A few years ago, my dear friend did a 40 till 40 gift for her husband. She had everyone share a memory of/with him, that she could then share with him each of the 40 days until he turned 40. I absolutely love this idea, so I'm reframing it for myself. I've never been a big birthday person, but it's 40 days until my 40th birthday and I am celebrating with 40 days of gratitude posts here on my blog.

In a culture that values youth, I am embracing this new phase and age of my life with gusto, like my beautifully evolving gray hair. I used to joke that I'm a little bit 90 years old inside, and I think in some dimension I am. I have also had the experience in my life of many of my peers leaving this world before this age, and with that in my awareness I think it is more important than ever to celebrate exactly where we are regardless of what culture tells us about it. It is amazing and a miracle to make it to any age in my opinion and I think we should always celebrate the gift of another year past of living a life on this planet, no matter how hard or how wonderful the year or years have been. If we want to thrive, we first have to start where we are and recognize what we have, no matter how much or how little that is. Being in the human experience is a unique and wonderful gift.

So if you're interested in my 40 till 40 gratitude project, subscribe directly to the blog (HERE) to have the posts delivered to your inbox each morning. (The posts are going to be short, I promise!)

Incidentally or not, 40 days is also the length of a traditional sadhana in yoga. It is where we practice the same thing for 40 days in a row. It has many translations and contexts, but where I land with it is - any intentional daily personal practice used to connect to yourself (spiritual or not). Anything can be a sadhana. So if you like this idea, I encourage you to take these 40 days of posts as an invitation to your own sadhana. Follow along with me and let me count the days for you. (Starting tomorrow) Maybe you like the idea of 40 days of gratitude, or maybe you’d like to do 40 days of mediation, or 40 days of walks, or 40 days of 5 minutes of ujjayi breath, or writing morning pages, or redirecting a negative thought loop, or literally anything you like :)

When I started my gratitude list, I wrote a piece of gratitude for each year of my life or something that might have happened in that corresponding year of life, but to be honest, then it went off the rails, so buckle up and enjoy this journey with me :)

As a side note, my birthday is an angel number and this years it's a big huge collection of 2s. It feels like a portal or a rebirth or something and it brings me joy to look at the date. I'm excited to see what it brings!

P.S. - This project will be hosted here on the blog and not on social media, though I might put a reminder out about it on social here and there. The best way to stay up to date on these posts is to subscribe to the blog. And if you haven’t already, sign up for the monthly newsletter while you’re at it too :) subscribe to the monthly newsletter - Please note, these are two separate subscriptions.