015 - How to Have a Happy Birthday (Really!) - With Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming

When was the last time you truly enjoyed your birthday?

In this uplifting and eye-opening episode, I’m joined by Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming – writer, spiritual teacher, and author of How to Have a Happy Birthday. 

Tamar shares why birthdays matter more than we think, how they offer a unique opportunity to celebrate ourselves, and how we can reclaim joy in a way that feels authentic (even if you’re not usually a fan of birthdays).

We explore everything from birthday blues and self-sabotage to the power of ritual, boundaries, and reflection. You’ll hear why birthdays can be transformational – not just once a year, but as a blueprint for living with greater presence, self-love, and purpose.

Expect thoughtful insights, gentle challenges to your assumptions, and a renewed sense of what it means to honour yourself – not just on your birthday, but every day.

💫 Visit howtohaveahappybirthday.com to learn more about Tamar and her book.

For more insights, tips, and guidance on living a meaningful life, visit Mel Harrowsmith Coaching. Ready to dive deeper? Reach out to book a session and start your journey towards purpose today.

Edited with finesse, transcribed and produced by Mike Roberts at Making Digital Real

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the Life with Purpose podcast. I'm going straight in with a question today. How do you feel about birthdays? More specifically, how do you feel about your birthday? How do you feel about your birthdays now compared to how you used to feel about them? Are you the first in the line to celebrate your own day of birth with cake, candles and a buffet to die for? Or do you do your absolute best to avoid anything or anyone that might remind you it's your birthday? Wherever you fall on the scale from fully embracing your birthday or fully denying your birthday, today's guest has something to tell us about it. 

In her new book, An Accompanying Workbook, Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming draws upon more than 30 years of observation and experience to tell us why it's important to turn that birthday frown upside down and start partying like you mean it, whether that's a party of 200 people or a party for one doing whatever you love to do. Tamar, welcome. Thank you, Mel. 

That was a fantastic introduction. Thank you. Well done.

It's wonderful to have you here today and I'm so pleased to be speaking to you. And I thought before we get started, I'd share with you my reaction, my first reaction when I first got your book. So I was handed a copy of How to Have a Happy Birthday and my first thought was, why on earth do we need a book to tell us how to have a happy birthday? My second thought was, do you remember your most recent birthdays and how you felt about those? And then the first thought just went silent and the second thought went, yeah, I thought so. 

You're a lady who needs to read this book. Yeah. Yeah. 

A lot of people need to read the book and I'm sorry to say that. I wish this book did not need to be written, but a lot of people don't have happy birthdays and it's our birthright. We deserve to have happy birthdays.

So explain to us, and particularly those who haven't had the joy of reading the book yet, why is it this important? Why did you feel the need that this book needed to be written? Well, birthdays, I believe birthdays are the most important day of our year. They're the most spiritual. They're the most powerful day of our year. 

They're the day that we celebrate our life. It's the day that we began our life and I can think of nothing more powerful than that. And when we take a moment, really just one day a year to acknowledge the life that we're living, to put ourselves in the center of the day and to celebrate ourselves and ask ourselves some meaningful questions about the life we're living and really just sort of make it something meaningful, it can really feed and nourish our spirit and our soul and actually make us feel good about being here and who we are and start thinking about what we might want to do or change in the coming year to make our life better and in more alignment with who we are.

So the people who probably need this book the most are probably the people who, if they're listening to this, are going, oh yeah, whatever. Birthday, it's just another day. Why bother? It's not important. 

So on and so forth. And probably a bit like my first thought, you know, I'm quite cynical about the need for this book. So what do you say to the people who are just down about birthdays? Well, and I say this with compassion, but I think the people that are down about their birthdays are typically down about themselves. 

They don't have a lot of self-esteem, perhaps. They don't have a positive, warm, friendly relationship with themselves or they've had some real serious disappointments as children or in other years around their birthday that they've been hopeful and excited and their birthday hopes were dashed because the people around them didn't celebrate them in any kind of way that felt sincere or meaningful. And so they just shut down to any sense that birthdays mattered. 

