Birthday Joy at Any Age: Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming on Infusing Your Birthday with Purpose and Meaning
Show Snapshot:
Is your birthday something to celebrate or avoid? This week, Katie explores this question with author Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming, author of “How to Have a Happy Birthday,” who reveals how to transform annual milestones from sources of dread into opportunities for joy. "A birthday is the most powerful day of our year," says Tamar, who offers ideas for birthday rituals and reflections, to meaningful gift exchanges and epic parties. Birthdays can be more than candles on a cake—birthdays are portals for reflection, intention-setting, and celebrating how beautifully we've grown into ourselves. Embrace your next trip around the sun, beauties!
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Quotable:
A birthday is the most powerful day of our year. It's the most spiritual day of our year. It's our personal New Year. birthdays give us one day a year to celebrate ourselves and to put ourselves in the center of our life.
Transcript:
Katie Fogarty 0:03
Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women who are unafraid to age out loud. I'm your host, Katie Fogarty. Beauties, when you hear the word "birthday," what comes to mind? Are you thinking candles on a cake? You might be thinking presents. Perhaps you are thinking panic. Birthdays can truly be a mixed bag, depending upon the person, depending upon the year. There can be excitement; other times, feelings of dread. And in midlife, those candles multiplying all over our cakes can trigger even more mixed feelings, because let's be real—the number of birthdays we have ahead of us is almost definitely smaller than the number of birthdays behind us.
If you, like me, are ready to throw your arms open and embrace each and every birthday that remains on the horizon, today's show is most definitely for you. I am joined by author Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming, a birthday aficionado. She is dedicated to helping people harness the power of birthdays to unwrap the gifts of more joy, meaning, and fulfillment. Growing up, Tamar had a string of happy birthdays and terrible birthdays, until she realized that having a fulfilling birthday was entirely up to her. In her new book "How to Have a Happy Birthday," Tamar explores why birthdays matter, why they can be so hard for so many, and what we can do to fully put ourselves into the center of the celebration and create another fabulous year. Yes, yes, and yes—I am excited to explore this with her. Welcome, Tamar.
Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming 1:48
Thank you, Katie.
Katie Fogarty 1:50
I'm excited to explore this topic with you. I have to tell you, when your publicist sent me an email pitching the book "How to Have a Happy Birthday," and I read what you were up to, what the book was all about, my first thought was, "I wish I'd written this book myself." I was a very fast yes, because I am a big believer that birthdays need to be celebrated and honored. What made you sit down and write a book about becoming birthday positive?
Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming 2:15
Well, I've been paying attention to my birthday for decades, and it wasn't really until about 18 years ago that this idea came to me to write a book. And that's because a friend of mine had a birthday, and I knew he didn't like his birthdays, but I thought that that was just because people didn't make a big enough deal about it, or he didn't feel special enough. I don't know, but I showed up with some treats for his birthday and wished him a happy birthday with great joy, and he got mad at me. He got really upset. He said, "I told you I don't like my birthdays." And that's when I really believed him and realized, "Oh, wow, he really doesn't."
And I started to think about it, and I wondered, "Well, why doesn't he?" I didn't ask him. I just started having those thoughts on my own. And the more I started to think about the birthday experience, including my own and the experience of others that I knew, including him, I realized, you know what, a lot of people don't enjoy celebrating their birthdays and don't really know how to celebrate their birthdays. And I think it's time to write a self-help book to help people have happier birthdays.
Katie Fogarty 3:15
And we are going to explore all of those wonderful recommendations and ideas in your book. But let's start by unpacking this idea—like, why are birthdays so challenging and loaded? You know what? Your friend's situation is probably not unique, but the sort of fear and dread of birthdays... I don't want to use the word "universal," because some people love their birthdays and embrace them and celebrate them, but for some people, they're challenging. What have you discovered and learned in writing this book?
Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming 3:42
Well, I've observed that there's a birthday spectrum that I call where we're either birthday avoidant or birthday positive, and we all fall somewhere on that spectrum. And I think that there are a lot of reasons why people don't like their birthdays, and as you say, it's very unique to each person. But a lot of it has to do with what I believe are disappointments that we've had around our birthdays, typically starting in childhood or at different parts in our life, where we get our hopes up. We know that it's a special day, and then the adults around us, or our friends, or the people around us don't actually show up for us the way that we've been hoping and expecting, and our feelings get hurt. We actually shut down. You know, we're very sensitive on our birthdays. And so when we have this hope and expectation that people are going to celebrate us the way we desire, the way we crave, and they just don't, or they just don't do it enough, we find ourselves sometimes feeling foolish and feeling like, "Why bother? Enough already. Birthdays are for the realm of children," and they're not. They're really not important for me, and I'm just going to ignore them. And that's one reason where we get ourselves—we find ourselves disappointed in the birthday experience.
