Top 5 Birthday Rituals for a Great New Life Chapter
New Chapter
Birthdays can be exciting, overwhelming, super fun, terrifying, awaited, feared…
So basically you might love, hate, or even try to ignore your birthday but whichever the case, the fact remains it is an important and special day in your life.
It might become a difficult thing to enjoy your birthday as you grow older, which probably has something to do with some pretty unfair expectations on what others might do for you, with the high risk of being disappointed if that doesn’t happen. It also might have A LOT to do with the expectations you might have for yourself to accomplish at certain age, or with facing your own mortality.
Whatever the reason you think your might have not to enjoy it, your birthday will come whether you want it to or not, and you can do nothing about it. What you CAN do, is make the BEST of it.
Take your birthday as an opportunity, you are about to begin a new chapter in your life, you have a blank space ahead of you to create magic moments, chase dreams, and share your love. Prepare for this new chapter, be mindfull about it, instead of letting life pass you by, chose how you’re going to spend it.
I’ve personally come to this realization at least four years ago, and I’ve tried my fair share of different birthday rituals ever since. I found that some were not worth my while, others were a one time thing which I enjoyed at the time but wouldn’t care to repeat…
To help you out in this quest, I will take you through the five best birthday rituals I’ve tried and have decided to stick with year after year because of how great they have set out my birthday to be.
Keep reading for the best 5 birthday rituals for a great new life chapter, and the best birthday ever…
"Today you are you! That is truer than true! There is no one alive who is you-er than you!!!"
Dr. Seuss
1. Be Grateful
You might have heard this many times before, specially nowadays since self-helpish practices have become more popular and “cool” so to speak.
But it might not always work with the same formula…
See, once on my self-helpish journey, I started a grattitude journal on which I gave myself the “homework” of writting at least three things I was grateful for each day. I wouldn’t let myself write down generic things like “I’m grateful for my parents” it had to be super specific each day, such as “I’m grateful for having a movie night with my parents and being able to spend some quality time with them”.
This sounds like a heart-warming activity to follow through, right? Wrong! I mean a bunch of days it was great, however, on those “mean reds” days, when you just can’t find specific things to be grateful for, and you just feel as if you’re forcing some random answer, it just makes you feel all the worse.
So, besides learning that you sometimes don’t have the most grateful mindset and that’s ok, the second thing I learned and probably the most important, was that I was blocking my creative self, focusing on writting only the good, and feeling terrible when I couldn’t do so.
This is why, for this ritual, I invite you to be as creative as you wish to be with it.
See, if you’re not feeling on the right mindset to count your blessings, you can maybe have a yoga practice or physical activity and thank your body for allowing you to do so, send thank you texts to people you appreciate, journal whatever is on your mind even if its not on the grateful side, and then you can be grateful for allowing yourself to express your mind, go to church, or meditate, you name it. You have full creative authority on this, go with your gut.
On your birthday, the probability of having the mindset to actually count your blessings tend to be higher, if not because you already are feeling special, then perhaps because you wish to feel that way. So take advantage of this good state of mind, and practice a grattitude session for however long you want and in whichever way you prefer.
2. Vision Board
When New Year’s Day arrives it has become a somewhat common practice to create a vision board for the upcoming 365 days. Well, your birthday marks your own personal start of a new year, and it feels right to take the time to decide what you wish for this new chapter.
If you already make yearly vision boards, spice this one up. Theme it for a particular goal you might want to set for your next birthday. You could focus on an area of your life, an aesthetic you wish to follow, add anything outragous you were too scared to add to your yearly one.
If you already have a physical vision board, go for a digital version for this one, or viceversa. Maybe even try a 3D version with special items, and hang them on your wall or a coark board.
You might also like to try this kit from Amazon.
Remember to use your creativity and follow your heart. It doesn’t even have to make sense to anyone else, as long as you understand the feeling and intentions you wish to set for the upcoming year in your life. This ritual is for yourself only, so do with it as you please.
3. Light up a candle
Take a moment for yourself, light up a candle, or if you wish to go the whole hog light up as many tealight candles as your new age. Get yourself your favorite drink, coffee, tea, wine, or even water poured into a special cup.