I think there's a lot of disappointment that we can feel on our birthdays when we're excited and then people don't remember or people don't show up for us or people don't do anything for us or people yell at us and get mad at us, you know, not realizing that, hey, today's my special day. Give me this one day to be special. And so there's a lot of reasons why we don't like our birthdays, but a lot of the reasons are because we don't feel worthy of putting ourselves in the center of our world and taking that day to say, hey, I'm here. 

I'm worthy of celebrating myself and I'm happy to be here. Yeah. So one of the things I was reflecting on when I had the reaction I had and I was thinking about, okay, why? What is it that's behind this attitude towards birthdays? And I can certainly recognize some of the things that you were saying there, but one of the other things that came through for me, and I've seen this with other people as well, is this pressure of should. 

So the pressure of, well, I should be doing my birthday this way for whatever reason. So whether there's this expectation that parties always have to be magnificent, even when you're a tiny little introvert and the idea of a 500 strong party is just horrifying. So this whole attitude and perception that somehow your birthday is about everybody else and not you. 

Is that a common theme that you've seen? Yeah. Yeah, it is actually. And I'm so glad you said that. 

So my number one rule about birthdays is that it's whatever you want to do for yourself, solo or with those 500 people. But other people don't get to tell you what to do on your birthday. This is really the day you get to press the pause button and say, hey, everybody, this day is for me. 

I'm not pleasing everybody else. I'm pleasing myself. Many of us are people pleasers. 

Many of us don't. We're givers. We're nurturers. 

We're caretakers. We don't know how to press the pause button on that and say, okay, well, what about me? What about putting myself in the center of my world? And it's just one day a year and we all get it equally. And everybody lets us have a birthday. 

If you were to say, I'm taking the day off. I'm going to take a break and go do whatever I want. Come see me tonight for cake. 

Everybody will let you have that. And if you don't want to see anybody for cake, go eat the cake by yourself and eat all of it if you want. Do whatever you want. 

Right? Right? Doesn't that sound fun? But the point is, is that I was on a podcast recently and the gentleman turned 50 and he said that for his birthday, he really just wanted to go on a trip by himself, but his family and his friends wanted him to have a big 50th birthday party. And so that's what he did. And he didn't really enjoy it because that's not what he wanted to do, but he felt sort of beholden to his community to give them an opportunity to celebrate him the way they wanted. 

And my reaction to that was like, okay, that's good information. Why not? You could have had the party two weeks before your birthday and then gone away on your birthday, because I do believe your birthday itself, the actual day, is the day. Like whatever day of the week it falls on, whatever's going on, your birthday is the day to show up for and celebrate.

But it doesn't mean you can't have a party leading up to it. And this whole idea of what you should be doing, there are no rules when it comes to celebrating a birthday. None. 

Even though I wrote the book on how to celebrate a birthday, and I do have advice, right? I do have suggestions. The bottom line is it's what you want to do for your birthday. And if you just want to stay home and do nothing, that's great. 

But I do recommend that you take the day off work. I really do. I think that's a wonderful thing to do. 

There's no reason you can't do it. Most of the time you can, or whatever responsibilities you have, find some time to get that day to yourself. And then ask yourself, what do I want to do today? What do I want to do for myself? And there's a variety of options. 

But by giving yourself the space to celebrate yourself with delight and with spontaneity and with, yes, some planning, because I do believe birthdays are a major holiday, and they need planning just like any other major holiday, but allowing yourself to show up for yourself is transformational. Awesome. Let's all book the day off now. 

Never mind having a birthday. Just celebrate ourselves. So the example you gave there about the guy who had the birthday that everybody else wanted, obviously fits into what we were talking about. 

But you also mentioned there about taking a day off work. What about for people who that just isn't a possibility? Because there are occasions when, sadly, work does have to come first. What advice would you give to those people? There are. 

There are. If you can't take the day off, but maybe you can take the morning off, or you can leave work early, try and see if you can carve out some time to really have to yourself to celebrate as you wish, whatever that means for you. Even if it's just you want to run out and go buy yourself a birthday present and allow yourself to do that. 

Or you want to go get your nails done, or go get a massage, or go for a lovely walk in the park, or go have tea with a friend. Whatever that is, allow yourself to see if you can have that time in your day. And if you can't and you must go to work, I recommend that you be sure to let your colleagues know it's your birthday and actually bring in a birthday cake for yourself. 

