Dreading your next milestone birthday or watching loved ones struggle with aging? Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming brings transformative wisdom to ThirtyFiveSixtyFour about embracing birthdays at any age. As the author of "How to Have a Happy Birthday," Tamar challenges the narrative that aging means decline. At 59 and approaching her own 60th birthday, she shares honest insights about physical changes while celebrating the wisdom, confidence, and freedom that come with each decade. Karen and Tamar dive deep into birthday anxiety, the privilege of aging, and why your birthday is the most sacred day of your year—one that deserves intentional celebration.
Ready to transform birthday dread into birthday joy? Tamar reveals why half of us experience birthday anxiety and how childhood experiences shape our relationship with aging. From dealing with perimenopause at 46 to embracing gray hair and wrinkles, this conversation tackles the real challenges of midlife while offering practical strategies for celebration. Listeners discover why "aging is a privilege" isn't just a platitude—it's a powerful reframe for living fully. Tamar's personal stories, from a devastating 18th birthday to her best birthday ever in France, illustrate how taking charge of your celebration creates transformation. Whether you're planning a milestone birthday or supporting someone who is, this episode provides actionable wisdom for making every birthday meaningful.
Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming is a birthday coach dedicated to helping people harness the transformational power of their birthdays so they can experience more joy, meaning, and fulfillment in their lives. Growing up, Tamar had happy, sad and terrible birthdays until she realized that having a fulfilling birthday was entirely up to her. In her award-winning book, “How to Have a Happy Birthday,” and its new companion workbook, Tamar explores why birthdays matter, why they can be hard for us, and what we can do to fully put ourselves in the center of our day.
In this episode:
Follow Tamar: https://howtohaveahappybirthday.com https://instagram.com/author.tamar https://facebook.com/author.tamar
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ThirtyFiveSixtyFour is a podcast for listeners between the ages of 35 and 64. Available on all major podcast platforms, the show offers an engaging journey through the various challenges and experiences of midlife. ThirtyFiveSixtyFour presents a distinct departure from the traditional midlife crisis storyline. Instead, it champions the perspective that midlife should be viewed as a period marked by play, discovery, transformation and possibility.
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Episode Transcription: Welcome to 35/64, a podcast for Middle Agers. In today's episode, I have the pleasure of welcoming Tamar Herwitz-Fleming. She is the author of How to Have a Happy. Let me tell you, you've got to listen to this full episode if you are celebrating a milestone birthday soon, forty, fifty, sixty. If you know somebody who has a milestone birthday soon, if your birthday is coming up soon, she gives the most practical tips on how to embrace.
[00:00:46] Karen: How old you are turning, how to have the birthday you want, and truly how to feel celebrated and loved and grateful, and the true privilege we have of aging. Welcome to the show, Tamar. It is so good to have you here.
[00:01:05] Tamar: Thanks Karen. I'm delighted to be here.
[00:01:07] Karen: I heard that you were just. Dying to tell us all about all the information that you've compiled with your research, your stories, everything about aging. I actually think that you are a perfect guest for this podcast because we're right in that middle age of 35 to 64, and you are a specialist in birthdays, different decades.
What it's like to age. I'm so excited to have you here. why don't you go ahead and tell us how old you are.
[00:01:43] Tamar: I am 59 and a half, and I'm turning 60 on January 9th.
[00:01:48] Karen: Oh, so you're coming up on a pretty big one yourself.
[00:01:51] Tamar: big one and I can feel it, and I can tell you I don't have any problem getting older. but 60 feels really big as a milestone, and I'm not dreading it. I'm embracing it. But I can tell you something that it's very different from 50. It's not middle aged anymore. You're entering your senior years, right?
Medicare, social security, retirement, and then looming right after a 70. So what I'm sensing is that there's certainly less time ahead of me. the clock is ticking and that's significant in life. when we're in our thirties, we feel like we have a lot of time ahead of us, and we do generally speaking.
But when 60 starts to approach, we realize, you know what? There's less time ahead of us. And so what that does for me. Is, it makes me wanna be more intentional with the time I have left to live this great life I have to the fullest, what's left on my bucket list. Not just places I wanna visit, but things I wanna do, things I wanna experience, the kind of person I wanna be.
And that's what Turning 60 is awakening in me, this urgency to be me as much as possible.
[00:02:50] Karen: Wow, okay. I love all of this. How do encapsulate everything you just said and bring that down to even the younger decades? So we feel that sense of urgency to embrace our dreams, become who we are. Or does this just take time? how do we do this at a younger age?
[00:03:12] Tamar: there's something that I recognized as a younger person, and I think this is true for young people in general. I remember when I was in my twenties, I was told to start a 401k account. put $50 in. I didn't do that. Retirement was way off in the future. I wish I did that That was not for all of you young people listening, do it. Do it right, get that compounded interest going, it's very hard for us. To envision our future, decades in the future. We don't think that way when we're in our twenties and thirties. We just don't. it's natural that we don't, we're younger, we're animals, human beings are animals.
We're younger animals who are focused on other things in life and much in the same way. At the age of 59, I'm not thinking about having kids anymore. I don't have kids. I was certainly thinking about that in my twenties and thirties, but age changes us. And what I've noticed is that age changes us in a variety of ways, and so this urgency that I feel being 59 and a half with 60 looming, I don't know that I felt it when I was 30.
Even though I was ambitious, I had dreams. I fulfilled many of them. I was a go-getter. It was a different quality because in my mind, I still had 60 years ahead of me. I planned to be here into my nineties. I don't even know if I'm gonna make it to 60. Who knows? We never know that we're gonna be here tomorrow, so we can't assume that either.
