Speaker 1: Hello, everybody, Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the podcast, new listeners, old listeners, Wherever you are in
Speaker 1: the world, it is so great to have you here,
Speaker 1: back for another episode as we, of course talk about
Speaker 1: the psychology of our twenties. All right, We're going to
Speaker 1: talk about birthday anxiety today because it is my birthday
Speaker 1: the day that this comes out, I am turning twenty five,
Speaker 1: twenty five years old. We are halfway through the Psychology
Speaker 1: of your twenties, and the biggest question I always get
Speaker 1: is whether I'm going to do a psychology of your thirties.
Speaker 1: I have five more years to think about it, so
Speaker 1: I will answer that question a little bit closer to
Speaker 1: the date. But yeah, it's my birthday and it's bringing
Speaker 1: up a lot of feelings, but it's also probably the
Speaker 1: most peaceful, serene birthday I have had. I have never
Speaker 1: felt more comfortable with aging, and more comfortable with the
Speaker 1: age that I'm at, and more comfortable with what I'm
Speaker 1: choosing to do today than ever before. And it's made
Speaker 1: me really, really reflective, and it's made me want to
Speaker 1: talk about this experience of birthday anxiety that I've had
Speaker 1: for so long and all the stress that usually comes
Speaker 1: with gaining another year, gaining another year of life, getting
Speaker 1: another year of experiences. And I want you to note
Speaker 1: that I did not say getting older. I'd like to
Speaker 1: position it as something that we are given, something that
Speaker 1: we are gifted. So this year, I'm in New York City.
Speaker 1: I've been in the US for like two and a
Speaker 1: half weeks for work, for work being this podcast and
Speaker 1: for Mantra of course, doing some amazing recordings with some
Speaker 1: incredible guests that are coming out soon. And by being
Speaker 1: in New York, I know a few people, but honestly,
Speaker 1: like I don't have a huge, broad wide group of
Speaker 1: friends here. My boyfriend's back in Australia. All my close friends,
Speaker 1: my family are back in Australia. So I couldn't do
Speaker 1: like a big thing this year. I could do like
Speaker 1: a big party, I couldn't like celebrate with my closest
Speaker 1: loved ones. And you know what, I think that's part
Speaker 1: of why I feel so serene about it. Like, my
Speaker 1: plan is to go to a diner tonight and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna get breakfast for dinner, and I'm gonna do my
Speaker 1: little birthday routine, which I'll talk about later in the
Speaker 1: episode that I do every single year, and I have
Speaker 1: never felt more excited about it. Like I said before,
Speaker 1: this experience has not always been the case, and I
Speaker 1: am sure for many of you who are listening you
Speaker 1: don't find that this is the common theme that defines
Speaker 1: your birthday. It's normally quite an intense experience. Birthdays are
Speaker 1: really really reflective by nature, you know, they demand pause,
Speaker 1: much like a new year. You know, they feel like
Speaker 1: this very specific point in time where everything from the
Speaker 1: past feels very present, and you're ruminating on who you are,
Speaker 1: what you've learned, and also who you want to become.
Speaker 1: Like you're very focused on the future. We're getting older.
Speaker 1: What if things don't work out the way I want,
Speaker 1: I have less time. I feel like my body is aging,
Speaker 1: even though if you're in your twenties, like you're still
Speaker 1: really at the peak of your youth. But all of
Speaker 1: these feelings and this contemplation is naturally very paralyzing, and
Speaker 1: that combined with a very sensitive social element as well,
Speaker 1: you know, the pressure to be around friends, the pressure
Speaker 1: to do a big thing, the pressure to have fun,
Speaker 1: all of that can create a real cocktail of complicated
Speaker 1: emotions and surprise surprise. A lot about this does come
Speaker 1: down to our psychology as humans, as very deep thinking
Speaker 1: creatures and creatures who nonetheless love celebrations but also feel
Speaker 1: overwhelmed by them at times. You know, we're full of
Speaker 1: oxymorons and contradictions, it seems. But today we are going
Speaker 1: to hope all together feel a little bit better about birthdays.
