Be Gentle With Yourself Chapter 9
Chapter 9 — The Healing Garden Collection
When I stepped back and looked at this painting I thought — it doesn't really work yet. It's almost half dark and half light. I need to fix it.
And then I stopped.
Because I realized — that IS the painting. That is exactly the truth it was trying to tell.
I had been punishing myself.
For not making decisions fast enough. For not being as productive as I was before. For not being able to move forward in the ways I thought I should. I was giving in to pure exhaustion — emotional and physical — and then feeling guilty about that too. As if resting was a failure. As if being human was something to apologize for.
This painting finally became about acceptance.
About giving myself permission to be a mess. To rest. To listen to my body when it said stop. To stop punishing myself for not being more, doing more, moving faster.
Dramatic stargazer lilies command the upper canvas with a defiant, confident beauty. Soft pink roses nestle gently at the lower left, tender and unhurried. Simple white daisies with golden centers stand quietly in the center — the most unassuming flowers in the garden, and somehow the most grounding. Tiny golden berries dot the composition like small unexpected moments of warmth.
And the background — luminous sky blue on one side, deep violet and purple on the other.
Not blended. Not resolved. Both fully present. Both completely necessary.
The dark side is all of that weight — the self judgment, the exhaustion, the guilt. The light side is acceptance. And they don't blend together neatly. They don't resolve into something comfortable. They just exist side by side.
Because that is what acceptance actually looks like.
You don't have to like where you are. You just need to accept it.
Between this painting and the last one, I began doing the things I had put on the back burner because I simply didn't have the emotional bandwidth to face them. Financial matters. A surgery I had been putting off. Coming to terms with the fact that my life wasn't looking the way I thought it would at 68.
That I was actually living in this little farm town with awful restaurants and no health food stores — the kind of town you can see in 15 minutes if you're driving slow — and starting to feel comfortable here.
I began really appreciating it. The beautiful calm scenery. The big open skies. The quiet.
And because there isn't much to do here — I paint. A lot.
This place gave me a chance to decompress. To not get dressed. To heal. To accept myself and where I am in my life. I can't fix the new reality I didn't expect. I can only move forward and make it count the best way possible.
Would that be called being present for yourself? Not feeling guilty that you can't make everything better for everyone? Just learning, all over again, to be the best version of yourself — for yourself?
Yes. I think that's exactly what it's called. 💜
Be gentle with yourself.
You are doing better than you know.
(Tears not included — but completely understood.) 🌸
The garden is open. You are welcome here. 💜
Be Gentle With Yourself is available as an Original Painting, museum-quality Fine Art Giclee PaperPrint, Canvas Giclee Print, Fine Art Card/ Mini Prints on archival paper, and Gifts
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Ms. Laura Jones Paints | Creatively Beautiful