationship being what it is and such a gift to my life and my world, I encourage him to do that. And so, there's this element and he also encourages me to travel and spend time with my girlfriends or have that phone call when I need it or to dance in the kitchen and cook if that's what I need or to do the things that I need as well. And I can tell him that I need to do these things to take care of myself, and he gets that. And he got me massage for Christmas and for me going to my bar class or for me going to a yoga class. That those are things that I need for that self-maintenance. So, there's that element of us both having this awareness that these are things that we need for our relationship to be what it is. And we're both very grateful for our relationship. Like I said, we choose each other and we don't take for granted what we have and we're grateful for what we have and we appreciate and honor that. And so, as much as at times there can be a lot of solutions and there can be a lot of challenges. And I don't want to be dismissive of them. There are things that we all go through and I know that you might be going through that are so big and so challenging in your relationships and in your homes and all of those pieces. And I don't want to be dismissive of any of that.

But if there's room to incorporate any of these tools to try to look at your partner with more gratitude, or if you're not in a place to do that, just incorporate more gratitude into your life. Or if you're waiting for a partner, for you to start incorporating gratitude as a way to prepare for that and to be more open to that. And then to start looking at that acceptance piece. To start looking at how fully you accept them and how fully you feel accepted and what the barriers might be in that and what you can do to be more accepting or what you might need to work through to feel more accepted, or if that's a possibility in your relationship and the importance of that potentially, and what a barrier that might be. And that self-maintenance piece, like, what are you doing to take care of yourself and how much room and grace do you give for your partner to care for themselves and how much to encourage that? And self-maintenance and self-growth, we use that as double time. But what are the things you're working on and growing on to be able to better that situation?

There are no magic bullets. Nothing super easy. It was just my thoughts and key takeaways that hopefully you might be able to use as you reflect and look at what you're looking for, what you might be able to better improve in your relationship. Because I know that it has made all the difference as I've been going through challenges over the last 5 years and there have been some doozies to have a solid relationship with someone by my side that I can really trust and have there. And I really value my friends as well. And I feel like my friends have always gotten most of this from me from the start. Like I said, the success there is left clues and I have a fountain of failure where I have not necessarily done those pieces or found those pieces.

Now as we wind up and we look at our self-maintenance, I encourage you to look at your self-maintenance to take a minute for you to think about what you've been doing to take care of yourself. In the last week, as you kind of flip back through the pages, what have you done in the last week to really take care of you? There was a day this week where I walked away from my work and went on a walk. That was exactly what I needed. And before recording this, I walked away from my work and went on a walk. I was doing bookkeeping before this. It drains me. I went on a nice walk and listened to a podcast and got prepared to be able to talk with all of you.

Think about what you've done. Give yourself some credit for it and then make a plan that's going to be our grit wit. What is your plan for what you're going to be doing? Because like I said, I feel like the self-maintenance piece even incorporates into you having satisfactory primary relationships in your life. So, what are you doing to take care of you on a regular basis? What is your regular practice? What is something you're prioritizing on a regular basis that puts you first, that puts your needs first, that makes you feel more energized, more able to take on the things in front of you? Is it getting to bed a little earlier? Is it taking that walk? Is it spending less time on social media? Is it turning your phone off at a certain time or silencing it? Or putting an alarm when it's time for you to go to bed, drawing that boundary about what you're getting some sleep? Is it eating more regularly? Is it having snacks at certain times? Is it recommitting to a goal? Is it recommitting to the word of the year? What can you do to maintain yourself and prioritize yourself? Because it even feeds into this. And I'd love for you to think more deeply about the bigger conversation, depending on where you're at.

And seriously, I talk about my social media, Shawna Podcasts is the best place to find me. But don't just find me. You can find me and follow me there, but send me a note. Send me a note and say, Shawna, follow me back and tell me, what resonated with you about this. Tell me if something spoke to you. If you connected with the idea of the gratitude or the acceptance or the self-maintenance, and tell me what you're doing to maintain yourself and take care of yourself. And if that resonates with you, I would love to hear from you. Thank you so much for being here. I'm very glad you're part of this community and happy Valentine's Day. Whether you celebrate it or not, I understand either way.

Thank you for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Be sure to jump on over to Instagram and follow us at The.Grit.Show. And if you aren't already following Authentic Connections Podcast Network at 37by27, you should definitely be doing that as well. Don't forget. You are the only one of you that this world has got, and that means something. I'll be here next Tuesday. I hope you are, too.