Are You Truly Celebrating Your Achievements?
One of my life motto’s has been “work hard, play hard.” I’m sure many of you reading this can relate to it. I’m certainly no stranger to working hard and playing hard! I would work super hard and then play hard as an act of celebration only to find myself even more exhausted afterward. I’m excellent at knocking things off my To-Do lists, achieving, and moving on to the next thing, while celebrating by traveling the world, meeting friends, and hanging out in exotic places.
However, in this new decade of my life, things are shifting. I find myself nesting in a way I’ve never done before, not wanting to leave my home, not wanting to travel much, and not craving that fast paced life I’ve been living for so long. Perhaps that’s my adrenal burnout talking but perhaps I’m also shifting my values.
I’m noticing that the way that I choose to celebrate my accomplishments is evolving. The typical going out for a fancy dinner with a bottle of bubbles is just not cutting it anymore. Instead, I find myself looking for a deeply nourishing, soul-fulfilling, and satisfying kind of celebration where I give myself a true moment to really savor the juicy deliciousness of my hard work.
Celebration Is Soul Fulfillment
Celebration is something I’m really inviting more of in my life as I sit and ponder, “What kind of celebration honors the hard work I’ve spent in achieving? What kind of celebration deeply fulfills me on a soul level?” Yes going out with my husband for a beautiful dinner is one way to do it but it’s not extraordinary to me when we live in Portugal and the gastronomy here is off the chain. Extraordinary culinary experiences have become the norm for us, which means what I am looking for to honor my hard work has to be “out of my norm.”
Celebration Is Slow Living
What my soul is really craving in this moment is to slow down, to stop and look around, to gaze out the window, to recognize the beauty already existing around me, to have nothing to do, to experience stillness – isn’t this the biggest luxury we have in a world that is competing for our attention every day? Perhaps my biggest celebration to honor my accomplishments is to give myself some space to breathe and do nothing. I’ve been so perplexed by asking, “What can I do to celebrate,” when the real question has nothing to do with more doing. It’s quite the opposite.
Another thing my soul is craving is to be with the things I already have. To create space to enjoy my riches, my abundance, and the love around me. I’m craving more intimacy with my husband, more quality time with my furry babies – all four of them, planting in my garden, reading the books already in my library, and to cook the food already in my pantry. And I don’t have to do all of these things all at once, instead I can choose one as an act of celebration where I can be super intentional about it while I practice slow living.
You Already Have It
It seems like the underlying thread here is slowing down, being intentional and mindful. I’m at the point in my life where I don’t need to buy just one more thing to feel happy, I’m no longer craving external things to satisfy me as much as I used to, and it’s such a nice new era of my life to be in. I no longer feel like I need to chase success because I already feel successful, I don’t feel like I need external validation to tell me how great I am because I feel great. I already am surrounded by so much beauty because everything I touch is with the intention to create beauty.
What I crave is to slow down and enjoy what I already have, to be immersed in the beauty I already have and to stop and literally smell the roses.
