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✨ Curated Treasures: The Birthday Reflection Ritual
This month, we’re doing things a little differently.
Because it’s my birthday on the 30th, I wanted to share one of my most treasured annual rituals - a practice that helps me gather my own Quiet Harvest each time I mark another year's completion.
It’s not polished or prescriptive. It’s simply what I do each year to pause, reflect, and realign - to celebrate the year and what it's meant to me, and enabled me to become - where I've grown, what I've learnt from what’s challenged me, and then to release what’s ready to go.
My birthday ritual unfolds in three parts - gratitude, reflection, and release.
🌞 1. Recognise the Good
Throughout the year, I keep a gratitude jar beside my bed.
Every time something beautiful or meaningful happens - something that makes me laugh, smile, or feel deeply alive - I write it down and drop it into the jar. On the morning of my birthday, I open it and read every note, reliving each moment of joy and remembering how much life has given me.
Inside are all sorts of memories: moments of uncontrollable laughter that made me cry, the breathless awe of standing on top of a mountain with no words, the tingling rush of meeting someone new and feeling that spark of attraction, the small triumphs that reminded me I could do hard things, and the quiet nights where peace felt like a victory. It’s a patchwork of human experience, proof of the soul expanding through joy, beauty, and even the unexpected.
And if you don’t have a gratitude jar this year, don’t let that stop you. You can recreate it by sitting somewhere still and looking back.
Scroll through your photos, messages and emails. Flip through your journal, or just close your eyes and walk yourself through the year. Let the memories rise naturally - the ones that made you smile, feel seen, or feel grateful to be here. Write them down on scraps of paper or in a notebook; this reflection becomes your gratitude jar for now.
This part of the ritual is pure celebration - a way to honour what’s gone well, what’s surprised you, and all the moments that have made life worth living.
🌧️ 2. Reflect on the Lessons
Next, I open my journal and revisit the year month by month, starting from the previous November through to now. I close my eyes and recall each month - the highs, the lows, the heartbreaks, the stress, the trauma and the quiet spaces in between.
For each month, I ask:
> What did I learn?
> What did this moment teach me about who I’m becoming, who i want to be or what i need to do differently?
Sometimes the lessons are gentle - learning to trust my timing, to hold boundaries with more grace, or to rest without guilt.
Other times they’re hard-won - heartbreak that cracked me open to deeper love, disappointment that taught discernment, or moments of loneliness that reminded me to reach out and ask for support.
Even the awkward missteps hold wisdom: the conversation I avoided, the decision I rushed, the truth I finally faced.
I write those lessons down on small pieces of paper, and as I do, I can see the shape of the year forming. This isn’t an exercise in judgement; it’s about compassion. It’s how I gather the year’s learning before I decide what to keep and what to let go. It is always surprising, enlightening and empowering in equal measure. I often cry, laugh and sigh as missed opportunities are retold and mistakes relived.
🔥 3. Release and Renew
Finally, I take all the slips of paper - the gratitudes and the lessons - and decide what i still want to hold onto, and what i am ready to release.
The ones I want to keep - the wisdom, the truths, the things that still serve - I place inside a skull that lives in my office (yes, really). It sits on the shelf behind my desk all year, a reminder that what I’ve learned stays with me, embedded in my mind.
The rest - the things ready to be released - I burn. I love a burning ritual! Once complete, I take the ashes into my garden and scatter them in the soil, returning them to the earth. It’s my way of clearing space for what’s to come - a quiet exhale before the next beginning.
🕯️ My Invitation
If you’d like to try this for yourself - on your next birthday, the first of a new month, or as part of your Samhain reflections - I’ve turned my process into a simple downloadable guide: The Birthday Reflection Ritual.
You don’t need a birthday to begin - any moment will do.
It’s a beautiful way to gather your own harvest: to honour what’s grown, learn from what’s lived, and gently release what’s done its work.
→ Download the Ritual Guide |
