Listen to your happy life
Do you remember the guy in High Fidelity and how he organized his records?
"That sounds...comforting."
We might not go so far as to arrange our records autobiographically, but music has an amazing ability to trigger memories of our lives.
So, here's my suggestion for one easy (and probably free) moment of pampering you can do for yourself:
1. Close your eyes.
2. Remember a favorite (comforting?) moment or period in your life, when you were really happy.
3. Think of a song or a genre of songs that fit your life at that time.
4. Find the song(s) on your preferred music service or in your saved music. (You can open your eyes to do so unless you can just ask your smart speaker.)
5. Play the song (and close your eyes. or dance.) Let the happy feelings wash over you.
If you don't want to remember your past (like, that intensely happy moment was followed by an equally heart-rending breakup, and you cry every time you hear the song), there are self-care and mood-oriented playlists on every music service. I just pulled up my Spotify account and found 90 different playlists under the category "mood," gauged to every mood and activity type.
Don't forget to add an appropriate playlist to your other self-care activities, too. Spotify "Boozy lunch" for that amazing group of women blowing off steam together. I have my own "Sun Tunes" playlist that is my favorite thing to make me smile and sing along. And everybody needs their own favorite dance tunes cued up for when you finally get the house to yourself and can dance around in your underwear.
I'll leave you with one last playlist idea, with this description of an idyllic afternoon from my friend Jamie:
"Back porch with a mocha stout, ribeye with mushrooms cooked over wood in the kettle, and a jazz piano trio - preferably Bill Evans, Tord Gustavson, or Gonzalo Rubalcaba. Watching kids play in the tree house, wife is painting canvas. Heaven on earth."
Ahhhhhh.
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