Speaker 1: I want to talk about what makes them so difficult
Speaker 1: at times, specifically the three main reasons that we struggle
Speaker 1: with gaining another year, and then I also want to
Speaker 1: talk about why and how to rethink this process of
Speaker 1: aging and to rethink birthdays in general, so that they
Speaker 1: are something that you look forward to, that you're excited about,
Speaker 1: that is not stressful, and that, if anything, can actually
Speaker 1: bring you a lot of knowledge about yourself and a
Speaker 1: really important space to reflect and grow into this next
Speaker 1: year of who you're becoming and who you're going to be. So,
Speaker 1: I know birthdays in our twenties are a big topic,
Speaker 1: and so many of you have asked me for this,
Speaker 1: so I'm going to stop rambling and without further ado,
Speaker 1: let's talk about the psychology of birthday anxiety. So I
Speaker 1: think the reason that birthdays can be so psychologically, mentally, emotionally,
Speaker 1: sometimes socially. Taxing comes down to three specific reasons. The
Speaker 1: first is very existential reasons to do with aging, to
Speaker 1: do with progress, to do with milestones. The second comes
Speaker 1: down to expectations and the pressure to seemingly have this
Speaker 1: perfect event or this perfect experience to mark another year.
Speaker 1: And the third series of reasons, I think are quite
Speaker 1: social reasons that have to do with loneliness, perhaps a
Speaker 1: great deal of comparison as well. So I want to
Speaker 1: talk about each of these individually, starting with very existential reasons.
Speaker 1: So I think, for the longest time, the reason birthdays
Speaker 1: felt so troublesome to me was that it was a
Speaker 1: sign that I was getting older, and that is something
Speaker 1: that was very, very scary. My perspective on aging, though,
Speaker 1: has changed, and I used to be really scared of it.
Speaker 1: I used to joke with my friends that I would
Speaker 1: be for aever twenty two. The reason that we are
Speaker 1: scared of aging, and if you can relate to this,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've already come to this conclusion. The reason
Speaker 1: that we are scared of aging is because we are
Speaker 1: scared of the unknown. We are naturally, as humans, always
Speaker 1: going to feel a little bit anxious and a little
Speaker 1: bit uncomfortable with somewhere in some place that we have
Speaker 1: never been before. You have never been in this next
Speaker 1: year of your life. You have never been twenty seven,
Speaker 1: you have never been thirty five, you have never been
Speaker 1: sixty six. And so because of that, it feels very unknown,
Speaker 1: very uncertain, very unstable. And with that empty space and
Speaker 1: with that uncertainty, our brain likes to fill that with fear.
Speaker 1: It likes to feel that with catastrophic ideas and imaginations
Speaker 1: of what it's going to be like, and they're not
Speaker 1: always positive. The other reason that we are scared of aging,
Speaker 1: other than the fear of the unknown, is a similar
Speaker 1: fear of the unknown, and it's a fear of death.
Speaker 1: It feels like each year we are, you know, closer
Speaker 1: to the end of this journey than the beginning. I
Speaker 1: used to be very, very scared of this, and I
Speaker 1: can openly admit that and talk about it now because
Speaker 1: of how much time I have spent thinking about it
Speaker 1: and overthinking it and intellectualizing it till the cows came in,
Speaker 1: Like it was an obsessive thought of me for me
Speaker 1: for so long, of what happens after we die and
Speaker 1: aging is just this is just this terrible thing that's
Speaker 1: bringing me closer. Then I realized that aging is actually
Speaker 1: absolutely necessary, because the alternative to not getting older is
Speaker 1: that you would always stay the same and that you
Speaker 1: would always stay in the same place as this same
Speaker 1: past version of you. You would never be able to grow,
Speaker 1: and you would never be able to experience new chapters.
Speaker 1: Turning twenty five, twenty seven, twenty eight. Yes, it's a privilege.
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people talk about how there
Speaker 1: are so many people who don't make it to that
Speaker 1: age and you should live for them and realize that
Speaker 1: it's an opportunity. Yes, that's one way of seeing it.
