Excerpt: These 25 Quotes from The Gift Of A Year will replenish your soul and put the emphasis of your focus back to where it’s most important—on you.
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Introduction: If you don’t give to yourself, you will suffer damage.
More specifically, if you don’t give to yourself some of your own time, energy, and effort—you will suffer damage. And we’re not talking about presents.
You can live just fine without ever buying yourself superfluous gifts. What you can’t live “just fine” without, however, are the gifts of “you” time, the self-directed energy required for self-discovery and healing, and the personal effort it takes to overcome challenges and become your best you.
If you only ever direct your time, energy, and effort towards others—where are you supposed to get the time, energy, and effort required to maintain, upgrade, and improve yourself?
We are not the energizer bunny—forever going, going, going without any sign of stopping in sight. We are exhaustible. We are the batteries that the bunny is supposed to represent. We are not a lamp plugged into a wall outlet with a constant source of incoming energy. We live off of a charge.
While, yes, the charge may be long lasting, it eventually runs out, just like those energizer batteries. And when that happens, there is nothing left to do except recharge or replace the energy source.
So, what constitutes “recharging,” what causes a drain on our battery, and what might cause damage to our battery? If you think about how a smartphone works, the answer to these questions might become a little more clear.
Recharging happens on different scales—all in pretty intuitive ways. Our biggest recharge comes from sleep, just like for a smartphone the biggest recharge comes from being plugged in overnight. We also recharge in smaller segments with “power naps,” meditation, time in nature, or time with compassionate people—and the same is true when we plug our phone in for small amounts of time.
On the other end, our battery is drained as we invest our time, energy, and effort into the tasks of our day. Just like when we use the various apps on our smartphone, the battery is drained.
Now, if we’re always using and abusing our phone to do tasks, but we never restart, update, or upgrade our smartphone it will eventually start underperforming. The same is true for us. If we never invest time, energy, or effort back into our own personal “restarts,” “self-updates,” or personal “upgrades” then we, too, will start underperforming and will eventually suffer as a result.
Underperforming isn’t the only consequence of poor or unbalanced use of time, energy, and effort. Think about what happens to the battery when you use your smartphone while it’s plugged in. It messes up the calibration of the battery and damages its ability to hold its charge for as long.
Think about what happens to you when you keep giving time, energy, and effort when you’re supposed to be sleeping or investing in yourself? It messes up your ability to get a full sleep, hold your focus, and recover properly. It’s one and the same.
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And, of course, the same is true if you just use and abuse your phone with no care for its wellbeing. If you’ve ever seen someone who had little regard for their phone and used it while it had a cracked screen, a broken case, and malfunctioning buttons—then you know what I’m talking about. Well guess what? That’s what you look like when you don’t take care of yourself. Maybe not as visibly noticeable, but on the inside? Yup.
This is why you have to treat yourself like someone you were responsible for taking care of. Or, if you’re the careful type, how you would treat your brand new smartphone. And don’t you ever take better care of your phone than you do yourself! Direct some of your time, energy, and effort back to yourself every day and reap the benefits of upgrades, full recoveries, and performance with no damage! It’s a pretty great way to live and an even better way to give.
Below, you will find our list of 25 Mira Kirshenbaum quotes on rest, recovery, and self care from her book, The Gift Of A Year. Written specifically for women (but holds lessons applicable for all readers), Kirshenbaum aims to show readers how to take a year off from their current lifestyle (together or in chunks) and achieve the most meaningful, satisfying, and pleasurable year of their life to date. A bold claim, eh? Well, I’ll leave it to her to convince you of its possibility.
The central theme of the book is focused around the idea that the way you live can drain the ‘you’ from your life and how important it is to take care of yourself so that you can fill your life with more of what truly matters. Throughout the book (and teased in the quotes below) she shares methods and strategies that are backed by real life stories that show women how they can do just that. It’s a powerful read that may inspire you to make one of the most bold decisions of your life.
But, this decision to take the gift of a year should only be made once all factors of your life have been taken into consideration. Start by reading our collection of quotes from The Gift of a Year below and if you’re intrigued enough, consider buying Kirshenbaum’s book to read in full. The stories and plentiful examples that she shares throughout give readers specific context that they might need to make the decision(s) that’s right for their life. Good luck and enjoy!