Allow yourself to say, hey everybody, it's my birthday today and I had to come to work. We had these big meetings, but I'd love to have some cake with everybody. I brought in some cake and let's celebrate because I'm really happy today.

And that can seem vulnerable to do, and it is actually. But it's also a beautiful act of self-celebration, and it role models an attitude and an action that other people can follow for themselves as well. So it's really interesting, and I noticed this when I was reading the book, you've written the book around the event of a birthday, but there's so many themes running through this that are just valid and active through every aspect of life. 

You know, we've touched on people pleasing, we've touched on shoulds, we haven't mentioned it explicitly, but we've talked about boundaries. And you know, people say, take the day for yourself. Well, that actually requires putting a boundary in place and holding that boundary, which we know people struggle with. 

And that's something that comes up a lot in the coaching world. And you mentioned there about, you know, making yourself vulnerable by saying to your colleagues, it's my birthday, let's just, you know, take 15 minutes and share a piece of cake and a coffee together and how that can be quite intimidating for people and vulnerable. So how would you break that down for people who kind of think, yeah, okay, I need to make more of my birthday, but I'm really struggling to get past some of these barriers? Well, so give me a barrier. 

We've talked about, you just mentioned many, so pull one out specifically and I'll talk to that. So maybe one about colleagues, the vulnerability. So there's a spectrum. 

You actually addressed it earlier and I love the wording you use. I use the word birthday positive all the way to birthday avoidant. So I'm a birthday positive person, obviously. 

It's taken a while, but I got here. And what I would do at work is I would make sure that we, and I was the manager of a team of six people, I would make sure that we celebrated everybody's birthday, that at our team meeting once a week, that if a person's birthday was coming into that timeframe, we would have cake and we would take about 15 minutes to focus on that person and talk about them and everything. And so I created a culture of celebration so that when it came time for my birthday, my colleagues on my team needed to do that for me. 

So if you are in a position to start setting a trend at work around celebrating other colleagues' birthdays, then it can make it easier for you to celebrate yourself when the time comes. And if you have a colleague, a trusted colleague, and nobody's picking up the hint like, oh, it's Tamara's birthday, let's make sure we bring her cake. Then you can say, hey, my birthday's coming up next week and I would love to have some cake. 

I don't know if you've planned anything or not, but can I just tell you that I would be so excited to have some chocolate cake, you know, but stay away from the carrot cake. Just, you know, bring me the chocolate cake. And then you're inviting somebody to help celebrate yourself. 

They're typically honored and delighted to do that. They're probably even relieved and grateful that you gave them an opportunity to remember your birthday and not forget it and feel bad about that. And so there are some ways that we can start to set a culture at work of celebration. 

Ideally, you're not showing up at work on your birthday, but sometimes, you know, for some people, their whole social life is at work and they do want to be at work. Bring yourself some flowers, you know, set up a little happy birthday banner at your desk. Allow yourself to delight in the fun of celebrating yourself with a smile. 

You know, it doesn't have to be, it's a serious day actually, but it can be, if you do it with a light heart, everybody's happy for people when it's their birthday. If you were to bring flowers to your desk that said happy birthday on them and people were to come by, I promise you that they will light up and be very cheerful and sincerely happy for you that it's your day. It's just a natural reaction we have. 

I'm just interrupting this episode for a brief moment to ask how are you enjoying these podcasts? Have you got any questions or comments you wish you could share? Well, now you can. If you'd like to ask any questions or suggest topics for a future episode, if you'd like to be a guest or leave some feedback or a review on this or any other Life with Purpose podcast episodes, or simply say hello, then you can leave me a message at speakpipe.com forward slash Mel Harrowsmith coaching and you never know, I might even include your message in a future episode. Now, let's get back to the conversation. 

So that's a really interesting point about how people are generally very happy for us and say, oh, that's wonderful. It's your birthday when internally we make the assumption that nobody cares. So it sounds like a strong learning point here is to recognise that what we're thinking in our head is not the reality of what's going on outside. 

That's right. You know, birthdays are really the one day a year that we all have equally. You know, it's the one thing every human being has equally, like, unlike anything else, probably besides the fact that we all die, you know. 

It's this idea that we get one 24-hour period a year to put ourselves in the centre of our lives and celebrate ourselves and be celebrated by others. And I don't get 27 hours and you get 23. You know, it's really an equal opportunity provider. 

