What are you celebrating?

A leap day reminder to appreciate yourself

Every four years we get to leap and have one extra day for all those times we wished we could have just a little more time in the week. It is wrapped into a regular old week, no fanfare of celebration of for the way that humans have oddly adjusted our invention of the calendar to match our planet’s speed through the solar system. Just as every other day of the year, it can be ordinary or special or both.

On this extra day, I’m thinking about taking time to celebrate or at least appreciate all that we do. It can be hard to pat ourselves on the back, give ourselves a hug, or just say, hey, I did that, especially when our brains are often wired to look for the disasters and focus on the things we’ve done wrong. When we are told to strive for excellence, it is easy to feel like you are falling short, but we are all doing hard things daily. There is no awards ceremony for participating in life, so I think it is important that we celebrate ourselves.

I could probably go on for paragraphs about the challenges we are all up against in a culture and system that believes we should all take care of ourselves, that values individual achievement over collective well being and does not support caregivers as a whole. Most of us work really hard at whatever we are doing while feeling undervalued and under-compensated as we try to get by. We are all doing our best to live and thrive alongside the knowledge that humans have altered and damaged our planet with an incredibly uncertain future and few signs that the people who can make the big necessary changes will do so. We are hyper aware of the tragedies, disasters, as well as what and how other people are doing and it doesn’t usually feel good.

With all of that weighing on us all the time, we are here feeding ourselves and our children, pursuing our interests and passions, trying to get enough sleep, exercising when we can, keeping in touch with friends, sharing things that matter to us and might reach others in a meaningful way. Sometimes just making it through the day is an accomplishment and it can help to appreciate the smallest wins.

The pile of laundry is finally gone (for now). You finished a really good book. You made it through another bedtime. You advocated for yourself or your child. You reached out to a new friend. You had that talk with your partner. You put on an outfit that feels amazing. You’re practicing a new skill or going to new places.

I hope you have others who are cheering you on. But, as I always tell my kids (to many  eye rolls), what you think about yourself is more important than what other people think. It is so great to have people rooting for you and recognizing what you do. And I hope you can do the same for yourself, even if it is just a whisper or thought recognizing your greatness, even it seems like very little. Whether or not you are doing, achieving, and accomplishing, there are many things about you to celebrate.

I’d love to hear what you are celebrating, if you’d like to share.

Warmly,

Anna