Happy Birthday! Gratitudes With a Twist

I just celebrated my double nickel birthday, 5 5 !

It feels surreal and yet, here I am. Fifty-five years on this amazing planet. It's going by quite fast and it's been a wild ride so far! And I know every single one of you reading this resonates with this, too. This ride is moving faster than we can keep up with at times.

For each birthday I try to take a few moments to reflect on all the past birthdays and the evolution of my life. What brought me here to this place at this time in our shared, global history? The lessons learned and still being learned. The people, teachers who I have picked up along the way. Some are still with me. Some are not. Some have stayed as golden imprints onto my heart. Some as scars of cautionary wisdom into my memory.

As I contemplated my 55 years, I felt immediate and profound gratitude for what life has given me. And spontaneously, I found myself reflecting on my evolution with the younger parts of myself.

In my journal I wrote down a current gratitude and then reflected on an old belief I had carried about the thing I am grateful for now. For example, as a gratitude I wrote down my little family - my son and husband. And then I remembered when I was in high school and early college, I believed that I was too f*cked up to ever be in a healthy, loving, long-term relationship or to ever become a mom who would be able to raise a kid without ruining his life. This is what I wrote to that younger part of me who held this belief:

I am so sorry you believed you were too broken to ever have a loving, safe, and playful family of your own. You did the hard work of facing all your demons head-on and healing all the wounded parts that birthed this belief. Yay! You're no longer in survival mode. Go and enjoy your birthday, your life!

When I expressed gratitude for my chosen tribe of amazingly resilient, soulful, and loving women in my inner circle, I wrote this to my younger part:

I am so sorry you felt 'less than' around girls and women while growing up. I am sorry you believed you had to compete with them and guard your heart. That was the patriarchy's brainwashing of you and all the other girls. They conditioned you to believe that your worth was measured by the men who found you worthy, which propagates competition and lack of trust with other females. I'm so proud of you for deconstructing those lies and allowing yourself to be an advocate, a cheerleader, and a fierce defender of women. And to allow these women into your most vulnerable places.

I did this exercise for my career and my home as well. I know this practice may seem cheesy or a bit self-indulgent, but if you're familiar with how I work with clients, this is exactly what I prescribe in my healing practice. Shadow parts work. And I don't prescribe anything I am not willing to do myself. We work with their ashamed, wounded, traumatized parts of self so they can understand, befriend, love, and eventually integrate those parts back to Self. As a result, the client feels more present, whole, and empowered enough to make the changes that are in their best interest. As we approach the end of our work together, we reflect on their inner work, their healing, their transformation and they usually leave feeling amazed by what they accomplished.

And we applaud that.

We applaud them.

After a life of berating oneself, don't they deserve to celebrate their own milestones of healing and integration?

Whether on your birthday or next Tuesday, I invite you to do a similar exercise with your journal, a pen, and your younger parts. Reflect on an accomplishment or a gratitude and then allow yourself to remember a time when you didn't believe you could accomplish or have that thing. Offer compassion to your younger part for carrying that belief for so long, and then honor yourSelf with a little praise & celebration!

Until next time friends, have a gander at current offerings and happenings at Sacred Healing Place.