And we all know what it feels like when our birthday comes around. Even if we're birthday avoidant, we know what it feels like when the birthday comes and there's an energy there that we're either trying to duck and just get through because we have pain around the experience and we have disappointment or we don't like getting older. I mean, there's all sorts of reasons why, you know, we want to duck that energy of the birthday or we meet it head on and we embrace it and we let it uplift us and we let it nourish us and we let it celebrate and affirm the fact that we're here. 

Because I will tell you, to every single person who is listening, you are all miracles. The fact that you are here all is a beautiful miracle and it deserves, you deserve to be acknowledged and celebrated even just one day a year. And everybody will let you have that happily because they also get one day a year. 

So let's set a culture of birthday positivity in our circle and let's help each other have permission and courage and empowerment to celebrate ourselves the way that we want when our birthday comes around. To build this circle of positivity, I just want to touch on something that aligns with this. We're all equal and there are certain things that we experience equally.

Aging. Yes. So that has to be something that can get in the way of having a happy birthday. 

Yes. Yes. And I think a lot, I just turned 59 in January and I'm turning 60 next January and that's a really big number and I feel it coming. 

And I've been paying a lot of attention to aging as an aging woman in this culture. And what I've noticed for many, many years is that we do have an obsession with youth and that it's given to us through the media, through the advertisements. Young people are the demographic that brands and corporations want to capture for a lifetime of consuming. 

And so they are, the models in the magazines that we see, they're all of a certain age unless they're really pitching to geriatric issues or something like that. And so the world around us reflects this image of youth being the most valued and ideal way to be. And we know there's a billion dollar industry out there trying to keep us as young looking as possible as we age.

And I just want to suggest to your listeners to consider the very real possibility that aging is actually a privilege and it's a blessing and that life gets better as we age. I certainly feel far more liberated and more empowered as a 59 year old than I did as a 29 year old. And this idea that we need to be ashamed of our age or hide our age or be afraid of letting people know our age because we'll lose value, we'll lose power, we might lose our job, we might not get hired. 

There are some real issues around that I'm not going to say there aren't. And don't keep promoting this by agreeing to it, right? I refuse to agree. Nobody gets to take away my power. 

Nobody gets to tell me I am less powerful as a 59 year old. Who has the right to say that about me? Nobody. I have to define myself and my own worth and my own life. 

And if people have reactions to me because I'm 59 years old, that's okay. They can have those reactions. They had reactions to me when I was 29 years old, right? And so that whatever people's ideas about me and my age are, that's really in their head.

That's for them to own. And unless it's actively being discriminatory or oppressive or something, then I'm going to have to deal with it and I'll have to figure out how to do that. But I really want to challenge people to start being open and shameless about your age wherever you are as an age. 

That for us to keep ourselves hidden and in a state of shame just perpetuates what I think is a big why. That aging is a problem. And again, aging is a privilege and it's liberating and I highly encourage it. 

So screw you age. We're having a big birthday. That's right. 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Embrace it. Celebrate it. So one of the other things I wanted to talk to you about, and then I promise we will move on to the far more positive things. 

There's something you mentioned in the book is about birthday sabotage. Yes. So what type of things are people doing to scuttle their own birthdays? So it's hard to believe that people would want to sabotage their own birthday joy. 

But if you're stepping into a situation where you already have a lot of resistance to your birthdays and you don't feel worthy of celebration or you've had your feelings hurt and so you don't want to risk the vulnerability of being open to the joy of the day, what we will do subconsciously is we will set up situations to sabotage our birthday joy, to reinforce the idea that our birthdays aren't important and aren't worth celebrating and to reinforce the why bother attitude. And so there are various ways we do it. The first way that we sabotage any kind of birthday joy is we ignore it. 

We pretend it's not happening. We don't tell anybody. You know, we show up at work. 

We don't tell our colleagues it's our birthday. We don't tell our friends. I mean, nobody knows. 

And so nobody wishes a happy birthday. And we go through the day bereft, really, because nobody gave us any positive energy that is rightfully ours to have. And we certainly didn't give it to ourselves if we're in that state of mind. 

