Remember that one of the kindest things you can do for yourself in winter, especially once the holidays are over, is to go to a good plant conservatory or big greenhouses and just spend hours there, walking around and sitting on benches.
It’s even better if they have a section with birds or bird sounds. Just let the green health and fragrances surround you and feel your body relax.
This is also a kindness you can do for others, for example a depressed person or an elderly person who lives in a home but can leave sometimes, or someone in a wheelchair. They might like it better than any other gift.
Sometimes you forget you can even feel good and inhale deeply unless you do something like this.
“If you inherently long for something, become it first. If you want gardens, become the gardener. If you want love, embody love. If you want mental stimulation, change the conversation. If you want peace, exude calmness. If you want to fill your world with artists, begin to paint. If you want to be valued, respect your own time. If you want to live ecstatically, find the ecstasy within yourself. This is how to draw it in, day by day, inch by inch.”
Your purpose in life is not to love yourself but to love being yourself.
If you goal is to love yourself, then your focus is directed inward toward yourself, and you end up constantly watching yourself from the outside, disconnected, trying to summon the “correct” feelings towards yourself or fashion yourself into something you can approve of.
If your goal is to love being yourself, then your focus is directed outward towards life, on living and making decisions based on what brings you pleasure and fulfillment.
Be the subject, not the object. It doesn’t matter what you think of yourself. You are experiencing life. Life is not experiencing you.