The List: 25 Replenishing Quotes from The Gift Of A Year on Rest, Recovery, and Self Care
“When the soil of the self is exhausted, no beautiful flowers can grow from it.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 30)
“Every couple of years a farmer lets his fields go fallow so the soil can replenish itself. Why should we be any different?”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 127)
“If you don’t give to yourself, you will suffer damage.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 16)
“How can you think of yourself as a caring person if you don’t take care of yourself? If you don’t take care of yourself, you’ll stop thinking of yourself as someone who has a lot to give. Instead you’ll feel deprived. And you’ll hate your life. How can you give others joy if you can’t give yourself joy?”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 9)
“Giving yourself the gift of a year has a magical impact on your life because it restores the natural, necessary balance between giving to yourself and giving to others. There’s no reason for you to leave yourself outside of the equation. In the ecology of your life, you’re as important as anyone. If things curdle inside of you because you’ve neglected yourself, then ultimately they curdle for everyone.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 10)
“Rest doesn’t mean doing nothing. It means lying fallow, and that means restoring the nutrition you’ve lost. It’s about building yourself up. Reculer means retreating so you can advance. And retreating carries with it all the implications of a religious retreat—a way to spend energy to get more energy.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 88)
“You need to find out what juices your batteries. You need to do more to a battery than simply leave it alone to fill it up with electricity again. You have to fill it with what it needs. To recharge spiritually, you need to put yourself into a new context where you can get new answers. That way you can get plugged in to something that has the power you need.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 91)
“Recreation doesn’t just mean enjoying yourself. It literally means re-creating yourself. It’s almost a way of taking yourself apart and putting yourself back together again so that you feel better and function better. And so that you’ve worked out some of the glitches in your system.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 88)
The French have an expression: Reculer pour mieux sauter. This means that you have to step back, retreat a little, if you’re going to successfully jump over something. Want to jump across a ditch? You don’t just walk to the edge and then leap. You walk to the edge, gauge the distance, and then retreat a bit to give yourself room to get a full running start before you leap. Sometimes we can’t take the next leap forward unless we take the time to step back first. Where will you get the strength to sauter (leap forward) if you can’t allow yourself to reculer (pull back)?”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 87)
“All kinds of strange things happened to shape you as you were growing up. Your parents pushed you. Or they ignored you. Your mother was overinvolved. Or your father was underinvolved. Your older sister was bossy. Or your younger brother was bratty. Your family had too much money. Or not enough money. But none of these things that happened to you are you. Otherwise you and I would be nothing more than the pretzels fate twisted us into when the dough of the self was still soft.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 149)
“We can’t play out the stories of our lives according to the script other people have for us. That script may say we can’t get anything we need unless we’re sick. But you and I know that a life can be sick even when the mind and body are healthy. And sometimes the only way to heal a life is to give yourself the gift of a year in which you have an adventure where you make a dream come true. So what if you have to fight to win the freedom to give yourself that? Suppose you don’t do it. You’ll regret it forever.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 117)
“I remember a long period when it seemed like all I did was bounce back and forth between my patients and my children. They all needed every ounce of what I had to give. I didn’t even feel I had time for my husband. It was as if I were surrounded by a wall of people who saw me as nothing more than the person who took care of them. Emotionally I didn’t feel I had room to breathe.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 34)
“There was so much in my life I cared about—and of course I really loved being a therapist. But on another level there wasn’t anything in it I wanted just for me. It was as if my life had turned into a motel room and the truth was I could walk out of it without any sense that I was leaving anything of my own behind. A stranger could easily move into my life, and nothing would be different. I was happy as long as I didn’t think about who I was and what I really wanted for myself.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 44)
“The people in your life are truly interested in your being happy. The confusing thing is that they don’t go around advertising this. Your boss, your kids, your husband mostly talk about how they need this and they need that from you. But when you’re unhappy, a part of their world collapses. So if you have to shuffle your priorities around and put someone last who’s been coming first, and some of the people in your life start giving you grief, just remember how happy they’ll be when you’re happy.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 37)
“We never lose the good parts of ourselves we really care about. All the parts of yourself you’re wanting to put back in your life are there waiting for you. The pain you feel comes from the way these missing parts of yourself slowly choke from lack of oxygen when they’re buried. All you have to do is identify what’s really missing. Then make sure you find room for it in your life.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 111)
“We all need balance in our lives. That’s a given. Work and play, friends and family, romance and finance all must be given their due. So far, so good. The problem comes when we put too much on our plate and then insist that everything still has to balance out. It’s simple arithmetic. When you’re overcommitted and insist on balance, everything gets short shrift. When one thing needs special attention, you can’t pay attention to it if you’re insisting on balance.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 96)