And so not acknowledging your birthday is the first way that we sabotage any kind of birthday joy that we could have. The second way is that we sometimes pick fights with people very close to us as our birthday approaches. Yeah, it's pretty amazing what the subconscious will do. 

You know, your birthday has an energy. It's like, you know, the same way that Christmas builds with energy. It's the same thing with your birthday. 

You know, the energy, you know, you start to feel it coming maybe a month before and then in the weeks and then the days. And it's like this wave of energy that builds. And then it's your birthday. 

And then there it is. And then the energy fades as your birthday, you know, leaves and goes into the past. And so right before a birthday, maybe a week, maybe a few days before a birthday, maybe even the night before a birthday, as we're feeling the sensitivity of the day coming to us and the vulnerability and our fears around it, we might actually pick a fight with somebody close to us as a way to bring the energy down and see, I'm never going to have a happy birthday. 

You see, I don't deserve to have a happy birthday. You see, you don't really love me that much anymore after all, because how could you celebrate me when we just got in a fight together? You know, so that's one way or talking about heavy conversations before a birthday. Just this past year, my husband and I were doing some finance, we were doing some accounting, you know, and because my birthday's at the first of the year. 

And so he wanted to talk to me about the finances and the accounting. And it wasn't a particularly fraught conversation, but it was just like, it was my birthday Eve. It was a buzzkill. 

Yeah. It's like, hey, hey, let's put this off. Can we put this off for a few days? This is not something I want to talk about right now. 

My energy is I'm shaking off the mundane and I'm entering into the sacred space of my birthday. It was the day before my birthday. And so he said, oh, absolutely. 

But I had to be self-aware enough to know that that topic, that conversation, the length of time it would take, the, you know, how mundane it was, wasn't where I wanted to focus my energy in this rare period of time, which is my birthday time, the day before, the day of, the day after. But it takes some self-awareness to put up some boundaries, as you said earlier, and say, hey, let's shelve this for later. Another way we can sabotage our birthdays is believe it or not, we can actually get sick. 

That's a really convenient way to duck out of any responsibility for celebrating ourselves. You've done that. I've done that too. 

I have. I have. I didn't plan on doing it, but I did. 

And it actually was a relief because I read about it in my book. I was turning 50 and I had so much pressure around that big birthday. Ended up getting sick. 

And being sick just helped me release the pressure of having to have it be the best birthday ever. And it was a lovely birthday. Ended up having a lovely birthday, even though I wasn't feeling well. 

But it was sort of like a way to, again, give me permission to let go of any disappointment I might have had if it wasn't the best birthday ever. So getting sick is sometimes a convenient way to escape the responsibility of taking charge of your birthday and enjoying it. And of course that sabotage as well might not be you. 

It might be somebody else who brings the rest off. Well, that happens too. And I also write about that. 

And chapter two, by the way, of my book, How to Have a Happy Birthday, is all about the birthday blues and the ways that we sabotage our birthday, because it is such a big theme that it deserved to be very close to the front of the book. Other people can sabotage our birthday joy as well. It's amazing how people can be very skillful, even if it's subconscious, about sort of ripping the joy out from under us.

Just as we're ready to be happy, they don't like it. They don't like it that we are. And I challenge that. 

And I think if there are people in our lives that don't want us to be happy on our birthday, you might want to look at that relationship and do some fine-tuning or walk away entirely. Because if someone can't be happy for you on your birthday, I'm not sure what they're doing in your life. It's a strong message, isn't it, if that's happening? Yeah.

So while we were talking about sabotage, you talked about the energy building as your birthday approaches. Now, one of the positive sides of that, that you talk about in the book, is more of like a ritual side to the birthday. So birthdays in themselves, there are elements of ritual about them. 

Cake, candles, picnic, favourite meal, whatever it might be. But you take that further and start to talk about some of the spiritual ritual associated with birthdays. So can you say a little bit more about that and why that's important? Yes. 

So as I said earlier, our birthday represents the day that our life began. It's the day our spirit, our soul came into the physical form to begin this journey of this lifetime. It's a big deal. 

And so our birthday is very spiritually aligned with our divine source, with the spirit world from which we came. There's a real alignment there. And so the spiritual portal is wide open for us, and we can tap into it. 