Speaker 1: But I also think that time holds experiences, and so
Speaker 1: if this world was perfectly designed or however you want
Speaker 1: to think about it, aging is an important part of
Speaker 1: that because aging is what brings you into the future.
Speaker 1: Aging is what brings you excitement, brings new surprises. If
Speaker 1: you were to stay seventeen for your whole life, if
Speaker 1: you were to stay twenty five for your whole life,
Speaker 1: you would never get to experience what it's like to
Speaker 1: be a grandparent, what it's like to be a senior
Speaker 1: in your career, what it's like to you know, own
Speaker 1: a home that you love, what it's like to gain
Speaker 1: maturity and perspective, what it's like to feel your frontal
Speaker 1: lobe develop. That is really how I started to see it.
Speaker 1: Another way I started to see it in my brain
Speaker 1: that felt more comfortable, is that age is really just
Speaker 1: a number. And it's so oh cliche, I know, but
Speaker 1: it is so true. It is so true, And I
Speaker 1: see this philosophy reflected in so many people that I
Speaker 1: love and that I know in my life. So a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago, I celebrated my grandfather's ninetieth birthday.
Speaker 1: Now that man turned ninety. He drank more than me.
Speaker 1: He drank more than any twenty one year old. He
Speaker 1: pulled out like this really nice bottle of port. He
Speaker 1: had this big birthday cake. All of his friends, my
Speaker 1: sisters who are literally like eighteen and I don't know,
Speaker 1: seventeen at this point, genuinely like they left before the
Speaker 1: night was even over, Like my grandparents were the last
Speaker 1: to go. We walked home with them all tipsy and drunk.
Speaker 1: And not only was my grandfather still this like had
Speaker 1: this youthful exuberance and really wasn't showing his age, but
Speaker 1: he also had, you know, the blessing of so many
Speaker 1: stories that we got to hear. And it made me realize, like,
Speaker 1: you can take your age as a sign of who
Speaker 1: you need to be, and you need to be this
Speaker 1: person who becomes more grouchy, You need to be this
Speaker 1: person who, according to society, becomes less happy and exudes
Speaker 1: less joy and finds less pleasure and things. But you
Speaker 1: also have the choice to take your age, you know,
Speaker 1: keep it as something that's just on your birth certificate
Speaker 1: or just on your driver's license, and embody the age
Speaker 1: that you feel and all the positive parts of that
Speaker 1: age that you want to bring forward with you. Another
Speaker 1: reason that birthdays can bring up some negative feelings and
Speaker 1: some specifically existential feelings comes down to feeling behind when
Speaker 1: it comes to your life plans, feeling like you should
Speaker 1: be further ahead, feeling like you should be more accomplished,
Speaker 1: and yet here you are, and you look around, everyone
Speaker 1: else seems to be doing these amazing things, and you're lost,
Speaker 1: and you're behind. And now as you get older, all
Speaker 1: it's going to be is this game of catchup. If
Speaker 1: you can relate to that, I think what you're experiencing
Speaker 1: is not so much birthday anxiety, but milestone anxiety anxiety
Speaker 1: to do with feeling like you are not hitting specific
Speaker 1: socially approved targets when you should be. Now, this is
Speaker 1: a real conundrum for a lot of us in our twenties.
Speaker 1: I saw this quote the other day that it feels
Speaker 1: like between the ages of eighteen and thirty five, we're
Speaker 1: all in some imaginary race, and we're not sure what
Speaker 1: the race is, but we know that we're behind. That
Speaker 1: is really what this period in our life feels like,
Speaker 1: and a lot of it does come down to comparison
Speaker 1: against our peers, but also comparison against this weird, indoctrinated
Speaker 1: blueprint that we all seem to understand. We all seem
Speaker 1: to have this weird sense that by thirty, you know,
Speaker 1: we probably should have should be married, By twenty five,
Speaker 1: we should be knowing what we want to do with
Speaker 1: our career. By twenty eight, we should have met our
Speaker 1: best friends, We should have bought a home. There are
Speaker 1: all these seemingly important milestones to hit before you reach
Speaker 1: your thirties, and the thing is all of those milestones
Speaker 1: are external. We do not compare important measures like happiness.
