“And How Will You Celebrate?”

What does it mean to celebrate ourselves?

No cake but I still lit the candles!

Whilst studying with The Coaching Academy, a question that often came up at the end of reciprocal coaching, should we successfully achieve the goals we’d laid out in the session was, “And how will you celebrate?”

I would frequently find myself making things up. “Er, ooh I’ll go on a nice bike ride,” or, “I’ll have a nice bath and relax for the evening.”

But really though, is that truly celebrating oneself? I mean, sure, a bubble bath is nice, or going to the cinema, or enjoying a nice bike ride along the canal path, but is that true self-love, acceptance and truly rejoicing in oneself?

46

It was my birthday a week last Saturday. As the Spanish would say, I’m now accompanied by 46 years and 8 days.

On my birthday week last year, feeling a little flush, I bought a Coldplay concert ticket for my birthday this year. Across two devices and several hours, as soon as the tickets went on sale, I made it my aim to bag one. I didn’t care what city - I was going! I waited in various queues as Budapest, Athens, Rome, Dublin tickets all sold out. Finally, I had a choice for either Munich or Vienna. I plucked for Vienna on the day of my actual birthday. August 24th 2024. I was delighted and had good faith that finances within the year would come good and I’d be off to celebrate my birthday with 60,000 people in Ernst Happel Stadium.

For whatever reason, no doubt a lot to do with self-limiting beliefs, Vienna did not transpire and I let my ticket go.

So as not mope, I started to plan a wee soirée. I thought, ‘Oooh maybe this will be the first time I have actual candles in a cake and a birthday party.’

And then I was felled with a horrid fluey lurgy and the only thing I was able to prepare all week was a hot toddy! I felt relief to alleviate myself of the pressure and cancel.

Are you seeing a theme here? Albeit a deeply unconscious one.

Birthdays were something absolutely not to be celebrated in my former faith. I never missed them, I never felt deprived because it’s impossible to miss something you’ve never had. Plus, I was blessed with very generous parents and grandparents.

So why now do birthdays feel so very challenging? Well, the answer is complex and multi-layered and I’m wanting to keep this a brief-ish post but a lot of it has to do with not knowing how to celebrate myself. I believe that’s why Vienna and my birthday soirée didn’t transpire: fear. Fear of celebrating me.

And I’d wager this isn’t just me. I imagine people who have celebrated birthdays their whole lives grapple with celebrating who they are, being their truest, weirdest selves, celebrating what they have lived, journeyed and healed through, celebrating their accomplishments, forgiving themselves, fiercely accepting themselves, celebrating who are they have become and continue to become.

Birthdays, I now see, provide me with a wonderful opportunity to take stock of where I am, all what I worked through in the year previous, the things I’d like to tackle and accomplish in the year ahead and, perhaps above all, allow me to just be me - the messy, multi-layered, multi-faceted, perfectly imperfect Suzy who is doing her absolute bestest.

During one of those coaching sessions outlined above I realised the degree to which I’d not celebrated the wins enough along the way.  I wrote the following: ‘During the upheaval of my 2022 Workaway summer in Portugal, I didn’t fully celebrate or acknowledge my passing to become a NLP Practitioner.  Also in 2022, I fulfilled the life long dream of running the London Marathon and hadn’t arranged to have anyone at the end to hug or celebrate with’ (and I went onto list many other things).

Yes, celebrating ourselves is obviously so much more than candles in a cake (although not going to lie, can’t wait for that particular birthday🥳 🎂). And it’s more than receiving presents - this too, I’m noting, provides opportunity to work through root causes of very real anxiety to do with some kind of guilt of receiving.

For me, celebrating myself comes back to allowing me to be fully me; to be all that I know I can be. To not hold back on life. To work the through deep layers of fear and give it my everything. And this will be a life-long endeavor after decades of some hard-core self suppression.

(Meme from the ever fabulous weekly meme drop by

The Starfire Codes

)

Celebrate your wins folks - and not just on your birthday.  Big  and small.  Even if it’s the simple act of managing to come back to your breath and feel gratitude in the moment. That is to be celebrated!

When we struggle to celebrate a win, we can become adept at jumping all over the place, from one to thing to the next, and not really processing what we’ve accomplished. How bloody well we’ve done!

Last week, sat on a train,  I caught my reflection in the window.  I felt so much compassion for the face I saw looking back at me. I felt so proud of her.

There are still so many lessons to be learned and adventures to be had. 

And I still believe in magic. 🪄✨

So, in conclusion, I wish for us all to celebrate ourselves and to find deep, deep inner peace.

In the moments where you feel all is lost, do one thing that makes life that bit easier or less painful in that moment.  Put fresh linen on the bed.  Sniff a rose.  Hold a warming beverage between your hands. Take a nap.

Know that you have a universe inside of you.  Don’t ever feel that you lack experience to go after what you want - your experience is unique to you and will be your own light to others. 

Take up space.  Own your story.  Put in the work to heal and to forgive. 

What if where you are at right now, with whatever emotion you might feel, is just as it should be? What if there is no wrongness about any of it, only awareness?

It’s as my Substack friend

Elena Carter

quoted: ‘Self-care doesn’t have to be about expensive spa treatments. Sometimes, self-care is looking in the mirror, smiling at yourself, and saying, “You did great today. I’m proud of you.”’

With all the love in the Suzyverse,

Suzy 🌞