We can amplify it. We can feel the joy that's there for us, spiritually speaking, if we do a little intentional work around that. And one of the things that I love to do, that I think is very spiritual and absolutely delightful, and I recommend all your listeners try this if they are so inclined, is on your birthday eve, the night before your birthday, create a birthday altar. 

And by that, I mean find a space in your home and clear it off. And in that space, bring some flowers, bring some photos of yourself from childhood or your favourite photos as an adult, bring mementos that mean something to you, bring items that evoke what you might want to create in the coming year. Whatever it is that is special to you, put up a happy birthday banner, but create a birthday altar the night before your birthday. 

Light the candles, put on some music, and it is a marvellous way to turn the light switch on to your birthday energy, because there is a very real birthday spirit that is there for us on our birthday. And I believe the birthday spirit shows up the day before on birthday eve in full glory during our birthday, and the day after our birthday sticks around and then starts to glitter away as the following evening comes. And so, using the ritual of creating a birthday altar on your birthday eve, I think is a very wonderful way to, again, turn that birthday energy on. 

And then what I do on my birthday morning is I spend some minutes in front of my birthday altar before my day really gets started as a way to spiritually get present with myself, to tune into my life, to tune into me, to find some gratitude for myself, to find some appreciation for myself. And getting spiritually centered on my birthday is really important for me, because if I don't do that, I've noticed, if I like forget to do it or my gig gets started too early, I'm off and running. I always feel like there's a part of me that I'm always trying to catch up.

Like, wait, where am I? Where am I? This stuff is happening, but where am I? It's because I didn't get internal. I didn't connect with myself first before the external world showed up and put me into my celebratory activities for the day. So, having a peaceful, quiet, meditative moment with yourself in the morning, honoring your own spirit, honoring your ancestors, honoring your parents, if you so choose, whether they are alive or if they've passed on, there are some really wonderful rituals that we can do on our birthday morning or at any point on your birthday, working with your birthday altar that can really help amplify the birthday spirit and the birthday joy. 

Yeah. So, from the way you described that, so even if you're not spiritually inclined or you think, oh yeah, I'm not sure about making an altar, you know, if you just take the time to rest and focus, give yourself an opportunity to reflect a little bit, bring you into the present, you're more likely to have a mindful experience through your birthday instead of, as you said, rushing through, I've got to pick up the cake, do this, do that, whatever. Instead, you'll be far more present and enjoy your birthday mindfully.

Exactly. The birthday itself, we can make our best plans and I really do recommend planning for your birthdays if it's a major holiday. We know what happens. 

The day shows up and you thought you would be having breakfast with your friends at this restaurant. Well, it's closed for renovations. Oops, I didn't realize that. 

Now we've got to make plan B. That's okay. That's part of the birthday adventure. Your birthday is an adventure. 

You've planned it, but just like a vacation, stuff happens that you didn't expect. Well, pivot and be resilient and allow yourself to be delighted by however it unfolds, even if it's not what you actually thought you wanted. There's some lessons there that can be had when we get so fixated on what we want and it doesn't happen. 

It might ruin our birthday joy because we're too fixated on it. Well, that's life. You have plans in life and things don't happen exactly. 

Well, where's our resilience? Where's our flexibility? Keep your eyes open for the blessings that are there anyway for you. I think being mindful is a very good way to put it and have fun. Let yourself have fun.

Yeah. I think this was one of the most striking things when I read the book after I'd got over my, why do we need a book about happiness? I read it and it's such a strong metaphor, even if you ignore that let's celebrate the birthday. If you look at it as a metaphor, for everything else that we need to be doing on a regular basis. 

So honoring ourselves, taking time for that, putting in boundaries, looking at what we need, putting ourselves first and being, you know, that is a good thing. Making sure we're okay. Cutting out the things that are serving, not serving us anymore. 

Maybe the people who are sabotaging our happiness as well. You know, this one day of the year has represented everything that we need to be doing on a regular basis as well. And I think that was the most powerful thing I took away.

Yeah, it's true. One of the book reviewers, Kirkus Reviews had said that this is a book, not just to have a happy birthday, but also how to have a happy life because you're absolutely right. But what I like about starting with your birthday, I mean, look, let's be honest.

It can be hard to draw boundaries. It can be hard to put ourselves in the center of our life. It can be hard to step away from difficult relationships. 