Speaker 1: We do not compare important things like growth, like self knowledge, authenticity.
Speaker 1: We don't think about how far how far advanced we
Speaker 1: are in terms of our emotions and how we internally feel.
Speaker 1: We are really focused on the external, how our life
Speaker 1: appears to other people, and that is a huge source
Speaker 1: of disappointment and sadness and frustration. Birthdays, I think, just
Speaker 1: really naturally bring that out. I will also say we
Speaker 1: also are very, very focused, to our fault at comparing
Speaker 1: ourselves to people who are doing better than us. We
Speaker 1: often engage in what we call upward social comparison, knowing
Speaker 1: that it's going to make us feel bad, knowing that
Speaker 1: it's going to hurt our self concept and our self esteem,
Speaker 1: but we just can't help ourselves. It's like we almost
Speaker 1: convince ourselves subconsciously mentally that if I feel bad enough
Speaker 1: about where I am, maybe that will force me to
Speaker 1: work harder. If I look at someone that I'm envious
Speaker 1: of or that makes me feel less accomplished, maybe that's
Speaker 1: this weird sense of self punishment that's going to motivate me.
Speaker 1: And that is absolutely not the case. There is no
Speaker 1: big finish line that we are all working towards like,
Speaker 1: not one single person on this planet has the exact
Speaker 1: same goals and the exact same vision of what their
Speaker 1: life looks like. It's all different, and even people who
Speaker 1: get to the point, or even people who you admire
Speaker 1: for getting to the point that you want to be,
Speaker 1: they are still looking at their life and feeling some
Speaker 1: sense of dissatisfaction. I can absolutely tell you that it
Speaker 1: may even be the case that they are looking at
Speaker 1: you and thinking, God, I really wish I had as
Speaker 1: much peace as this person has. I really wish I
Speaker 1: had as much time and space for growth. I really
Speaker 1: wish that I was still at the beginning so I
Speaker 1: could make different choices. There is something to be compared
Speaker 1: against or with for every single person. So as you're
Speaker 1: comparing yourself to someone else, they're comparing themselves to someone
Speaker 1: else who's probably comparing themselves to you. So I know
Speaker 1: that can be a really, really hard part about birthdays
Speaker 1: is feeling behind and feeling lost in your twenties. I
Speaker 1: always remind myself when I'm at that point, because I
Speaker 1: think as humans, we all end up in that comparison spiral.
Speaker 1: I always remind myself to think about what I've achieved
Speaker 1: in terms of personal growth and reflection in the last year.
Speaker 1: So as I'm turning twenty five, I feel like this
Speaker 1: twenty fourth year of my life, I became so much
Speaker 1: better at f feeling less pressure around social media. I
Speaker 1: became so much better in managing my overthinking. I became
Speaker 1: so much better in feeling satisfied with the friends that
Speaker 1: I have, rather than feeling like I constantly needed more
Speaker 1: of that. I was constantly on the precipice of loneliness.
Speaker 1: That means more to me, and that impacts me positively
Speaker 1: more on the daily than any kind of achievement that
Speaker 1: I've had publicly, that sense of inner growth and homeostasis
Speaker 1: and progress is really really important. Okay, we are going
Speaker 1: to take a short break, but when we return, I
Speaker 1: want to talk about two of the final reasons that
Speaker 1: we feel a lot of stress anxiety, maybe sadness around
Speaker 1: our birthdays, and my perfect routine for combating that. Stay
Speaker 1: with us. Let's talk about the second reason that birthdays
Speaker 1: can be so hard, and it's expectations. It's there's pressure
Speaker 1: to have this perfect, perfect day, this perfect party, these
Speaker 1: perfect friends who are all going to wish us happy birthday,
Speaker 1: and often we are let down. I would say ninety
Speaker 1: nine percent of the time. When you have grand aspirations
Speaker 1: for a big birthday blowout, and you know how you
Speaker 1: expect everyone to treat you, you're often disappointed. I think
Speaker 1: anytime we say that we are supposed to do something,
Speaker 1: we're supposed to be happy, we're supposed to be loved,
Speaker 1: we're supposed to have all this fun, we're supposed to
Speaker 1: you know, just ease through this. You are setting yourself
Speaker 1: up for disappointment. You know, when we put should or
Speaker 1: supposed to before anything, often it's not going to look
Speaker 1: the way that we have imagined it now. I think
Speaker 1: this also comes down to comparison. Right. We see people
Speaker 1: having these huge birthdays with lots of lots of friends,
Speaker 1: and it looks so fun and they look celebrated and loved.