Another reason is that people don't like aging. You talk about that a lot on this podcast, and we challenge that, and I love the work that you do, challenging this idea that aging is a bad thing, and we need to age out loud and be proud about it. I'm right on board with that, and I do want to say that I've heard that women, when they turn 40, when they turn 50, they really don't like celebrating their birthdays anymore. They feel like they're too old. They don't want to acknowledge another year's passing. And so there are some issues there that people have with losing a more youthful version of themselves and not actually finding that something worth celebrating. You and I know, and your listeners know, that there's a lot to celebrate with aging, but that's one of the issues that people can have.
Katie Fogarty 5:28
Yeah, when we think about birthdays, when you talked about sort of, you know, children—the joy that many kids experience when it's their birthday—they talk about it all year long. I am the mom of three, so I've been on the end of like the childhood birthday joy. But when we think about birthdays that are really ritualized in our culture, we have Bar and Bat Mitzvahs at the age of 13. We have the quinceañera and the sweet 16, right? But by the time we're hitting 30, 40, 50, 60, and beyond, sometimes birthdays are no longer ritualized and celebrated in the same way. We start to hear jokes about sort of being "over the hill." How do we ritualize birthdays that celebrate aging?
Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming 6:11
Well, first off, I just want to say that a birthday is the most powerful day of our year. It's the most spiritual day of our year. It's our personal New Year. It's worth celebrating whatever age we are, and that when we take that mindset and realize that the birthday gives us one day a year to celebrate ourselves and to put ourselves in the center of our life, it gives us permission to step into the birthday space and to create what we want.
And there are many rituals that we can do to celebrate ourselves and to acknowledge that another year has passed, and that another year is ahead of us, hopefully, right? And so one of the rituals that I love to do—well, first off, I think we need to plan for our birthday as if it's a major holiday. So just in the same way that you're not going to wake up on Thanksgiving morning and say, "Okay, what's for dinner and who's coming?" you're going to plan your Thanksgiving dinner, if that's what you celebrate. It's the same thing with your birthday. You need to start planning—start planning it at least a month in advance. Start thinking about what you want to do. You know, if you want to have dinner at a nice restaurant, you need to make those reservations. If you want to have a special kind of cake, you need to order it in advance. If you want to include your friends, you need to invite them to make sure that they're available to celebrate with you. So planning in advance is a really important part of the recipe to have a happy birthday.
But as your birthday approaches, one of the things that I love to do on my birthday eve is to create a birthday altar, and this is where I find a space in my home, and I put up pictures of myself from childhood. I put up pictures of my parents who are no longer alive. I put up pictures that mean something to me, along with flowers and crystals and mementos and whatever—happy birthday banner, whatever it is that raises the birthday spirit. I put that on my birthday altar, and I will tell you that as soon as I do that, and again I do that on my birthday eve, it's like a light switch gets turned on and the birthday spirit is fully there. And then the next morning, when I wake up, I spend some minutes in front of my birthday altar, getting centered within myself, tuning into my spirit, tuning into my life, and asking myself some questions. You know, "What was I born to do? Am I fulfilling my purpose?" You know, it's like having a loving conversation with myself about the life I'm living and checking in with myself, because birthdays are a really wonderful and important time to do that.
And as we look forward for the coming year, we can ask ourselves, as part of our birthday ritual, "What do I hope to experience or achieve in this coming year?" And it's just a year, and it's not like a New Year's resolution where, "Okay, I'm gonna go to the gym." It's really about, "Is my life as fulfilling as it could be?" And if so, great, let's turn up the volume on that. And if it isn't, what kind of adjustments are under my control that I can make to make sure that I have as good a year as possible ahead of me. And so those are some rituals, in addition to, of course, the cake and the candles and making a wish and all that kind of stuff.
