I'm turning 25! Here are all my thoughts and feelings about ageing, dealing with expectations around birthdays, loneliness, the pressure to have fun and a much needed mindset shift towards growing older. I also discuss my GO TO birthday routine that brings me peace, growth and clarity every year! Listen now and thank you for another wonderful year with the podcast :) PREORDER MY BOOK: https://www.psychologyofyour20s.com/general-clean Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast For business: [email protected] The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: Why do birthdays cause anxiety?
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world. It is so great to have you here back for another episode, as we of course, talk about the psychology of our 20s. All right. We're going to talk about birthday anxiety today because it is my birthday. The day that this comes out, I am turning 25. 25 years old.
We are halfway through the psychology of your 20s. And the biggest question I always get is whether I'm going to do a psychology of your 30s. I have five more years to think about it. So... I will answer that question a little bit closer to the date. But yeah, it's my birthday and it's bringing up a lot of feelings. But it's also probably the most peaceful, serene birthday I have had.
I have never felt more comfortable with aging and more comfortable with the age that I'm at.
more comfortable with what I'm choosing to do today than ever before and it's made me really, really reflective and it's made me want to talk about this experience of birthday anxiety that I've had for so long and all the stress that usually comes with gaining another year, gaining another year of life, getting another year of experiences and I want you to Note that I did not say getting older.
I like to position it as something that we are given, something that we are gifted. So this year I'm in New York City. I've been in the US for like two and a half weeks for work, for work being this podcast and for Mantra, of course, doing some like amazing recordings with some incredible guests that are coming out soon.
And by being in New York, I know a few people, but honestly, like I don't have a huge, broad, wide group of friends here. My boyfriend's back in Australia, all my close friends, my family are back in Australia. So I couldn't do like a big thing this year. I couldn't do like a big party. I couldn't like celebrate with my closest loved ones. And you know what? I think that's part of why I feel...
so serene about it like my plan is to go to a diner tonight and I'm gonna get breakfast for dinner and I'm gonna do my little birthday routine which I'll talk about later in the episode that I do every single year and I have never felt more excited about it like I said before this experience has not always been the case and I am sure for many of you who are listening you are
don't find that this is the common theme that defines your birthday. It's normally quite an intense experience. Birthdays are really, really reflective by nature. You know, they demand pause, much like a new year. You know, they feel like this very specific point in time where everything from the past feels very present and you're ruminating on
Who you are, what you've learned, and also who you want to become. Like, you're very focused on the future. We're getting older. What if things don't work out the way I want? I have less time. I feel like my body is aging, even though if you're in your 20s, like, you're still really at the peak of your youth, but... All of these feelings and this contemplation is naturally very paralyzing.
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Chapter 2: How can you embrace aging positively?
Then I realized that aging is actually absolutely necessary because the alternative to not getting older is that you would always stay the same and that you would always stay in the same place as the same past version of you. You would never be able to grow and you would never be able to experience new chapters. Turning 25, 27, 28.
Yes, it's a privilege and I know a lot of people talk about how there are so many people who don't make it to that age and you should live for them and realize that it's an opportunity. Yes, that's one way of seeing it, but I also think that time holds experiences and
And so if this world was perfectly designed or however you want to think about it, aging is an important part of that because aging is what brings you into the future. Aging is what brings you excitement, brings new surprises. If you were to stay 17 for your whole life, if you were to stay 25 for your whole life, you would never get to experience what it's like to be
a grandparent, what it's like to be senior in your career, what it's like to own a home that you love, what it's like to gain maturity and perspective, what it's like to feel your frontal lobe develop. That is really how I started to see it. Another way I started to see it in my brain that felt more comfortable is that Age is really just a number and it's so cliche, I know, but it is so true.
It is so true. And I see this philosophy reflected in so many people that I love and that I know in my life. So a couple weeks ago, I celebrated my grandfather's 90th birthday. Now that man turned 90. He drank more than me. He drank more than any 20, 21 year old. He pulled out like this really nice bottle of port.
He had this big birthday cake, all of his friends, my sisters who are literally like 18 and I don't know, 17 at this point, genuinely like they left before the night was even over. Like my grandparents were the last to go. We walked home with them all tipsy and drunk.
And not only was my grandfather still this, like had this youthful exuberance and really wasn't showing his age, but he also had, you know, the blessing of so many stories that we got to hear. And it made me realize like, you can take your age as a sign of who you need to be. And you need to be this person who becomes more grouchy. You need to be this person who,
according to society becomes less happy and exudes less joy and finds less pleasure in things but you also have the choice to take your age you know keep it as something that's just on your birth certificate or just on your driver's license and embody the ages that you feel and all the positive parts of that age that you want to bring forward with you
Another reason that birthdays can bring up some negative feelings and some specifically existential feelings comes down to feeling behind when it comes to your life plans. Feeling like you should be further ahead. Feeling like you should be more accomplished. And yet here you are and you look around. Everyone else seems to be doing these amazing things and you're lost and you're behind and
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Chapter 3: What are common pressures faced on birthdays?
