Tonight, 20 people or so will be coming over to intimately celebrate my birthday. There will be rituals, live music by my friends, dance, and an open mic circle that my friend is facilitating where people will share gifts and stories in creative ways to celebrate their friendship with me.
Here's a little rant about how I feel about all of this right now. Rationally and realistically speaking, I know it'll be a beautifully sweet time. And I'm so excited to have my friends from different communities meet and connect with each other. I know I've gathered good people in my life. And in my eyes, this celebration isn't just my birthday, but our birthday. Times are changing, and we're collectively giving birth to something. How do we witness this moment in time, celebrate these times, and move towards giving birth to the good and the possible? A new world with more beauty, truth, possibility, creativity, and goodness? I plan on bringing this into the circle and inviting a meaningful dialogue about this tonight.
Anyways, I usually don't have gatherings or big celebrations for my birthday, so I'm trying to just be with this churning feeling in my stomach that's rooted in feeling like I have to be perfect. Other voices are telling me I'm a poser and that I don't deserve this. My well-intended anxiety wants to make sure everyone is taken care of.
This feeling has often come up in professional settings where I'm leading meetings, webinars, or open space dialogues with hundreds of people. Or that one time where I mediated a series of conversations between police officers, school administrators, and angry community members and families. Or that time when a suicide of a student tragically occurred, and I was asked to create a video announcement to address the event to all staff, families, and students of the whole school district. The performative anxiety before the actual experience gets to be so real for me, but ultimately I just need to be compassionate with myself. Because this discomfort shows that I care and it propels me to take right action. And I know that my communication and social skills are a few of my strengths, especially when I get out of my own way.
And this is my freakin birthday, not a heavy mediation conflict resolution session. So I need to practice some discernment right now lol. I know that once the celebration starts, these voices will fade out. It's always like that for me that when the anticipation is over and the moment happens, I tend to deeply relax and trust the process.
So being compassionate with myself and practicing discernment is important. What's also important? Dancing this nervcitement out!!
Here's this morning's funky dance that mirrors my funky mood!
