Dear Face™: The Gifts We Never Forget
Dear Face,
Every year I spend more time thinking about what to give the people I love than what to put on my own wish list. I don’t want to give another gift that gets tucked away in a drawer or forgotten a few weeks later. How do you choose a gift that really matters?
— Rebecca, Asheville, NC
I’ve always loved giving gifts.
Not because I enjoy shopping, and certainly not because I’ve ever been the person who finds the most clever or extravagant present. What I’ve always loved is the search. The hope of finding something that whispers, I see you. I know you. I thought about you.
As I was thinking about Rebecca’s question, it occurred to me that I’ve spent much of my life searching for gifts that continue giving long after the moment they are received.
As a practitioner, I was never interested in becoming someone my patients needed. My goal was always to help them understand their bodies, restore balance, and give them the tools to continue caring for themselves long after they walked out of my office.
Looking back, I realize that’s also how I’ve always approached giving gifts.
The presents people remember months later are rarely the biggest or the most expensive. They’re the ones that intentionally become part of everyday life. They find a place on the bathroom counter, on a nightstand, or in the small rituals that mark the end of a day. Over time, they become more than a gift. They become part of how someone lives.
That realization changed the way I think about the holidays.
I stopped asking, “What should I give?”
Instead, I started asking,
“What do I hope this gift continues to give after the holidays are over?”
It’s a small shift in perspective, but it changes almost everything.
Instead of thinking about gifts, I begin thinking about lives.
I think about the woman who carries responsibility so naturally that she no longer notices its weight.
She may be leading a company, running a business, caring for aging parents, raising children, supporting a spouse, mentoring a team, or somehow doing several of those things at once. She is capable. Dependable. The one everyone calls first.
What I’ve learned is this beautiful woman does not usually complain about how much she’s carrying.
She simply keeps carrying it.
Somewhere along the way, we become so accustomed to responding to everyone else’s needs that our own slowly move to the bottom of the list. Not intentionally. Not because they don’t value themselves. Life simply has a way of rewarding the urgent while unintentionally asking us to postpone ourselves until later.
Later can become a very long time.
I’ve also noticed something else.
The women who give the most are often the least comfortable receiving.
They’ll gladly celebrate someone else’s milestones, notice when someone is struggling, send thoughtful notes, even bring dinner when a friend is sick, and somehow know exactly what another person needs before they’re even asked.
Yet when that same thoughtfulness is turned toward them, something interesting happens.
It isn’t that they’re ungrateful.
It’s that receiving can feel surprisingly uncomfortable.
I understand that feeling.
It’s easy to say “thank you” while wondering if someone else deserved the kindness more. Or feeling just a little awkward having the attention turned toward you instead.
Over the years, I’ve come to believe that discomfort isn’t a sign we don’t value being cared for.
It’s often a sign we’ve spent so much of our lives giving that receiving no longer feels familiar.
I think we’ve simply become better at giving than receiving.
And that’s where biology offers an interesting perspective.
What strikes me isn’t that women are resilient.
We know that.
Women have been adapting for generations.
What continues to fascinate me is how completely we begin to identify with the adaptations we’ve made.
The woman who checks on everyone before she sits down herself rarely thinks of it as self-sacrifice. It’s simply how she moves through the day.
Even exhaustion has a way of changing its name. We stop saying, “I’m tired,” and begin saying, “I’m just busy.” As though feeling depleted is simply part of being an adult, and busy is a badge of honor.
That’s what adaptation does.
It takes something that began as a response to a season of life and, with enough repetition, makes it feel like who we are.
I see that same pattern reflected in faces every day.
A forehead that never completely lets go.
A jaw that no longer remembers what relaxed feels like.
Eyes that remain contemplative even while someone shares they’re finally on vacation.
The question isn’t, “Why do I look aged?” and “What’s with these lines around my mouth and between my eyes?”
After all these years, I find myself asking a different question.
What has this face been faithfully preparing and adapting to?
Because the body doesn’t create these patterns to work against us.
It creates them to help us.
Perhaps there was a season when staying strong was necessary. When being the dependable one held a family together. When pushing through, exhaustion felt like the only option. When putting your own needs aside was an act of love.