“We all need a time and place for ourselves where the walls of our usual lives disappear. Sometimes taking yourself out of the hypnotic context of your everyday life is the only way to begin to be able to listen to the still voice within. When you do, listen carefully. Listen for the ways you whisper to yourself, ‘This is who I really am. This is what I need. This is what I want to do.’ When you hear new whisperings about these things, your gift of a year has rescued some lost piece of yourself and made it possible for you to put more of the you back in your life.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 110)
“What holds us back, you and I, isn’t our problems. We can overcome our problems. The real demon is the false solutions we use to try to solve our problems. You have issues on your back burner. Decide now—no more false solutions. Take hold of your issue, take it off your back burner, and take the time to deal with it.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 164)
“When you make yourself a top priority in your life for one year, you prove to yourself forever that you’re free, not trapped. You prove that you own your life, instead of feeling that everyone else’s claims on you come first. You prove that you can take care of yourself. You change the way you feel about your life forever. So do it now: cut one big slice from the pie of life and give it to yourself.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 17)
“Do you need to give yourself permission to do something big for your special year? Just imagine, as an alternative, spending the rest of your life being dragged behind the Great Dane of your overcommitments to others. For five minutes it’s cute. Over a lifetime, it destroys what’s best in you and what’s unique about you. If you don’t care about that, it’s too bad. Maybe they got you, all those voices working away from the time you were a little [child], trying to convince you that your only needs were to meet other people’s needs. But I think you do care. A lot.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 151)
“There should be no sense of struggle or any risk of failure with the gift of a year. You’re doing something you’ve been wanting to do for a long time. It’s about pleasure, indulgence, self-care, nurturing yourself, giving to yourself. It’s about seizing the day for yourself so you can do something you’ve long wanted to do. It’s not about making something happen. It’s about letting something happen. It’s not about pushing. It’s about stopping pushing.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 25)
“It’s easy to get started giving yourself the gift of a year. You start by giving yourself the gift of empty bits of time. Can you give yourself one whole Saturday or Sunday every week free from commitments? Can you give yourself half an hour just for you every morning or evening? Can you steal half an hour from work every day? Can you get your boss/husband/boyfriend/mother/kids/friends to cut you some slack?”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 34)
“If you let fear be a reason not to explore what life has to offer, you will never explore what life has to offer. A little shiver of fear is a necessary price you must pay to give yourself the gift of a year that involves trying something new. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. If you’re not trembling just a little bit, you’re not really venturing anything either. Sometimes the best thing you can do is to remember to not be afraid of fear.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 117)
“You cannot explore the world and the possibilities life has to offer without moving outside the safe neighborhood of your life as it is, without wandering into some new and dangerous neighborhoods where anything can happen. Let’s tell it like it is. If it’s a real adventure, if it’s something really new, there’s got to be an element of danger somewhere. Otherwise you’re not really trying anything new at all. You’re just playing around with the edges of your old life.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 116)
“Time ripens desires. It validates desires. Maybe you sort of feel like eating a cookie right now. If you get distracted, you’ll most likely lose your desire for that cookie. It didn’t stand the test of time. But when there’s something you want that you’ve kept on wanting for a long time, even if you’ve forgotten how much you want it, then that’s something you really want. And that will be something that will really satisfy you when you get it.”
Mira Kirshenbaum, The Gift of a Year (Page 67)
If you enjoyed these quotes from The Gift of a Year then you should consider picking up Kirshenbaum’s book to read in full. It comes warmly recommended:
Book Overview: Whether you think of it as a treat or a lifesaver, if you give yourself the gift of a year, it will change your life. This book will show you how to give yourself the gift of a year, piece by piece, step by step. As one woman put it, “Nothing could be simpler. For one year you do something that makes you feel great about yourself and your life.” If you’d like guidance, you’ll get everything you need here. If you need help seeing what you want to do with your special year, you’ll get that. If you need help seeing why you’re entitled to give yourself an entire year, you’ll get that. And if you need help with practical issues, like how to find time or ensure you get everything you want from your year, you’ll get that, too. This is a book about women and how we live our lives today. How we really feel about ourselves. How the way we live can drain the ‘you’ from your life, and how important it is to take care of yourself and to fill your life with more of what truly matters to you.
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ON SALE NOW:
Your “Life with LESS Regret” Guide…
Use Code: FALL15 for 15% Off and get INSTANT access to:
- 30 Powerful, One Page Meditations
- 30 Path-Altering Challenges
- 30 Original, Downloadable Illustrations
…Change your life by changing the DIRECTION of your life in 30 days. Or your money back.
Written by Matt Hogan
Founder of MoveMe Quotes. On a mission to help busy people do inner work—for better mental health; for healing; for personal growth. Find me on Twitter / IG / Medium. I also share daily insights here. 🌱
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