Buy The Lilies

I don’t know whether it is commendable or pathetic that on the eve of my 75^th birthday, I am still perusing like crazy books on self -improvement and self-empowerment. I am still actively engaged in finding rituals and practices to improve my life. 
 
While browsing at the fabulous Rizzoli Bookstore in New York City, I found a gem of a book: Buy Yourself the F-cking Lilies by Tara Schuster. 
 

 
Okay, she was about 25 years old when she wrote it and I’m way older than that and should know better – but I found her struggles and her journey to fix her life to be both relevant and relatable to mine.
 
Here’s some of her suggestions.
     Journal daily. It’s a sacred and safe space to explore what holds you back from being the best version of yourself. It’s not about recording what you ate, how many steps you walked or how much you weighted. For Tara, journaling is about just writing what is on your mind without censure. 
 
Tara offers a few writing prompts to jumpstart the process of wrestling with the tough stuff:
     Here is something I have been pondering…
     What I feel today is…
     I’m figuring out that my crutch is…
     Here are ten things I like about myself…
     Here is what I want people to say about me when I’m not around… (Tee Hee, for those of us in the autumn/winter of our years, it could be how we want our obit to read!!)
 
     When Tara realized self-medicating didn’t work, not only did Tara start journaling, but she began listing things she was grateful for on a regular basis and she began exercising daily.
 
     From there, she branched out – all under the guise that living the life you want is about the least selfish thing you can do. You know the routine: put your oxygen mask on first, then help others put on theirs.
 
     And not surprisingly, she found great strength on working on the “tough stuff” because it led to her living the life she imagined. 


 
One way she did this was banishing the “frenemy” within – the little voice that tells you over and over again that….
      You are nothing special
      You will fail
      You are ugly
      You teeth aren’t white enough
      You are fat 
      You are foolish
      You are not good enough
      You are a fraud
 
     Tara leaned that “being mean to yourself is counter-productive, feels awful and takes way more energy than being kind.” Every time she heard that little negative, unhelpful voice, she wrote down the accusations she heard and refuted each one.
 
    Know your team became another North Star marker for Tara. It’s your tribe of well-wishers – those individuals you go to when you need love and care and encouragement. 
 
    Most of us would stop there. Tara didn’t. She also made a list of toxic people to stay away from. She named it her ABSOLUTELY NOT/ARE YOU CRAZY? list. These people may be wonderful. These people may in some convoluted way even love Tara, BUT they are people who are apt to say something snide or dismissive. These are people who don’t invigorate Tara, but make her feel small, unimportant, and stupid.
 
     Halfway through reading her book, I boarded a plane back to Tampa from New York City. I had three choices of how to use my time in-flight: continue with Tara’s book and include more suggestions from her in this column, listen to the mesmerizing televised hearings on the January 6 uprising, or watch an entertaining movie like the frivolous tear-jerker by Nicholas Sparks entitled Dear John.
 

 
     I choose the movie. So, you will have to buy Tara’s book if you want some additional, very helpful suggestions on living life on your own terms. Kudos to me – a big tap on the shoulder – for giving-in to something relaxing, non-essential and purely pleasurable. Forty-two days before my 75^th birthday, I’m finally “getting it.”
 
Keep Preserving Your Bloom,
 
Iris Ruth Pastor