Speaker 1: Of course, we want that amazing, and so we go
Speaker 1: about trying to make that happen. The thing that we
Speaker 1: don't see in those photos, in those pictures is all
Speaker 1: the stress that usually comes with having those kinds of
Speaker 1: huge events and huge expectations. Now, if you are someone
Speaker 1: who specifically struggles with control, the idea of like a
Speaker 1: big birthday party, that might seem really impressive and fun
Speaker 1: from the outside is probably going to cause you a
Speaker 1: lot of internal chaos. For the starters, you're going to
Speaker 1: want every single thing to go perfectly. You're going to
Speaker 1: want it to perhaps look exactly as you imagined it,
Speaker 1: and you are going to feel responsible for other people's fun.
Speaker 1: Tell me if you relate to this. But I have
Speaker 1: often found whenever I've thrown big birthday parties, I always
Speaker 1: spend about fifty percent of the night looking around me
Speaker 1: and making sure that people are chatting, making sure that
Speaker 1: people are enjoying themselves. I most certainly spend the first
Speaker 1: hour wondering if people are going to show up, wondering
Speaker 1: if people are going to go away and say that
Speaker 1: was fun, or they're going to leave early. Now for
Speaker 1: a day that should be focused on you, and should
Speaker 1: be focused on this incredible achievement of growing up and
Speaker 1: experiencing more. I find that big events like that take
Speaker 1: all of the attention you should be showing yourself off
Speaker 1: of you and onto managing other people's feelings and other
Speaker 1: people's perceptions. It often creates this experience where you can
Speaker 1: only feel happy In hindsight, you can only feel happy
Speaker 1: with rose tinted glasses on. So throughout the day you've
Speaker 1: probably felt very on edge, very overwhelmed, very rushed. Then
Speaker 1: during the event, maybe you get like a couple of
Speaker 1: hours of a bit of bliss, but you're still worried
Speaker 1: about other people's feelings. And then the next morning sometimes
Speaker 1: you even have like a bit of an emotional and
Speaker 1: social hangover. And then it still may not have met
Speaker 1: your expectations. And you've put money into this party, and
Speaker 1: you've put your hopes and dreams into it. That can
Speaker 1: lead us to feel very, very let down. You may
Speaker 1: also have the experience of not telling people what you want,
Speaker 1: not wanting to be a burden, not wanting to like
Speaker 1: outwardly say hey, please make a big deal about me,
Speaker 1: please make a fuss, And because you haven't communicated it,
Speaker 1: everyone thinks you want some small thing. You're left disappointed
Speaker 1: because you wish that someone had read your mind, and
Speaker 1: the sad thing is that they couldn't. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's like you can't go out and say, like, I
Speaker 1: want a surprise birthday party, because then you're not surprised,
Speaker 1: But some part of you is like, I just wish
Speaker 1: these people would be able to see into my brain
Speaker 1: and know what I want, which even for our closest,
Speaker 1: most nearest and dearest friends, is sometimes impossible. On the
Speaker 1: flip side, I've also spoken to people who have said
Speaker 1: to me, I have these big expectations, but I also
Speaker 1: know that I'm going to feel very awkward being the
Speaker 1: center of attention, and I know I'm going to feel
Speaker 1: very strange about it because I have this fear of
Speaker 1: being perceived. But I can't help that feel like that.
Speaker 1: If I don't do this, I'm also going to be
Speaker 1: very lonely and I'm going to feel very socially isolated.
Speaker 1: So it does become a bit of a catch twenty two.