It can be hard to do a myriad of things that I'm talking that we should do on our birthday. But if we practice doing it on our birthday, just one day a year, we actually have permission to do that. You have permission to put yourself in the center of your life one day a year. 

You really do. Everybody lets you have it. And even if they don't, you still have that permission. 

And that's the point. It's like, think of it like a practice, right? To be empowered, to ask for what you want. A friend recently had a birthday and she wrote to me and she said, you know, I had a great birthday. 

I told my husband what restaurant I wanted to go to. I said, what kind of cake I wanted. And I went out and bought myself a birthday present.

And those are pretty simple things to do and to ask for. But to her, it created a wonderful day and it really empowered her. She goes, you know, it was very empowering to really sort of practice asking for what I want. 

So often we don't do that. We just say, yes, we go with the flow. We don't want to be, make trouble. 

We don't want to, you know, and I say, okay, do that 364 days of the year. But on your birthday, practice putting yourself in the center because you deserve to be in the center of your life one day a year on your birthday. Brilliant. 

And as a coach, taking those small steps to make changes, I fully endorse that. So that's fantastic. Should also say, Tamar, that alongside your book, there is a workbook and there's all sorts of exercises and questions in there to work through to help people who are interested in exploring some of the themes we've talked about. 

But I'm just curious if you were to summarize the key points of what you think helps to make a happy birthday, what would it be? Or what would they be? I think the number one point for all your listeners is to realize that you all deserve to have a happier birthday than you've ever had. Wherever you are on that birthday spectrum, even if you really like your birthdays, there are certain things that you can do to make them more fulfilling, to make them more nourishing. But if you don't like your birthdays, you deserve to have a happier birthday than you've ever had. 

And so I suggest that you allow yourself to give it a try. You don't have to have the most amazing birthday in your life if you give it a try, but I promise you that if you allow yourself to plan for your birthday as if it's a major holiday, as if it's your own personal new year, which it is, and you make steps to take the day off if you can, to find the time to do something special that will lift your spirit, to have some cake or whatever it is that delights you, to do what you want to do. I promise you that you will have a happier birthday than you've ever had and that you can take that experience and build on it for the next birthday. 

Because that's what I'm hearing from people is they start to put this work into play and start to actually do the work to have a happier birthday. They do. And they're like, oh, oh, wow. 

Okay. Okay. Okay. 

I'm getting it. Okay. Next year, that's what I did. 

I built off each year and it was sometimes frustrating. Like, oh my gosh, I have to wait a whole nother year to put this into play? Like this lesson I learned, this experience I had is like, yeah, you do actually. And so, you know, I've been paying attention for 30 years now at birthdays and I've been improving my birthday experience. 

And sometimes I've had hard birthdays for reasons I couldn't control and I dealt with them as they were, but I learned from them. And so for all of your listeners, you deserve to have a happy birthday. You deserve to have a happier birthday and you have a hundred percent power to make that happen.

Fantastic. Thank you so much. I'm already thinking about my birthday and how I can make it happy.

Awesome. When is your birthday? September. So a little while to go and I never think about my birthday so far in advance. 

So. Oh, this is great. This is great.

So I was thrilled to read your book and definitely learned a lot. And yeah, it's a lovely read. It's very positive. 

We've talked about some sort of heavier aspects of birthdays, but it is an incredibly positive book with some wonderful advice about how to make your birthday a happier experience. So Tamar, thank you so much for joining me. Thank you so much, Mel. 

If your readers want to get the book or learn more about it, they can go to howtohaveahappybirthday.com and there you can get in touch with me. You can find out where to buy the book. It's available wherever books are sold, including Amazon.

And also if you want to give the book as a birthday present, because I've heard a lot of people like to do that. My recommendation, it's a great birthday present, but give it six weeks early so the person has the time to actually read the book before their birthday and put it into play to have that happier birthday right away. So that's just a little tip if you're thinking of giving it as a birthday present. 

That is a great idea. I thoroughly recommend that one. So hopefully everybody's going to rush out and check out the book.

Have a happy birthday. And Tamar, thank you so much. And I look forward to seeing you again.

Thanks so much, Mel. And I'm really excited for you to have a happier birthday in September.