Podcast Episode #108: When Should We Stop Celebrating Birthdays?
When should we stop celebrating birthdays? Never! You should always celebrate your birthday! You absolutely want to celebrate all those years you have lived, the accomplishments you have achieved, the heartaches, the failures, as well as all your wins. Those experiences make up the patch work that represents your life. But how you celebrate does change as the years pass and Sharri shares a few ideas of ways to celebrate in unique ways.
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Podcast Episode #108: When Should We Stop Celebrating Birthdays?
Welcome to the Extraordinary Women Podcast. This is Episode 108. I’m your host Sharri Harmel and I’m the editor as well as the chief creative of Extraordinary Women.
Today I’m going to talk about birthdays.
I recently had a birthday. I’m not going to tell you how old I am, though I’m sure you can guess. But I love my birthdays. I love the month of my birthday. I love the season of my birthday.
In French, they don’t say, Je suis cinquante ans … or I am 50 years old. Instead in French they say J’ai cinquante ans … or I have 50 years.
A tiny verb difference, but when I pause to think about this difference, I believe it is actually an entirely different way to look at your birthday and your age.
For example,
Saying I am 50 years old, marks the present time. In this moment I am 50 years old.
Let’s try it the French way and use the have verb. …I have lived 50 years.
Suddenly, what comes up is this feeling of gratitude. I have lived 50 years and respectfully acknowledge all the history and living of the previous 50 years.
So, I guess the short answer to the question in the title of this podcast- When should we stop celebrating our birthdays? Never! You should always celebrate your birthday!
You absolutely want to celebrate all those years you have lived, the accomplishments you have achieved, the heartaches, the failures, as well as all your wins. Those experiences make up the patch work that represents your life.
But how you celebrate does change as the years pass.
I’ve got a few ideas for you….
#1 Create your celebration venue and invite people you enjoy.
Many years ago, a good friend in Boston introduced me to this lovely birthday celebration idea. Ellen invited me as well as several other good friends to be her guests to the chef’s table at Giulia’s, a restaurant in Cambridge, MA. Ellen said it was a celebration she wanted to share with her best and truest friends. I had never before heard of this tradition before, and it was truly special. I was grateful to be included!
So, when one of my first long stays in Paris, was over my birthday, I invited a new friend to a birthday lunch celebration at Le Grand Véfour in the arcades of the palais-royale. It was a lovely day. Now, you might think these two examples are odd, aren’t friends supposed to take the birthday girl out for lunch or dinner? But ladies, it is so much fun for you to take charge of your celebration and share the day with someone who you treasure.
Le Grand Véfour restaurant by the way, is in the Emily in Paris series. It’s when Emily thought she had a reservation for a big company event but forgot the European way of switching the day and month so had to go elsewhere.
It was a lovely birthday- Paris, Le Grand Véfour and sharing it with a friend. I can still remember the room, the place-settings, and the courses.
Another crazy but fun birthday gift to myself was flying one of my sisters to Boston so we celebrate together. She wanted to see Boston but couldn’t quite afford it. It was a weekend of laughs, shopping, and good stories.
These examples are rather extravagant. But celebrations can come in many forms. You could invite your best friends to your home and prepare a meal of celebration. Do not hesitate to create your own celebration outside the normal traditions.
Face it, at some point none of us really needs any more gifts, so this reverse gifting experience is a fun idea. If you are celebrating solo, don’t let yourself take the dive into feeling sorry for yourself. Don’t wait for invitations, hoping and wondering if anyone will remember. Create the experience yourself and invite your loved ones to enjoy the day with you.
#2 Send yourself a birthday card! Actually, make it a love letter. Tell yourself all that you celebrate from your past. That first job, your graduations, the challenges you overcame. Acknowledge all your gifts and talents, and praise how you put each to good use in the years you have lived.
Envision your fabulous future. Add everything you are looking forward to, everything you are going to create in your life. Be your own greatest cheerleader. Remember, we cannot expect anyone else to be our cheerleader if we aren’t front and center leading that cheer.
For years now, I have sent birthday cards to myself but also when I travel, I send myself postcards and letters. Sometimes those cards actually beat me home. I keep them all. I find the notes and thoughts I jot down while out of my normal environment, are especially poignant and consequently cherished long after the event or experience. Someone smarter than me said that to know yourself, you have to leave the place that is familiar.
#3
Another fun birthday idea is to make yourself a beautiful Vision board. Put every dream and wish you have on that vision board. What if you had as many wishes as candles on your cake. One wish for every year? If that’s too daunting, maybe one wish for every decade you have lived.
Vision boards are incredible and actually, one of the gals I interviewed on the Bloom TV podcast and myself are going to offer a special conversation on vision boards to the Extraordinary Women private Facebook group very soon.
What wishes and dreams do YOU still hold? Ask yourself, if money, time, and support were unlimited, what would you love to do, make, build?
Now, if you’re still stuck coming up with wishes, mimic what you did back to when you were a child. Before you blew out the candles on your cake, you’d close your eyes to make a wish. Do the same when you create your vision board.
Do vision boards work? Are vision boards a thing of the past?
Decades ago, when I regularly spent time in London and the English countryside with my former husband, I made a promise to myself that I’d live part-time in Europe. Europe was so much a part of my childhood books and adult dreams, so photos of cities in Europe, hiking in Europe, cafes and homes in Europe are still on my vision board…. And here I am in Paris!
So, no vision boards are not old school…. or things of the past…. embrace making a beautiful vision board and put it up where you can see it to regularly remind yourself of your wishes and dreams.
What’s on MY current vision board?
More travel … I want to see Venice and Rome or maybe Stockholm and Copenhagen. I have this intense urge to see more, have more experiences.
There are photos of people who are smiling at each, usually sharing meals around tables. I want to continue to create community in the two primary cities where I live and I’m always thinking about ways I could do that.
A special someone in my life is always on my vision board- preferably one who dresses like Cary Grant.
Photos of multi-generations because I want happy and healthy children and grandchildren, with time spent together.
Then, a big logo of the EW brand. I want to reach more extraordinary women like you- and support women to make their dreams happen- ways to make that next chapter, that second half of your life – better than you ever could have imagined.
My vision board is full but that’s how I like it. I can’t wait for you to create your vision board.
#4 Get an astrological birth chart reading.
If you aren’t up on astrology, your birth chart is a snapshot of the planets at the exact time and place you were born. It’s not woo-woo – unless you don’t believe the earth is one planet within a galaxy.
I had birth charts done on both of my children- incredible. I wish I had done these charts when my children were born, because both charts would have helped me to maybe understand them. Years ago, I gave one of my sister’s an astrological birth chart reading for her birthday. She actually cried when she listened to it because she said it perfectly explained her challenges and gifts.
As for my own birth chart, all I can say is that clumping of activity in the sixth and seventh houses explains a LOT!
So, should we ever stop celebrating our birthdays? No. If you do, what does that mean? That your birthday isn’t important enough to celebrate? That instead of celebrating you should choose invisibility, by pretending it isn’t your special day. No.
#5 My last suggestions….
Send yourself flowers. Pick out just what flowers you love. It is so fun to have flowers delivered to your home.
Make a spa appointment. Pamper yourself.
Pour yourself a glass of Champagne, put on ABBA’s Dancing Queen and keep on dancing the celebration of you.
Thank you for listening today and as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts…. remember your feedback guides the conversations we have on this Extraordinary Women Podcast.
Take good care and à bientôt.
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