Speaker 1: And if you know, for some reason you don't have
Speaker 1: friends around you, you're feeling a little bit socially isolated
Speaker 1: or alienating at the moment. The experience of like having
Speaker 1: a birthday pop up can really put those deeper emotions
Speaker 1: into perspective. I feel like a birthday is a great
Speaker 1: way to put a big, shining spotlight on what you're
Speaker 1: feeling insecure about. Are you feeling insecure about not having
Speaker 1: enough friends? Are you feeling insecure about not making the
Speaker 1: most of your twenties? Are you feeling insecure about being behind.
Speaker 1: Are you feeling insecure about your looks or your age?
Speaker 1: A birthday is going to bring all of that to
Speaker 1: the surface. It's going to bring your loneliness, your dissatisfaction,
Speaker 1: your insecurity straight to the top of your mind. So
Speaker 1: I want to talk about how we can do this better,
Speaker 1: how can we have better birthdays now? As someone, as
Speaker 1: I said, who used to have these big birthday parties
Speaker 1: and always end up feeling somewhat disappointed and let down,
Speaker 1: I have come to realize that I am not someone
Speaker 1: who wants to have a big, all out celebration, even
Speaker 1: if that's something that I really thought that I've wanted
Speaker 1: for the past I don't know, fifteen odd years. Like
Speaker 1: for my twenty first I remember doing three different kind
Speaker 1: of events, Like I did a birthday dinner with my family,
Speaker 1: I went away with some of my friends, and I
Speaker 1: went to the pub for like for my actual day
Speaker 1: of my birthday. And yeah, it was fun, but it
Speaker 1: was more stress than it's worth. So my new thing
Speaker 1: is to choose some activity that I've really wanted to
Speaker 1: do and that I've put off for the past year,
Speaker 1: and to do it, even if it means doing it solo.
Speaker 1: Now for this year. It did happen to mean that
Speaker 1: I'm solo traveling, and that's something that I really wanted
Speaker 1: to do. But like just before I recorded this episode,
Speaker 1: I went to the Tenement Museum in New York City,
Speaker 1: that is my favorite museum in the world, and I
Speaker 1: booked two back to back tours and I went solo
Speaker 1: and I felt completely content. Maybe for you, that involves
Speaker 1: going out and getting your nails done and getting a
Speaker 1: massage and putting the money you would have spent on
Speaker 1: a fancy dinner or a party into yourself. What is
Speaker 1: something that you really wanted to do this year that
Speaker 1: you haven't had the opportunity to do. Do that on
Speaker 1: your birthday. Maybe it's the zoo, Maybe it's a karaoke night.
Speaker 1: That is how to make yourself feel less pressure, to
Speaker 1: be happy and to have fun in the presence of others,
Speaker 1: and to almost like have fun by yourself. I also
Speaker 1: do this thing every year, and regardless of whether I'm
Speaker 1: doing a big thing or a small thing or a
Speaker 1: completely solo thing, I make sure that around the time
Speaker 1: of my birthday, I take myself out on a date,
Speaker 1: just me and my notebook, and I will go out
Speaker 1: to a restaurant. Often I will literally not have anywhere
Speaker 1: in mind. I will take myself for a walk in
Speaker 1: a part of the city that I know will have
Speaker 1: places to go. I will find a restaurant, I will
Speaker 1: get a tablewhere myself, I will bring my journal, and
Speaker 1: I will ask myself four questions. And I've done this
Speaker 1: every single birthday for the past five years. The questions are,
Speaker 1: what is the most important thing that I have learnt
Speaker 1: in the past year. What is the thing that I
Speaker 1: am most grateful for from the past year, what is
Speaker 1: the most important thing that I have done in the
Speaker 1: past year. And what is one thing that I really
Speaker 1: want to achieve in this next year or that I
Speaker 1: really want to experience or see. And then I just
Speaker 1: let myself also do some general journaling. I just let
Speaker 1: myself spill out onto the page. That's obviously what I'm
Speaker 1: going to do tonight when I go get my little
Speaker 1: breakfast for dinner situation, and I use Actually I should