Katie Fogarty 9:03
You have wonderful recommendations in this book. The birthday altar is one of them that I had flagged. You also suggest small things—you could take the day off from work. Big things—you could throw yourself a party. Bigger things—you could sort of set intentions for the year and how you want to show up and be a part of that. One of the recommendations that I flagged was sort of asking for this notion of a special gift. Walk us through that a little bit. How can we pull other people into this birthday celebration in a way that, when I say birthday gift, by the way, you're not asking for something physical, necessarily, that can be unwrapped. It's a special thing that you can do to ask your friends and family to celebrate with you.
Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming 9:45
Yeah, I find that the most meaningful gifts I've gotten in my life have been collage cards that my best friend makes for me every year with like a special word and glitter and—I mean, just beautiful collage cards that we would exchange for each other. So there's that sort of artwork with meaning to it. And also, you know, my husband now every year, he buys me a gift, which, you know, I love, but what he does is he writes me a love letter every year, and I will tell you that is the most precious thing I could possibly receive from him. And on my birthday, it really touches me deeply.
And so when we think about feeling nourished on our birthdays, it's not about the material goods—we can all buy ourselves material goods, right? It's really about the love that is behind the gift that the person gives us, whether it's a poem or a photo or a collage or a letter, some sort of gesture, even flowers that somebody picked from their garden, something that people put energy into creating, especially for the other person. Again, it doesn't have to be expensive or lavish. It just has to show that some effort was put into creating a gift with that person in mind. And I know that from personal experience and from other people's experience, those types of gifts that are more spiritual in nature, because they contain that good energy and that love, they tend to be the gifts that are the most treasured.
Katie Fogarty 11:00
Birthdays can be ritualized, too, with sort of small touchstones. It doesn't—the gift doesn't have to be physical. In my family, we celebrate every single birthday with an angel food cake, and my mother made angel food cakes growing up. I've been eating them for the 55 years that I've been having birthdays, and I've included this tradition in my own family that I'm creating with my husband and all of my children get an angel food cake on their birthday as well. So it's just, it's something small that really creates sort of magic and continuity and sort of joy around a birthday celebration.
Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming 11:28
I love that. I love that. I think that's a wonderful tradition, and it's so simple. I know some people that like to make their birthday cakes with their children, that that's part of the birthday ritual, that they make their cakes on the day together. There are many different rituals you can create as a family, and I think that those types of things help make the birthday special and magical.
Katie Fogarty 12:05
Absolutely. But you know, birthday blues are real. I know that some friends—you have a friend, obviously, we kicked off the show by talking about your friend who really resisted his birthday and was birthday averse, not birthday positive. People are sad about their birthdays for a variety of reasons. What are some ideas to combat those birthday blues?
Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming 12:26
Well, first off, I think it's important to acknowledge that you have the birthday blues. Sometimes people don't even realize they have them. They just start to feel anxious and emotional. They want to cry. They don't know why they want to pick fights with their partners. There's just this sort of energy that's coming out, and they don't understand it. So if you're somebody, if any of your listeners are somebody who experiences this type of mounting anxiety as their birthday approaches, let's call it for what it is. It's the birthday blues that are manifesting. And let's try and look a little deeper to understand what might be the trigger for them. Where was the origin? You know, where's the origin story for your birthday blues? And maybe it's a series of events, not just one event, but the book that I wrote, and the workbook, helps you dive into some questions to help you tease out where your birthday aversion might come from, so that you can rewrite your story and actually stand a chance to have a better birthday.
So becoming aware of why you don't like your birthdays is the number one thing you need to do. And the other thing I suggest is to give yourself permission to allow yourself to have a different birthday experience. It doesn't need to match the pictures of anybody else's birthday experience. It doesn't need to be pressured with all these shoulds. It just gets to be a day that is sacred and special for you. You mentioned earlier that, yes, I do write about taking the day off work. I think that's a really important thing to do, if you can do it, because it really gives you the day to yourself to create as you wish, to be special as a day. And so if you can take the day off, and for those of you that don't like your birthdays, try really hard to take the day off of work or whatever you normally do in your daily life, and ask yourself, "What would bring me joy today? What would bring me joy in my birthday experience?"
Do you want to go on a hike by yourself or with friends or on a picnic? Do you want to get a massage? You want to get your nails done? You want to go to the movies? Do you want to stay home and watch reruns with some popcorn? Like whatever you want to do, do it, but allow yourself to do it, to ask what you want to do, and to create the experience that you want so that you can have a happy birthday. And if you can have a happier birthday experience than you've had before, that's a step forward, and each birthday can build from that point. But I promise you that it's possible to have a happier birthday if you take some steps to plan for it, take charge of your day, and do what it is that you want to do.