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Dr. Joy here. You may know me from Therapy for Black Girls, where we're celebrating 400 episodes of the podcast. That's a whole lot of girl me too moments. For years, we've had deep, thoughtful and inspiring conversations about Black women's mental health. And now we're celebrating this milestone in a big way.
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Chapter 4: How to combat the feeling of falling behind?
I most certainly spend the first hour wondering if people are going to show up, wondering if people are going to go away and say that was fun or they're going to leave early. Now, for a day that should be focused on you and should be focused on this incredible achievement of growing up and experiencing more,
I find that big events like that take all of the attention you should be showing yourself off of you and onto managing other people's feelings and other people's perceptions. It often creates this experience where you can only feel happy in hindsight. You can only feel happy with rose-tinted glasses on. So throughout the day, you've probably felt very on edge, very overwhelmed, very rushed.
Then during the event, maybe you get like a couple of hours of a bit of bliss, but you're still worried about other people's feelings. And then the next morning, sometimes you even have like a bit of an emotional and social hangover. And then it still may not have met your expectations and you've put money into this party and you've put your hopes and dreams into it.
That can lead us to feel very, very let down. You may also have the experience of not telling people what you want, not wanting to be a burden, not wanting to like outwardly say, hey, please make a big deal about me. Please make a fuss. And because you haven't communicated it, everyone thinks you want some small thing. You're left disappointed because you wish that someone had read your mind.
And the sad thing is that they couldn't. And, you know, it's like you can't go out and say, like, I want a surprise birthday party because then you're not surprised. But some part of you is like, I just wish these people would be able to see into my brain and know what I want, which even for our closest, most nearest and dearest friends is sometimes impossible.
On the flip side, I've also spoken to people who have said to me, I have these big expectations, but I also know that I'm going to feel very awkward being the center of attention. And I know I'm going to feel very strange about it because I have this fear of being perceived.
But I can't help but feel like that if I don't do this, I'm also going to be very lonely and I'm going to feel very socially isolated. So it does become a bit of a catch-22.
And if, you know, for some reason you don't have friends around you, you're feeling a little bit socially isolated or alienated at the moment, the experience of like having a birthday pop up can really put those deeper emotions into perspective. I feel like a birthday is a great way to put a big shining spotlight on what you're feeling insecure about.
Are you feeling insecure about not having enough friends? Are you feeling insecure about not making the most of your 20s? Are you feeling insecure about being behind? Are you feeling insecure about your looks or your age? A birthday is going to bring all of that to the surface. It's going to bring your loneliness, your dissatisfaction, your insecurity straight to the top of your mind.
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Chapter 5: What is Jemma's birthday routine for peace?
looks amazing and she has this like shine coming out of her soul that just says I'm present I know who I am and I'm really deeply satisfied and happy whenever I feel scared about entering a new chapter in a new phase of my life I look to people like her and I say if they've done it I can do it and look at how amazing it's turning out for them and it brings me a great sense of peace
My two final, perhaps a little bit alternative tips for dealing with birthday anxiety is to actually celebrate your birthday a week afterwards so that you get over the emotional hangover of your birthday and you feel like there's less expectations. It's just a more general celebration.
And I also really hope that you engage in this mindset shift that I've been taking part in the last few months, few years. Which is to see my life as seasons rather than as just a bunch of years. And I've spoken about this on the podcast before.
I found that life felt a lot more stressful when it felt like there was just this huge chunk of years in front of me with nothing really delineating them, nothing really setting them apart. And I was just going to speed right through them to the end. Instead, what I now see and I think of my life as is seasons of a TV show. And, you know, I'm still in season two.
Like if every season lasts 10 years and that's still a huge number of years, I'm still in season two. If every season lasts five years, I'm in season five. But I have perhaps another 15 seasons to go. My math might not be right with that, but yeah. It probably isn't.
Yeah, but maybe if I live to 100, like it's better to see yourself as existing in these two, three, four, five year periods where you're learning something new and you're experiencing a new part of your life. And every five years you celebrate that milestone and you push yourself to move or to do something new instead of just thinking, OK, a year is gone, a year is gone, a year is gone.
Really helps me put it into perspective. Don't feel like you're behind. Please, I promise you there is someone looking at your life wishing for it. Know that if you are experiencing a ton of loneliness at this point, you feel like there's no one to celebrate you. That's just this moment. There are amazing, great, fabulous relationships coming your way.
And this experience of loneliness is an important one. It's going to motivate you to reach out. It's going to motivate you to be connected. And I just hope this can be a more positive experience for you. I also want to thank you deeply, deeply, deeply for being with me for this past year from 24 to 25. I know I've gained so many new, loyal, wonderful listeners.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about my 20s in as much depth as I want. I feel like I gained so much more from this than you guys can even imagine. This is like a personal diary for me and this episode specifically.
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