This is time of year that often has me contemplating the wisdom of celebration. After all, there is an important celebration this month in the States where I live: Independence Day. And it often reminds me of why it’s so important to celebrate… Read on to find out more!
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To answer that question, I want you to imagine two scenarios:
The First…
Imagine a woman who’s at a table at a trendy restaurant. She’s out with her laughing joyful friends. They’re all rambunctiously raising a glass and toasting to her.
You eavesdrop from the next table and realize they’re all celebrating the fact that she asked for a raise. No word on whether she got it or not, just friend after friend raising a glass and praising her for going after her dream.
From their smiling faces and the guest of honor’s glow, you can guess that they’re all having the time of their lives celebrating and enjoying the positive atmosphere, regardless of whether she got the raise or not.
Though, you can’t help but hope she did after witnessing such an outpouring of positive, happy energy.
The Second….
Now imagine woman at another table with a close friend, who’s clearly not enjoying herself. Her arms are crossed, her mouth turned down, as she talks to the woman across from her.
As she leans over to the friends you lean in closer to listen in on the conversation, and this is what you overhear:
“…I just don’t understand what the big fuss is about. So she got engaged. So what?! She’s only been with him for nine years! I’m mean… Honestly, it’s about time. It only took Darren a year to propose to me. And that ring? So tacky. Just because you have money doesn’t mean you should….”
………………
So which woman would you rather be?
The one celebrating taking a step forward even if it wasn’t successful?
Or the sour grapes one, complaining about others’ successes?
……………..
And I ask this for a very important reason. Because all of us would much rather be at the table of friends celebrating and not the woman bitterly complaining. And yet…
How we celebrate, or don’t celebrate, often determines which kind of woman we will be in our lives:
Complaining or up-leveling our lives?
Celebrating with others?
Or secretly cutting their successes down?
There’s a lovely astrologist named Steven Forret that I really enjoy studying and learning from, and I mention him here because of how we describes how energy works. He says that:
Energy, like matter, can neither be destroyed or created, it can only change form.
According to Steven, we can’t make it so we don’t have ambition, or competition, or desire, or any of those very human drives. You can’t not have those very human things, you can only change where you direct that energy.
And if you’re not celebrating? Can you guess in which direction that energy within you is going to go?
Dark. It’s going to go in a dark direction in our lives.
..............
How do we make sure, that energy driving our ambition and competition, our desire for more drives us upward, and not down a darker path?
Well, let's backtrack for a quick second here into the definition of celebration:
cel·e·bra·tion /ˌseləˈbrāSH(ə)n/ noun
the action of marking one's pleasure at an important event or occasion by engaging in enjoyable, typically social, activity.
A celebration is a recognition that things are going right. It’s praise, thankfulness but more than that ...
A Celebration is social. Something the definition above highlights. It needs to happen within our
community.
We need our people to help validate us, whether that's by affirming our wins publicly, or by validating our complaints and poor opinions of other people's wins by secretly agreeing with us.
………………
Back to our examples, where does our energy go when we don’t celebrate? When we don't send that energy out and upwards in positivity?
Self -- Sabotage Spiraling...
We implode inwardly. We become complainers -- despair-ers, who can only ever see how nothing is going right. And as much as we try to keep it inside, let’s be real. Complainers need to vent, and venting is social.
When we complain about our lives, our friends and their wins... We bring everyone down.
Or we become...
Frenemies with everyone...
We let our competitive sides edge out our sense of celebration and community. We end up jealous and envious at other’ success, cutting them down in our minds and, quietly, secretly to others as well… “Well, she didn’t do that great… I could have done better…”.
Again, we end up darkening our social circles. You can't secretly cut mutual friends down to size and not have friends listening wonder if you'll do it to them next.
..................
The key to being driven, ambitious, to wanting more and not becoming dark with that energy?
A healthy sense of celebration!
Celebration cuts down on both kinds of toxic behavior tremendously. When we actively use our energy in positive ways, there’s little left over to engage in either of these negative habits.
........
The Solution...
A regular and social practice of celebration.
Make a weekly or monthly ritual of celebrating. And not just the wins. Celebrate the brave actions you take, regardless of how they turn out. And make it happen in the circle of safety and warmth that is your friend group!
If you expend the energy to validate each other and celebrate you won't have the energy to engage in the darker parts of competition and envy. And ..
What we focus on grows...
Focus on the couragous moves you're making towards your best future and you will be inspired to do more. To celebrate more.
Not to mention it feels good...
Celebrating together builds community. It fosters a healthy sense of competition where we get to be apart of our friends successes and a big reason why they got that win! We also end up being inspired by other's bold movies... not envious.
And...
We respect our lives more when we regularly see what is of value in them by naming and celebrating those things.
It creates more drive in us, not less. We want to expand, maintain and even protect what's of value within our lives when see it publicly validated by the people around us.
So what are you waiting for?
Go out there,
make bold moves in the right direction
& set up a weekly ritually for celebrating
with the people you love!
And as always, have fun. That’s the key to doing anything successfully.
I hope that helps and I will see you next week!
All my love,
Desirée Sommer
P.S. If you liked this article you'll want to read "the Art of Celebrating" newsletter by clicking here!
Desirée Sommer is a former Interior Designer, and a current Writer/Speaker who helps people just like you
Style, Beautify and make their lives Fun again!
She happily resides in the rural beauty of Idaho with her pet pooch Bree, where she gets to take epic hikes, and plot her next big adventure/road trip/travel destination.
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