Katie Fogarty 14:53
So many smart recommendations. I really enjoy starting my birthdays with hot yoga, which is a practice I do throughout the year, but it really is something that feels just like I'm starting the day with something that really focuses on creating great energy, something that I love, and it feels a little bit like a ritual. Tamar, we're heading into a quick break, but when I come back, I want to continue to explore this notion of birthday blues and talk about birthday blues that are rooted in real fears. We'll be back in just a minute.
[BREAK]
Katie Fogarty 15:23
We're back from the break. When we went into it, we were talking a little bit about birthday blues, and you offered a whole host of really wonderful recommendations to sort of combat those. And many of them are simple and easy to do. Take a walk, go to a yoga class, maybe take the day off from work, if that's available to you. But I know from having conversations on this podcast with guests that some people have fears around their birthdays that are rooted in their lived experiences. I'm thinking of a recent guest, the menopause advocate and Emmy award-winning journalist, Tamsen Fadal, who shared on the show that she lost her mom at a young age, and she had anxiety around her birthdays as she approached the years her mother never got to see. That was echoed a week later by another guest, Mally Roncal, who's the celebrity beauty makeup founder, and she's a QVC star, and she, too, shared that she had lost her mother at a young age, and when she approached that birthday and realized she was going to live beyond the years her mother ever got to experience, it made her feel so grateful to be celebrating every birthday.
And that really resonated with me, because I had the experience of losing two very close friends when I was young, both in college, one to cancer and one to a car accident, and that really has rooted me in gratitude around my birthday, because I recognize that it's a gift. So for people who really are attaching birthdays to challenging, hard experiences in their own lives, what are some recommendations for helping manage that anxiety, those nerves, those sort of senses of dislocation that they might be feeling?
Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming 17:06
Well, I think those are all really valid reasons to feel very emotional as your birthday is approaching, especially if it's the age that your mother was when she passed, probably far too young. So I think that, you know, some birthdays are not easy, and when we get to a milestone birthday like that, and I don't mean a milestone birthday where you're turning 50 or 60, I mean a milestone birthday where you're hitting a moment in life that a beloved person didn't get past, it's very fair to say, "Hey, there's going to be a lot that's going to show up for you now." And I just say, go with it. Dive deep, feel the feelings, maybe create some rituals around, let's say your mother, you know? Put up pictures of her, think about her life, really sort of invoke her spirit. She's there with you on your birthday, whether she's in her body or not. And that's one beautiful part of our birthdays, is that they are so spiritual, and we're so open to the spiritual source from where we came and to our parents that brought us through.
So use your birthday as a spiritual portal to open your heart to connect with the spirit of those beloved people that have passed, and allow yourself to do what you need to do to nourish and nurture your tender heart at this time. Don't force yourself to celebrate with balloons and parties if that's not what you're feeling. Honor where you are on each given year. And let's be honest, there are going to be some birthdays for whatever reason, they're going to be more challenging. That's okay, but your eyes are open, your heart is open, and you're stepping into the experience anyway. And I can promise that if you do that with that kind of openness and intention and allowing for grace to come through, even though it's a hard milestone, that it will come through and that healing can happen.
Katie Fogarty 18:48
I think that's such an important distinction to recognize that not every birthday is going to feel the same. And when you're facing those sort of maybe challenging birthdays, when you're thinking about the loss of a loved one, or you're looking at a milestone birthday, that it's okay to recognize that we want to celebrate, treat it and honor and acknowledge it in a different way. And not every birthday needs to involve balloons and cake. So for people who are thinking, "I want to acknowledge a milestone birthday that's coming up, I want to look at 50 or 60 or 55, double nickels, and truly honor it," what are some recommendations for honoring birthdays that we truly want to immerse ourselves in?
Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming 19:32
Well, the answer is going to be as individual as the person's delights. What would delight you when you're approaching a milestone birthday? What would make you the most happy as you think about this milestone approaching? I know when I turned 50, well before I turned 50, I knew my birthday was going to be on a Saturday night, the day I turned 50, or on a Saturday. And for years, I was letting people know, "My birthday is going to be on a Saturday and I'm having a big party with a disco ball." I was really excited to—I was really excited to turn 50 and celebrate it on a Saturday. I ended up getting engaged eight months earlier, and so I actually said, "Okay, well, the wedding is going to be the big party with the disco ball," but I still had a birthday party with friends and family, and I loved it. It just ended up changing, because my life changed from at a certain point where I realized, "Let's change the goal posts here."
But the point is, is that I knew I wanted to do something big with people that I loved. I'm turning 60 in January. It's a big one. I actually don't know what I want to do, but you know what? It's April. It's actually April 9. My birthday is January 9, and I'm thinking about it, and I'm going to figure it out, and whatever I end up doing, I'm going to have a happy birthday to the best of my ability, because I'm going to make it important, and I'm going to put it in the center of my world, because it's worth celebrating that way.
So in terms of what people want to do to celebrate, some people like to take trips. Some people like to have parties. Some people want to be by themselves. I spoke with somebody recently who turned 50—all he wanted to do was go travel by himself, but what happened is that his family and his friends really wanted to celebrate him, and so he ended up having a big party on his 50th birthday that really didn't make him happy, because that's not what he wanted to do, but he felt like it was important that the people who loved him were happy. And I suggested that maybe what he could have done is had that birthday party a month earlier or two weeks earlier, and then taken that solo trip that he wanted to do on his birthday. The birthday itself is a very aligned day. It's a very powerful, spiritual day, regardless of the day of the week that it occurs. Your birthday is the alignment. So don't avoid the power of the day by ignoring it as you celebrate on the weekend before or after. Celebrate when you want, but make sure that that birthday experience is as aligned as it can be because it's on your actual birthday.
So I think that—and this gentleman's story about how he was basically pleasing his friends and his family to have a 50th birthday. You know, many of us are people pleasers. Many of us are givers. Many of us don't know how to put ourselves in the center of our world and ask for what we want. And birthdays are a great opportunity to do that. For us to practice doing that. Everybody allows us to do what we want on our birthday. And if anybody in your life isn't happy for you and doesn't allow you to do what you want on your birthday, and they give you some attitude about that, I actually question that relationship, and I would question if they're actually the most healing and healthy person to be with, because I think that the birthdays are sacred. We all get one. We all get one equally. It's a 24-hour period. We all get one day a year. It's an equal opportunity provider. And everybody, everybody is typically happy for everybody else when it's their birthday. So I just say, do what you want and celebrate with joy.
Katie Fogarty 22:55
I love this notion of tapping into what delights you and what sort of unlocks delight in your life. And you talk about the power of the birthday, the 24 hours, but also, in your book, you talk about this notion of you could celebrate a "birthday week." I even think about a "birthday year." When I turned 50, I had a desire to honor in some way. I've never been afraid of my birthday. I just said earlier that I am grateful to always have another trip around the sun because I watched two young friends not have that experience. So I'm grateful for every birthday, but I haven't, like, historically, been one of those people that's like, "It's my birthday, birthday month," and like, you know, like, super, super, like, over the top, which is—I have friends who love that, and that works for them. But for some reason, when I was turning 50, I really, really, really wanted to acknowledge it in some way. And frequent listeners to the show might have heard me tell the story already, but I decided to do two things. To turn 51 was launch this podcast, and it took me till almost 35 days before I turned 51 where I was like, "Oh, wait a minute. I promised myself I was going to launch a podcast when I turned 50," and I got it in under the wire.
But what I did right around my birthday was to invite all the women in my life that were dear and meaningful to me. And I had a luncheon with—I invited more than 50 women, I think close to 45 showed up. These were friends from childhood and from college, and new neighbors and friends that I've made along the way. And we had what turned into this like epic seven-hour lunch in my backyard on this stunning, gorgeous day, and drank an astonishing amount of rosé, and I got to be with all the women in my life that were meaningful. And part of the reason why I did this was my husband, who's phenomenal, wanted to throw me a party. And I was like, I remember the words of my friend Lisa, "Throw your own party." Like, I wanted to throw the party I wanted to have, which was to be surrounded by women that give me energy and meaning in my life, and it was so incredible.
Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming 25:04
It sounds like it, and I love that you understood the difference between your husband throwing you the party or you throwing yourself the party. And the difference is that when somebody else does it for us, that's great if that's what we want, but if it doesn't quite manifest the way we were hoping, we could be disappointed. And so when you actually take charge and say, "Okay, this is the kind of party I want, these are the people that I want. This is the wine I want, rosé," right, then you really stand a chance of just absolutely loving your birthday party. And that's a victory. That's a wonderful thing. And what a wonderful way to start your 50s.
Katie Fogarty 25:41
But I want to switch gears for a minute now and talk about some of the ways that sometimes people sabotage their birthdays. I know that you identify sort of nine ways in the book that sometimes we can get in our own way and prevent ourselves from truly enjoying this day, this moment in time. Can you walk us through a couple of the ways that people sometimes undermine their own birthdays and their ability to sort of honor and celebrate that moment?
Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming 26:09
Yes, the first thing that we do is we don't tell people it's our birthday. We just ignore it, right? We pretend it's another day. We don't tell our colleagues. We don't tell our friends. Obviously our family knows, but we act like we don't want to do anything. So when people say, "What do you want to do for your birthday," and you say "nothing," that's one way you're sabotaging your joy, because you're not opening yourself up to actually having a happy day, if you're just pushing it away. So that's basic stuff.
The other things that can happen—this is a tricky one here—is that sometimes we pick fights conveniently right before our birthday. You know, we're already feeling some anxiety brewing. We're already feeling some emotions, and any little thing can set us off, and suddenly we're having an argument or a fight with a person close to us, whether it's our partner or a good friend. And that effectively brings down any kind of birthday joy we might have had, and it reinforces this idea, like, "I don't like my birthdays. They're not happy. I'm always disappointed." But if we actually unpack what happened, we can see that we entered into a situation that maybe we could have not entered into, right?
And that includes also heavy conversations. This past birthday, my husband and I—my birthday is in January, and so it's right around getting your taxes in order and stuff. And we were going to have a conversation about our taxes and our finances, which is fine, it's not a difficult conversation, but I was ready to start building my birthday altar. You know, I was picking the flowers and cutting them and everything, and I just said, "You know what? Let's press the pause button and save this conversation for a couple days from now." And that took some self-awareness on my part to understand that I didn't want to lower my vibration, you know, my energy that was already starting to build with anticipation and excitement. I needed to keep that frequency high and focus on the positivity, the positive energy, not start talking about something mundane and taxing, about taxes, right?
So being aware of your energy as you step into your birthday, and I do believe birthdays are three days long. It's the day before, the day of, and the day after, where we really feel the birthday spirit. So monitor your energy, protect your energy. Don't let yourself and don't let others sabotage your birthday joy by picking at you or by trying to pull the carpet out from under you, because people in our lives, believe it or not, will try and do that, especially if they're not having happy birthdays either. "How dare you have a happy birthday when I don't have a happy birthday?" So there's all sorts of subliminal, subconscious ways that we can trip each other up, including ourselves. So awareness is key and making a different choice.
Katie Fogarty 28:47
You are a practitioner of astrology. You were just talking now about, like, raising your vibration, sort of the spiritual and sacredness of birthdays. I know from spending time on your website getting ready for this show, that you've been practicing astrology for 20 years. How does that intersect with your sort of birthday enthusiasm, the tools that you offer to readers to make the most of this moment in time?
Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming 29:12
You know, it's interesting. It is so obvious to me now in retrospect, you know, as an astrologer, your astrology chart is completely based on literally the minute you were born. And I've spent countless hours consulting with people about their lives and the tendencies they have in their lifetime based on their astrology chart and where the planets were the moment they were born. And it never occurred to me until relatively recently that my birthday book is completely related, right? It's very thematic. I was just—they were two separate paths for me, they were two different tracks of thinking, but they're totally related.
And one of the things that I suggest in my book, actually, is that as your birthday is coming, if you're interested in having a more sort of spiritually centered experience, one of the things I encourage is for people to get an astrology reading if you're so interested in doing that, or getting a transit reading in the month leading up to your birthday, so that you can kind of have your eyes wide open about some of the changes that will be coming, astrologically speaking, in the next year or two, even though we always have free will and make our own choices.
I was recently contacted by a woman who was turning 40, and she felt it was a big, big milestone for her, a real shift of energy was happening, and she wanted an astrology reading. And so we did her reading about a week before her birthday, and sure enough, there in her chart clear as day for me, as an astrologer, I could see, "Oh, yes, you're absolutely right. Big changes are happening, and this is what it looks like." So it helped fortify her own instinct and intuition about her life, and helped really validate some of the ideas she was already having for how she wanted to shift in her life.