Speaker 1: have said this, I have a specific journal that I
Speaker 1: only use for this, so it's like my birthday journal,
Speaker 1: and so I'll often read back on all of my
Speaker 1: other entries. Obviously, now I have so many that I
Speaker 1: kind of well, not that many, but enough that I
Speaker 1: kind of forget what I've said and what I've been
Speaker 1: reflecting on. So it's actually a really beautiful, serene experience
Speaker 1: to really sink into the life that I was living
Speaker 1: when I was twenty three, and the life that I
Speaker 1: was living when I was twenty two, and the problems
Speaker 1: I was having when I was eighteen, and I feel
Speaker 1: like I'm right there with her, and yet I'm also growing,
Speaker 1: and I'm also experiencing a whole different life in some
Speaker 1: aspects of it, So that routine is really really important
Speaker 1: to me. More generally, if you're with birthday anxiety, my
Speaker 1: tip is just to do less and to be totally
Speaker 1: okay with doing some things alone and making it a
Speaker 1: little bit smaller. That is always going to lead to
Speaker 1: a more happy experience in my opinion. I also think
Speaker 1: that instead of feeling like you need to be silent
Speaker 1: around your fears of aging or your sense of loneliness
Speaker 1: when it comes to a birthday, whatever it is, please
Speaker 1: like talk about it with someone. Every single time I've
Speaker 1: brought up this specific feeling of stress and worry when
Speaker 1: it comes to my birthday, the person I've spoken to
Speaker 1: has said yeah, me too. I completely get where you're
Speaker 1: coming from. I'm very lucky that my best friend's birthday
Speaker 1: is three days after mine, so I feel like we
Speaker 1: always share these parallel experiences, and every year we kind
Speaker 1: of have the same conversation where we're like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: another year older, ah, like freaking out together, but we
Speaker 1: also feel this real sense of parallelness and camaraderie, and
Speaker 1: we feel like it's quite a unique bond and experience
Speaker 1: to be going through a lot of these emotions and
Speaker 1: this process of aging together. The other thing I really
Speaker 1: like to reflect on and that I think might be
Speaker 1: useful is I reflect on all the people I know
Speaker 1: who are five ten years older than me. I think
Speaker 1: it's really important to have friends who are at different
Speaker 1: stages of their life than you. So I have friends
Speaker 1: who are fifty, I have friends who are thirty five.
Speaker 1: I've friends who are nineteen, and it's really valuable to
Speaker 1: kind of get the lived experience and the opinions from them.
Speaker 1: And around the time of my birthday, I always think
Speaker 1: about a few of my friends who are exactly a
Speaker 1: decade older than me, specifically my friend Alisha and my
Speaker 1: friend Lindsey. They at thirty five are the most successful, hottest, poised,
Speaker 1: richest versions of themselves that I've ever seen, and they
Speaker 1: are also the happiest. And I remember as they were
Speaker 1: turning thirty, I did talk to Alisha about this. I
Speaker 1: was twenty, she was thirty. I think I asked some
Speaker 1: naive question around like how do you feel about turning thirty,
Speaker 1: and she was like, I'm terrified. I'm absolutely terrified. Five
Speaker 1: years later, she's like, I'm this is the age I
Speaker 1: want to be forever. I thought that twenty five was amazing.
Speaker 1: I thought the twenty one was amazing. Thirty five is
Speaker 1: the best, like it's you feel so confident, you feel
Speaker 1: so much like yourself. And she also said to me,
Speaker 1: you know, my birthday is not as important as the
Speaker 1: experiences that I'm having, Like this is less mentally straining
Speaker 1: and less mentally exhausting, and there's a lot less pressure
Speaker 1: on it the older I get, and I'm just able
Speaker 1: to have fun with it. I'm just able to prioritize
Speaker 1: what I want to do. And it shows like she
Speaker 1: just looks amazing and she has this like shine coming
Speaker 1: out of her soul that just says present, I know
Speaker 1: who I am and I'm really deeply satisfied and happy.