Use this moment to reflect on all the previous years. The bops and flops, what you’ve learned, the memories you’ve made, your accomplishments, the milestones, and anything that comes to mind.
You can then just sit with your thoughts, or if you feel the need to express them, you might want to choose one of the following outlets:
- Journal your thoughts out, the traditional way. Simply write your memories, you could make a list of the ages or group of them, and follow them with what you’re reflecting upon for that specific time in your life.
- Find pictures of these memories, print them out and make a physical scrapbook with them.
- Draw on blank page or paint on a new canvas, whatever your thoughts and feelings while reflecting lead you to. You don’t need to KNOW how to, just feel it, even if it turns out to be splotches of colors.
4. Quality Time
Although we should always take some time to share quality time with our loved ones as well as the time to cheerish our selves, the fact is day to day life can often get in the way. Birthdays are the perfect opportunity to set aside the daily grind and focus on what is MOST important, so on this special day make sure to take the time to actually enjoy the company of the people in your life you appreciate and love.
Sometimes timing is not the best;
- People might be far away: schedule a videocall.
- Your birthday might fall on a busy week day: find 10 min to text your people to meet up sometime that week.
Remember to add yourself on the list of loved ones, and schedule some quality time for yourself, to enjoy your favorite hobby or take yourself on a date. Some suggestions for that last option could be a dinner or spa date.
5. Add music to your life
What is a movie without a good playlist? The idea of being the “main character” of your own life stoy has been trending for a while now, and I have to agree with it. It is YOUR life, so you should live it on your own terms, fulfill your own dreams, make your own mistakes, take the risks you feel like taking, and thus create your own “yellow brick road”. And so, what better way to do this than with an iconic playlist to follow, just like in the movies when the character is going through epic moments.
Why do this? I’m going to answer this with another question, have your ever heard a song and automatically be taken back to a certain moment in life? My guess is 99% of the people reading this have, music just has such power. So, by actually taking the time to focus on the music playing while experiencing each moment, you tie a memory to a song and make it last forever. And what is life, but a collection of memories.
The best part is , by the same time next year, you’ll have made yourself a music diary of your chapter #(insert age) which you will be able to go back to and relive forevermore.
How:
- Go to your favorite music streaming platform and add a new playlist.
- Title it with your new age number.
- Pay attention to the music that might be playing each time you are out and about living your life.
- If you consider it a great song, or it is playing at a significant moment you now know to add it to your playlist.
"Let us never know what old age is. Let us know the happiness time brings, not count the years."
Ausonius
Remember that although it might be pretty exciting to do all of these rituals on the day of your actual birthday, you DON’T have to. If your schedule becomes to complicated you can spread your rituals on different days of your birthday week or even your birthday month, since the very core of these rituals is to be relaxed about your birthday and enjoy the process of creating each of them.
Also, these are the best ritual that have worked for me, after at least four years of trying different ones, so if any of these doesn’t feel like the best fit for your , it IS OK to skip it, or give it a one chance. It is YOUR birthday and you get to choose what works for you, that’s the beauty of it.
It’d be super excited to hear if you try all of the ritual or any of them, if you enjoyed them and if they have impacted your life for the better like they’ve done to mine. If you feel like sharing, remember there’s the comment section as well as my social media available to you.
BONUS RITUALS:
BIRTHDAY CHOREOGRAPHY
Since this IS a ballet core blog, to all of your dancers and dancers at heart out there, don’t forget to dance this moment. I challenge you to create a full on choreography to the song of your preference, and record it just for fun.
If you choose to share your dance moves, feel free to send them through email or any of my social media, I’d appreciate it so much!
TREAT YOURSELF TO A GIFT
It is YOUR birthday, and if your love language is gifts, don’t forget to show yourself some love with a gift from you to you.
This idea of a gift from Amazon is a double treat, first you get to receive and open your gift and later you get to enjoy a well deserved birthday Bubble bath.
- Bath bomb.
- Candles.
- Beautiful soap.
- A cup for your drink of choice during your bath.
Enjoy!