Katie Fogarty 30:41
And so she was fortunate enough to have that shift sort of spelled out astrologically speaking. But for those of us who want to create the shift ourselves, to use the momentum of our birthday to sort of harness that free will that we were born with, how do you recommend using the birthday as a sort of a galvanizing force to move us into a new direction for the year ahead?
Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming 31:05
Yes, well, it is your personal New Year, right? Whenever your birthday lands, it is your personal New Year. So it's again, very personal. And as your birthday is approaching, start asking yourself, "Am I living the life I want to live? Am I doing what I want to be doing?" I love it, Katie, that one of your goals in turning 50 was to start this podcast. You had a goal. It was a big one, and you achieved it, and you're still doing it. You're tying that to this milestone of turning 50. But you had to think about that. You had to do some inner work. You had to have some inner dialogue around your life and your dreams and your desires and what you were capable of doing, and then you manifested it, right? You took your free will and you made it happen. That's life.
Let's ask ourselves, "What is this life that I am living? Am I happy in this life I am living? And is there anything that I want to shift in the coming year?" And our birthdays give us a wonderful opportunity to slow down and start asking ourselves some questions and start ideating about what we might want for the coming year. And if no answers come, that's okay. Don't feel pressure, like, "Oh, I need to come up with some big thing this year." That's okay. If everything's great and it's working for you, awesome. Go have a great day, light those candles, make a wish, and enjoy the year to come, right? And of course, we don't know what the coming year brings us. We never know what tomorrow brings. But if everything is good, great, if there are changes you want to make, use your birthday as sort of a portal that you use to think about and ask about, "Is this the life I want to be living? And if not, what can I do to change it that's under my control?"
Katie Fogarty 32:39
I want to give a shout out to the accompanying workbook that goes with "How to Have a Happy Birthday," because it helps walk people through some of these questions and these ideas. We can't realize a goal or a desired outcome that we haven't articulated and set, and the workbook helps you move through some of that thinking in order to figure out, "How do I want to spend that year?" Like to ask yourself those questions. One of the thought prompts that you offer not just in the workbook, but you offer it in the book itself. And you close with this sort of a series of thought prompts that ask us, "What do we want out of this new bright, shiny new year?" And one of them is to ask yourself, "What are the skills and attributes that you possess now that you didn't have 15 to 20 years ago?" Like, what are we proud of? What do we have today that we didn't have yesterday? And I am curious, what are the gifts that you see, that you have achieved and accrued by adding the birthdays that you have now that you're approaching 60?
Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming 33:38
Well, without a doubt, I can say to all of your listeners, all you beauties out there, that my life is so much better now than it was 10, 20, 30 years ago, because I've become more of myself, I've become more empowered, I've become more self-aware, I've become more liberated, and yeah, I'm older, right? I'm getting those wrinkles, I'm getting that gray hair, but it's okay. My life, my autonomy, my empowerment, has never been more vibrant and vital and fun. And so I just think aging is a privilege. What they don't tell you in those beauty magazines is that aging is great because we get to become more of ourselves without apology, and I just feel more liberated than I ever have.
Katie Fogarty 34:21
And Tamar, when you think about it, I mean, you shared in the book and a little bit on the show that you had a wedding around the year that you turned 50, but that was your first marriage, right? So when you think about that, and you've written a book, and you're doing all these other things, and these are things that happened in the decade between 50 and 60, could you have imagined that when you were younger?
Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming 34:41
You know, it's interesting, and yes, thanks for calling that out. And those specific sort of achievements that I accomplished this past decade. I always knew that I had potential to manifest creative energy, right? I just didn't know how and what, but the way that my life has turned out and the person that I've become is something that I recognize. I'm surprised by a lot of what's happened. I feel like a very fortunate person because of the way my life has turned out, in part by luck and in part by my own effort. So I recognize who I've become, and I'm delighted by who I've become. I actually never imagined I would be this woman at this age now, with the accomplishments and experiences and the life that I have, but it feels familiar to me at the same time. So while I couldn't envision my future, now that it's here, it's like an old friend that I recognize the moment I meet them.
Katie Fogarty 35:32
I love that. I love that. I love that. Tamar, you were looking ahead to 60—you shared you do not yet know how you're going to mark it, but is there something that you hope to accomplish that you want to get after in these unfolding years?
Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming 35:50
Well, and you said this in the opening, I was really touched by the way you phrased it, that as we get older, we know that there's less time ahead of us. And that's one of the things about aging that is poignant, is this acute understanding that there is less time ahead. And so for me, that manifests as this urgency—is a bit strong, but it's a good word—this urgency around not squandering my potential, whatever more I have in me to do. I want to make sure I get it done. I don't want to waste this. You know, I've been dealt a good hand. You know, when you play poker and you're dealt a good hand, it's only good if you lay the cards down. And so I want to make sure I play every card I've been dealt to the best of my ability. And as I step, you know, 60 comes and I'm looking at the next decade ahead, I want to make sure that I am living my life as fully as possible, whatever that means for me. And that's what the turning 60 means—it's like, "Oh, okay." You know, even traveling. You know, my husband and I were currently traveling. We're overseas right now and having a great time, and we have this bucket list of where we want to go. But realistically, am I going to want to hike? Let's say I live to be 90. Let's say I've got 30 more years ahead of me. Do I want to hike Machu Picchu when I'm 80? No, because—
Katie Fogarty 37:01
I did it when I was 40. Well, I was—
Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming 37:06
I was gonna say, I don't even want to hike it now, you know?
Katie Fogarty 37:09
Actually I might—I might have been 30. I think that was our—that's what we—I was 30 because we did it right before I got pregnant. Because I remember thinking, "What is a trip I won't do with a newborn?" And let me tell you, it was hard at 30.
Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming 37:20
Right? I know, right. And so these ideas that we have, how practical are they going to be 10 years from now or 15 years from now? So even though I might have 30 more years of life ahead of me, which, of course, I have no idea that I will, the quality of each of those decades will be different, and I already know that. And so I don't want to assume that I've got all the time left to do what I want to do. I need to prioritize the right action, the right activity for the right age, because I know that age changes us. That's one thing I've noticed in great ways. But also, let me acknowledge that I'm driving a 1966 model vehicle called Tamar, and I'm in this vehicle to the day I die, and so I need to make sure I'm as healthy as I can be, that there's air in the tires and the oil's changed and stuff like that for me to enjoy the ride. But I also acknowledge that aging does bring about changes to the body, you know, the aches and pains that weren't there before—that's real. So I want to acknowledge that there are limitations that match where we might be on the age spectrum, not as a failure, but just as a reality. I've got my eyes open to that, and I don't want to squander what's left of my life thinking that I have plenty of time ahead of me, even though I might.
Katie Fogarty 38:37
Absolutely. And we want to enjoy the ride, and for people who are looking to enjoy their birthdays to think more deeply and meaningfully about them, but also just to think of fun ideas. The book is interspersed with anecdotes and sort of profiles of different people and how they've celebrated. It's a lot of rich food for thought. It's a lot of great inspiration. Tamar, before I say goodbye, though, how can our listeners learn more about you, your work, the book, and where to find the workbook?
Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming 39:02
You can go to HowToHaveAHappyBirthday.com, and find me. Find my book, find whatever interests you to get in touch with me. You can start there. My social media is linked there, links so you can buy the books on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. The workbook is available on Amazon exclusively, and you're going to have to type in "How to Have a Happy Birthday Workbook." By the way, the workbook you can just buy independently from the book if you don't want to read the book, but you're just interested in doing the workbook. It's a great standalone piece that you can just dive into in a journal format. The book, obviously, is the heart of everything, but they do work independently, if that's how you choose to engage with the material.
Katie Fogarty 39:46
Tamar, thank you for coming on, for helping us all have a happier birthday. I appreciate you and this conversation.
Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming 39:53
Thanks, Katie.
Katie Fogarty 39:54
This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women who are aging without apology. And aging without apology means celebrating those birthdays, beauties. If you're getting ready to put another candle on the cake, let me know in an Apple podcast or Spotify review. Share the show with women in your life who are getting ready to celebrate birthdays, who might need a little nudge to recognize that this is an incredible gift. Every time we get another turn around the sun, it is to be celebrated. Thanks for sticking around to the end of the show. Thanks for all your Apple podcasts and Spotify reviews. I see them. I appreciate them. They totally make my day and special. Thanks to Michael Mancini, who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time and until then, age boldly, beauties.