Speaker 1: Whenever I feel scared about entering a new chapter in
Speaker 1: a new phase of my life, I look to people
Speaker 1: like her and I say, if they've done it, I
Speaker 1: can do it. And look at how amazing it's turning
Speaker 1: out for them, and it brings me a great sense
Speaker 1: of peace. My two final, perhaps a little bit alternative
Speaker 1: tips for dealing with birthday anxiety is to actually celebrate
Speaker 1: your birthday a week afterwards, so that you get over
Speaker 1: the emotional hangarover of your birthday and you feel like
Speaker 1: there's less expectations. It's just a more general celebration. And
Speaker 1: I also really hope that you engage in this mindset
Speaker 1: shift that I've been taking part in the last few
Speaker 1: months a few years, which is to see my life
Speaker 1: as seasons rather than as just a bunch of years.
Speaker 1: And I've spoken about this on the podcast. Before. I
Speaker 1: found that life felt a lot more stressful when it
Speaker 1: felt like there was just this huge chunk of years
Speaker 1: in front of me with nothing really delineating them, nothing
Speaker 1: really setting them apart, and I was just going to
Speaker 1: speed right through them to the end. Instead, what I
Speaker 1: now see and I think of my life as is
Speaker 1: the seasons of a TV show, And you know, I'm
Speaker 1: still in season two. Like, if every season last ten years,
Speaker 1: and that's still a huge number of years, I'm still
Speaker 1: in season two. If every season last five years, I'm
Speaker 1: in season five, but I have perhaps another fifteen seasons
Speaker 1: to go. My math might not be right with that,
Speaker 1: but probably isn't. Yeah, but maybe if I live to
Speaker 1: one hundred, Like, it's better to see yourself as existing
Speaker 1: in these two, three, four or five year periods where
Speaker 1: you're learning something new and you're experiencing a new part
Speaker 1: of your life, and every five years you celebrate that
Speaker 1: milestone and you push yourself to move or to do
Speaker 1: something new instead of just thinking, Okay, a year is gone,
Speaker 1: a year is gone, a year is gone. Really helps
Speaker 1: me put it into perspective. Don't feel like you're behind, Please,
Speaker 1: I promise you there is someone looking at your life
Speaker 1: wishing for it. Know that if you're experiencing a ton
Speaker 1: of loneliness at this point you feel like there's no
Speaker 1: one to celebrate you, that's just this moment. There are amazing, great,
Speaker 1: fabulous relationships coming your way, and this experience of loneliness
Speaker 1: is an important one. But it's going to motivate you
Speaker 1: to reach out, It's going to motivate you to be connected,
Speaker 1: and I just hope this can be a more positive experience.
Speaker 1: Forew I also want to thank you deeply, deeply, deeply
Speaker 1: for being with me for this past year, from twenty
Speaker 1: four to twenty five. I know I've gained so many new, loyal,
Speaker 1: wonderful listeners. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to
Speaker 1: talk about my twenties in as much depth as I want.
Speaker 1: I feel like I gain so much more from this
Speaker 1: than you guys can even imagine. This is like a
Speaker 1: personal diary for me and this episode specifically. You know,
Speaker 1: of course I have my journal exercise, but I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about thirty five year old Gemma or forty five year
Speaker 1: old General, fifty five year old German who's going to
Speaker 1: listen to this episode and be like Wow. We were
Speaker 1: recording that in a hotel room in New York City
Speaker 1: and we felt so much peace and being able to
Speaker 1: reflect on this moment. So thank you for giving me
Speaker 1: the opportunity to make that come true and bring the
Speaker 1: thoughts in my head alive in the form of this podcast.
Speaker 1: As always, if you have an episode suggestion. If you
Speaker 1: have further comments, questions, queries, thoughts about this episode and
Speaker 1: the topic of birthday anxiety in general, feel free to
Speaker 1: reach out to me at that Psychology podcast on Instagram.
Speaker 1: If you loved this episode, leave a comment, leave a
Speaker 1: five star review. Make sure you're following along so that
Speaker 1: you get notified when we have more episodes coming out
Speaker 1: and coming your way. But until next time, stay safe,
Speaker 1: be kind, please be gentle to yourself, and we will
Speaker 1: talk very very soon.