In my recent observations, it seems that the act of celebrating has taken on the go big or go home mentality. It’s turning into an obligatory, big hoopla thing for birthdays, graduations, holidays (that you may or may not resonate with) and other big milestones.
And while I love a good party, and I really do love holidays, what has become of celebrating the everyday victories? Why has it become selfish or shameful or unimportant to celebrate your daily wins and accomplishments?
I submit that not celebrating yourself and those around you on a daily basis is not OK. For just like I talk about how healing comes in the small, yet profound habits, there is also wisdom in celebrating the everyday victories.
In a world where we are constantly being told that we are not enough (either by others, the media, or ourselves), the need to pause and truly notice all we do has to become a constant as well.
If we don’t have practices in place to counter the negative self-talk and bombardment of not enough-ness, we will find ourselves drowning in the pool of unhappiness. And that is not a very fun pool, as you can imagine.
So I invite you to take on a “Celebration Practice” of sorts. I’ve written before about celebration therapy, but here are some more tangible ideas to get you started.
1. Gratitude Practice Noticing and expressing gratitude can be a vehicle for seeing all of the good that you have created in your life. The things that are bringing you joy are in some way a result of your efforts. So, take your gratitude practice to the next level by celebrating how you have created those wonderful things in your life.
2. End of Day Reflection Be it at the dinner table with your family, in your journal at night, or thoughts as you fall asleep, take time to reflect on what went well that day. Even if it was a crappy day, what were you able to do in the midst of it? There is a lot of power in reflection.
3. Pause It’s become the norm to immediately move on to the next goal or holiday (Christmas decor for sale at Halloween time, anyone?) But if we just took a moment to pause before moving on, we could have that important time of savoring all that was accomplished. We could build confidence and strength to use when moving on to the next thing.
4. Happy Dance (or other celebratory act of choice) I follow the idea of “when in doubt, dance it out.” In fact, most of the important victories of my life involve some kind of dance party. And if you follow me on Instagram, you’ve seen a good chunk of them. Sorry and you’re welcome.
But if dancing isn’t your thing, that’s cool, you do you, even though I think you are weird. But find something fun and joyous to do to turn celebrating from an idea to an action. It’s ok to have a spot of fun every now and again.
Life is not always easy. It can be grand and wonderful, and it can be full of hardships and heartaches. It’s an ongoing rollercoaster that we all have a ticket to, whether we like it or not.
So why not make some extra room for the good times? What’s so wrong about celebrating who you are and what you do? Even in the worst of times there is still room for gratitude. Find it, and celebrate it daily.
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