5 Mindful Ways to Celebrate a Birthday (Including Ours!)
For the past 365 days we’ve been blogging about all things yoga, mindfulness, gratitude, energy, love, consciousness and, well, LIFE. When life is good. When it sucks. When you need to make a change. When you need to stand up. When you need to just be. All of it.
And, guys, it’s been a beautiful first year for Fit Bottomed Zen. We started the site as a bit of a passion project. We wanted to create the content that we wanted to read. Because we know that being healthy is about more than just workouts and food. It’s about mindset. And your work. And your friends. And your family. And your relationship with the most important person in your life: you. And reading stuff about all of that should be fun, actionable and authentic. And hopefully that’s what we’ve delivered to you over the last year. That’s been our goal.
In honor of our first birthday (first b-days are SO fun, right?!), we wanted to share a few fun ways all of us can celebrate our birthdays mindfully. And, if your birthday isn’t coming up any time soon, hey, why not join us today with one (or two!) of the below?
5 Mindful Ways to Celebrate a Birthday
1. Meditate a minute for each year. Now, obviously we’ll want to meditate for more than a minute (we may do it for a single minute at the top of every hour!), but a fun way to celebrate a birthday is to meditate a minute for each year you’ve been on this planet. The older you get, the more time you get to spend in zen.
2. Do sun salutations. Sun salutations feel SO good, and it makes sense to do one for each trip you’ve taken around the sun, right? Right.
3. Give a gift to someone else. In some cultures (including Hobbits … ), birthdays are more about giving to others than they are about receiving. And that’s kind of beautiful, huh? So this year, donate to a cause you love or take one of your favorite things and share it with someone else.
4. Write a letter to yourself. Each year, write yourself a note, highlighting both the best moments from the last year and the difficult stuff and what you learned from it. Then, call your shots. My friend Tish of Luv & Kiwi calls this a “a Babe Ruth moment” — where you declare exactly what you’re going to accomplish. Sign it with love. Be sure to save the letter in a safe place where you’ll be able to open and read it again in a year!
5. Create a dream board. This is my own personal mindful birthday tradition. It’s basically like New Year’s, but on my birthday. Here’s how and why to do it.
How do you like to celebrate your birthday? Bonus idea: mindful eating of birthday cake. Of course. —Jenn