It's my birthday, and I'll reflect if I want to!

4 Self-Reflection / Meditation-In-Action Practices I do during my birthday month🎉

birthday oysters for the win!

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Listen, there are PLENTY of ways to celebrate a birthday.

Some people are BIG PARTY throwers!

Some are “let’s get the whole gang out to dinner” celebrators!

Some are BIG TRIP takers!

Some are “treat-yoself-happy-birthday-to-me” gift givers to themselves. (I dig.)

Since I pay attention for a living, it should come as no surprise that I PAUSE and take nearly the entire month of July for some extra deep-dive self-reflection work.

(I also went out for martinis and oysters, so you know — balance, etc. 😂).

Birthdays are thresholds — not unlike, say, New Years or a solstice / equinox moment or a new moon or a new month.

I love them all, but I love my birthday most.

Maybe it’s because I’m too exhausted from the holiday merriment and travel / frozen in upstate winter at New Years, but July feels like exactly the time I want check in, in a big way.

To take stock of what is and reflect on what I want to give time, attention, and energy to in the cycle ahead.

AND what it’s time to let go of / prune / leave behind.

Why pause and reflect at all, in the first place?

Well, if you can see it, you can name it.

If you can name it, you can claim it.

If you can claim it, you can embody it.

And well, that’s good work if you can get it, I think!

For me? Where I landed after this birthday month of reflection:

A woman in her 40s is perhaps the most powerful force there is. I feel the reverberation like MAGNETIC energy, like lava. Like wisdom and also “I’m still learning.” It’s no-fucks-given. It’s bold. It’s brave. It’s absolutely fierce. Touching into this energy is like another peek into the patriarchy. And what we can understand we can dismantle ;)

[ To be clear, I actually turned 39 this year. I’m just giving myself a whole *year* of reflection and prep to get ready for this decade ahead. Just a casual year of intense self-study🤣 And, of course, it seems like 59 is a wildly powerful age to look forward to, as well. ]

So here’s how I celebrated & supported my own growth, self-understanding, and reflection this month —

1. “Retreat Yourself.”

Listen — it’s just the truth. There are things we can’t do on the day-to-day, and deep-dive inner work to align yourself for the year ahead deserves and requires its own attention, time, energy, and breathing space.

Call it retreat, call it “longform practice” (which doesn’t really roll off your tongue, but that’s what I call it in 40 Early Mornings ;)) and it looks something the “the Artist’s Date” in The Artist’s Way.

It’s dedicated space that you set aside for yourself to come back to yourself.

A whole afternoon, a whole day, a whole weekend, or whole WEEK, if you can get it. The soul doesn’t like to be rushed!

This does take some planning, scheduling, and accommodations to pull off. You gotta call in your favors and your people to take care of what ( / whom) you’re stepping away from.

And how much time you can muster and where this happens varies on the moment you’re currently in, in your own Real Life.

Right now, in my Real Life with young kids and a busy brick & mortar business, I get a weekend or so every 6 months. (The last time I did this, back in March, I was able to finally launch my Substack!)

This stuff looks different in different moments of your life and the phase you’re in now (busy or spacious) isn’t a permanent state.

So keep that in mind as you imagine what this could look like for yourself.

Grace is the name of the game here. And so is situating yourself firmly in a generous “reciprocity loop” — my husband Sam and I are very much in this and it can feel a little like hot potato (or — sometimes, unfortunately — resentful scorekeeping when we’re not being kind — perhaps an essay for another day ;)). But mostly it keeps us sane and remembering our own borders to our own individual beings.

I got time alone at home (what a GIFT!) for 2 nights this July, when my husband took our kids to visit the grandparents in Baltimore. It wasn’t perfect (you can’t have perfect expectations for these things), and I worked for a bunch of it (but even that was sweet).

I’ve got a whole formula for setting this time up (which I teach in 40 EM!).

But I’ll give you the Cliffs Notes: It’s a lot of structuring my time around one simple, yet rarely asked question:

What do I want to do next?

Put another way — If I listened to my desire — not a sense of obligation — if I allowed myself to pursue pure pleasure, what would my next move be?

So it was wearing pajamas as clothing & bopping around the village. Spontaneous mid-afternoon ice creams. Catching up with friends. Buying myself a new hardcover fiction book (!). Sitting on my porch. Watching trash TV. Seeing old friends. And a LOT of journal writing.

2. Fall into the space and freedom that comes with using a structured framework for self-reflection.

In June, I started The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Patht to Higher Creativity. It’s my third spin through The Artist’s Way in 8 years! When I first did the program, I was pregnant, so I created a human (and picked up a daily Morning Pages writing practice that I’ve been incredibly devoted to for the last 8 years — like I rarely miss a day. And I’m not saying that to be a disciplined show-off (I’m actually not great at discipline!) — I’m saying it to just state the truth: daily practice is LIFEBLOOD, essential bread and butter. I *need* it to be me.). The second time I did The Artist’s Way, I created my own framework, 40 Early Mornings. And now this third time around, I’m working on a novel (of all things!).

Using a / the right framework for self-understanding, reflection, and growth can be LIBERATING. It takes a seemingly cliché phrase like “trust the process,” and puts it into measurable action. With specific tools and a set timeframe, the technique, the approach, and the boundaries are in place. When you don’t have to worry about making that up yourself / winging it, you can let yourself go. You can surrender into the experience. When you know where the walls are, you can PLAY and iterate and explore safely.

I am on Week 10 now of The Artist’s Way, and it is such a GIFT. This stuff is gold and an inspiration to me in both everyday ways and big ones too — so much of what I’ve been able to create in my life has come from this framework.

3. Try the More / Less List

This is the quickest & dirtiest (in a good way), self-reflection tool I know. So I’m going to give it to you here.

Don’t overthink this one. You don’t need much time at all (in fact, less time is better here — so you can just stream-of-consciousness this one and hopefully override judgment and the rational mind).

All you need is a big blank piece of paper and a pen.

You divide up the paper — you can make a line down the center or don’t use lines so you have more space to play on either side.

One section is for MORE — as in, “what do I want / need more of in my life?”

One section is for LESS — you guessed it, “what do I want / need less of in my life?”

You’re not trying to plan or SMART goal these things — quite the opposite.

You need no plan! (In fact planning (or plannicking!) would probably hinder your truth!). Just let yourself GO and see what comes up.

Some things you’ll see and be like “YUP, I knew *that* already.” And some will SURPRISE you.

It’s all just information. And it’s up to you to take the action, if / when you want to ;)

4. Straight up seated silent stillness aka meditation.

Even just 5 minutes! My paid subscribers, I left a 5-minute guided meditation practice for you behind the paywall.

& Links!

• We’re going to Costa Rica in Feb. So if you need an actual “Retreat Yourself” Retreat, come! We sold out the Feb 1-8 week almost instantly (!) and are considering opening up a second week (Feb 8-15 & maybe add some writing workshops / dedicated time for creative projects?!) — check out the details here. If you’re interested in week 2, fill out the form there ASAP!

• 40 Early Mornings — if it is TIME for a self-reflection framework with the option to add 6 weeks of live, group weekly meeting and 1:1 coaching, but make it start after summersummertime, 40EM begins again Sept 22 (Autumnal Equinox threshold for the win!). I love this program *so* much and the people who join me even more ;) Get your name on the waitlist. Registration details are coming soon.

• What else? Oh! I have a subscriber chat now. It’s really personal and juicy and spontaneous. Consider joining me there if you’re not already.

So happy to sit with you,
Cath xo

OOOOhhhhh — if you do the more / less list, leave a comment! What did you learn? Post a pic or just share the highlights!