The body remembers the jobs we’ve asked it to do.
Sometimes long after those jobs are over.
That changes the way I think about the woman who feels uncomfortable receiving care.
I don’t see someone who has forgotten how to care for herself.
I see someone whose body has become exceptionally skilled at caring for everyone else.
There is an important difference.
Biology is constantly responding to what we practice. The nervous system strengthens the pathways we return to most often. Over time, those repeated experiences become familiar, and familiarity has a powerful way of shaping how we move through the world.
The encouraging part is that this works both ways.
If years of responsibility can become familiar…
so can moments of restoration.
If the body can become practiced at vigilance…
it can become practiced at ease.
If caring for everyone else has become second nature…
I know that caring for yourself can become second nature, too.
Maybe that’s why my idea of a meaningful gift has changed over the years.
I’m no longer looking for something that creates a wonderful moment.
I’m looking for something that creates a meaningful practice.
Why? Because a practice can become a pattern.
And patterns have the ability to change how we live.
Face Notes
A Thought to Carry Into the Holidays
As you’re choosing gifts this season, consider giving something that becomes part of someone’s life—not just their holiday.
The most meaningful gifts aren’t always the ones that create the biggest reaction when they’re opened.
They’re the ones someone reaches for again in January… and February… and long after the decorations have been put away.
Because every time they do, they’re reminded that someone cared enough to choose with intention.
A Small Practice
If you’re giving yourself one gift this season, let it be permission to receive.
Even five uninterrupted minutes to rest your eyes, care for your skin, take a slow breath, or simply sit without doing anything at all isn’t indulgent.
It’s practice.
And what we practice, our biology begins to recognize as familiar.
Discover Gifts with Intention
I’ve gathered a collection of gifts chosen for exactly that reason—not because they’re beautiful to open, but because they invite moments of restoration that become part of everyday life.
Discover Gifts with Intention → https://truenergyskincare.com/bhlgiftguide/
Until next time…
Stay expressive. Stay radiant. Stay you.
— Cathy Goldstein, AP
Dear Face™ is Cathy Goldstein, AP’s monthly column for Best Holistic Life, where she explores beauty through the lens of vitality, facial expression, energy, and holistic wellness.
References
McEwen BS, Gianaros PJ. Stress- and Allostasis-Induced Brain Plasticity. Annual Review of Medicine. 2011;62:431-445.
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-med-052209-100430
Supports: The brain and body continually adapt to experience; repeated stress changes neural circuitry; adaptation is dynamic rather than fixed.
McEwen BS. Stress, Adaptation, and Disease: Allostasis and Allostatic Load. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. 1998;840:33-44.
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-6632.1998.tb09546.x
Supports: The concept of “stability through change” (allostasis) and how repeated demands shape physiology over time.
McEwen BS. Physiology and Neurobiology of Stress and Adaptation: Central Role of the Brain. Physiological Reviews. 2007;87(3):873-904.
https://doi.org/10.1152/physrev.00041.2006
Supports: The brain continually adapts to life experiences, coordinating behavioral and physiological responses.
Davidson RJ, McEwen BS. Social Influences on Neuroplasticity: Stress and Interventions to Promote Well-Being. Nature Neuroscience. 2012;15:689-695.
https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3093
Supports: Adult neuroplasticity, the effects of stress, and the ability of intentional practices to reshape neural circuits.
Schulkin J, Sterling P. Allostasis: A Brain-Centered, Predictive Mode of Physiological Regulation. Trends in Neurosciences. 2019;42(10):740-752.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31488322/
Supports: Modern understanding of allostasis as the brain’s predictive regulation of physiology and behavior.
Have a Question for Dear Face™?
Each column begins with a real question because communication is always happening. We’re just learning how to listen.
Dear Face™ is a monthly column by Cathy Goldstein, AP, an acupuncture physician with 40 years of clinical practice.
Her work approaches ageless beauty as a reflection of expression, vitality, and biological communication, supporting a look that feels as alive as it appears. It’s an expression of balance, vitality, and biological communication, exploring how restoring function supports a naturally resilient, expressive face.
“The most beautiful gifts are the ones that keep giving after the wrapping paper is gone.”
— Cathy Goldstein, AP
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