Sometimes I find myself flipping through old notebooks, either in search of something, looking to see if there are pages I can rip out and recycle (because I’m always moving towards more simplicity), or because I’m procrastinating writing something new.
As I was doing this the other morning, I came across a passage that felt really important to me right now. I am hearing many people talk about how they are supposed to be shopping for other people and there is this desire to be shopping for themselves.
This tells me a couple of things.
It tells me, as I have long suspected, that we have things backwards about giving. Giving is not meant to be done from a place of ‘supposed to’ or stress. Giving is meant to be done with a full heart. This is why I sometimes get my holiday shopping done all in one day and why sometimes it takes longer. I search for the gift that feels perfect for the person, that makes me feel like I have found something that they would stumble upon and want to buy for themselves.
Which leads me to the second thing – so many of us do not feel we are deserving. We put others first pretty much all of the time, and we do this even now as we are shopping. We discover something that we love, that feels like a natural extension of ourselves, that we could convince ourselves might make a good gift for someone else but really, if we’re honest, it’s what we wish for. And we feel like we can’t buy it or even ask for it.
Which brings me to what I wrote back in the April…
I will not live in a place of lack when it comes to things that make me feel alive. It is not about buying for the sake of buying so much as it is about filling my life with sacredness. Yes, oh yes, that.
When you find something that makes you feel alive and whole and sacred, whether it is a physical object or an experience or a person or a place or an idea, tell yourself that you are worthy of having it because you are!
It is as simple as that. Start treating yourself like you are deserving of not simply living life to serve and take care of others but to feel alive, to embrace this time that you have.
And if that means buying yourself something this holiday season, so be it!
P.S. Last weekend, I bought myself a wand. There’s a big story there, and one that I’ll be telling when the time is right.