But assuming we live a typical. Long life. I believe that as we get closer to the, it's like an escalator right at the airport, when you're on those people movers, you're going. But as you get closer, you see the end coming. It's okay, it's coming. And I think that's what age does for us.
And I think it's actually a good thing.
[00:04:42] Karen: Yeah. I just started reading a book that many people have already read. It's the 5:00 AM Club. I'm not sure if you're familiar with
[00:04:50] Tamar: No, I'm not.
[00:04:51] Karen: Okay, I'll drop a link in the show notes. It's about reclaiming your mornings to live your best life and, setting up a, wellness morning routine and. I heard, this thing is packed with these amazing quotes.
I, I'm listening to the audio book version actually, and I heard this quote and I thought, I've got to tell her this. it said, too many people die when they're 60 and are buried when they're 90. and that it hit me. It actually gives me the goosebumps just because. So many people, I hear it all over every day.
I'm too old. I've lost my chance, and that makes me so sad to think that people simply, instead of thinking it. Thinking of things as this upward climb, like the escalator getting off at the top. They're thinking of it as like a downward decline and things are getting worse and worse. How? How do we change our mindset about this?
[00:05:59] Tamar: I wanna acknowledge something about going up that escalator and sometimes it can't feel like going down the escalator, over the hill going downhill. Our bodies change. Our mental capacity changes, our brains change. that's very real for some of us. It's, more acute than others.
but physical health is a really. It's a real key component that changes as we age, aches and pains start that we never had before. So I'm, I have to say that's real. And I definitely notice my brain and my thinking changing as I age. I'm more emotional. I'm more intuitive. There's some wonderful wisdom that's coming in that I didn't really have access to as much earlier on, but in terms of that sharp memory that I used to count on in my younger years, that's softening and that's just coming with age.
And so I feel like. For those of us as we age and we start to see our physical form change and age in ways we expected, in ways we didn't expect, that's real. And that can feel limiting. I, I have osteoporosis now. I'm not gonna go jump on trampolines anymore. Does that mean, I'm too old to have fun on a trampoline?
Or does that mean I'm being smart? About not putting my spine at risk for compression fractures. That's what that means. And so there's a reality check that happens when we age in the physical body, and I wanna name that because I don't wanna gloss over and just act be who you wanna be, whatever age you are.
There's a reality to aging. I don't judge it and I don't mind. I know I don't mind having my gray hair come in and my wrinkles come in. That's part of aging as well. I'm very positive about aging naturally. As I choose to today, I always reserve the right to change my mind tomorrow. That's what we get to do as people, is we get to make choices.
But, aging is complicated and I don't wanna minimize that, but to your point, people die at 16 or buried at 90. Yeah. There's a lot of people that give up that feel like they don't get to be center stage in their life anymore to create what they want. I would question if those people felt that way, even in their twenties and thirties and forties.
[00:07:58] Karen: Fair enough. I very good point there. I, back to this aging and the physical process of your body declining. how, wild is it when you look at pictures of people in their forties, their fifties, their sixties, maybe just three decades ago? And it is a wildly difference. Difference of appearance between what these different ages look like and there is so much expectation abo among men and women to remain almost this youthful appearance, but maintain that wisdom that comes with age.
How do we deal with all of these pressures?
[00:08:44] Tamar: we get to make choices. everything is a choice in life. Even choosing not to choose is a choice, so we can't get away from choice. So I just wanna say that, we are all empowered every day of our lives to make choices and then live with the consequences that ensue. A lot of times when I can't figure out what to do, I think, what's the consequence I want?
And let me choose into it that way. There is tremendous social pressure to remain youthful, right? There's a billion dollar industry marketing, anti-aging, youthfulness, all of that, right? And we buy into it literally, or we don't. And with we're, also very, as human animals, we are social creatures.
We are very susceptible to conformity and peer pressure. It's natural, it's part of our wiring as, animals and it's actually a good thing for the most part. but it can get in our way so that if I am letting my hair turn gray and everybody in my, social circle and everybody I see on television and everybody I see at the grocery store doesn't let their hair turn gray, I might feel freaky showing up as the only person with gray hair.
And so I feel like. We get to make choices again, as of how, as to how we age and it, and so again, my own personal choice is to see what nature has in store for me. I'm very curious. I know what I look like as a younger person. What am I gonna look as an old lady if I make it that far? Am I gonna have white hair?
Am I gonna have wrinkles like Georgia O'Keefe, I'm into that. Let's see what happens. But I do, But, there, there is something too about aging that I wanna acknowledge. I've never seen myself look like this before. for many decades I looked the same. I generally look the same anyway, except for the wrinkles and the gray hair and what gravity's doing to my skin.
I'm not recognizing the person that's showing up in the mirror and she's showing up quicker and quicker as I age. whoa, who is this older person showing up? I have a choice to make. I can resist her, confront her, and criticize her. Be afraid of her, or I can embrace her with curiosity and warmth and welcome her and just say, Hey, it's you.
Look at, this older version of you that's showing up in the mirror. Nice to meet you. Let's, keep going down the path of life together. That's my choice. To take a healthy approach to my own self image because I'm not 20-year-old. I'm not 40-year-old. I'm not, that person anymore.
[00:10:53] Karen: Yeah. I listened to a ton of podcasts and Mel Robbins has the number one podcast right now, and I was listening to one of her really old, episodes and she almost blew up right around this particular episode. And she mentioned waking up in the morning, looking in the mirror, and I don't remember her exact age.
I think she's in her mid fifties and. She had so much negative self-talk and hatred about the way she looked. she resisted wanting to even look at herself and something in her snapped in a good way, and she reached out to the mirror. I love this. She gave the mirror a high five, and she created this routine in the morning of giving herself a high five and saying, Hey, like you did it.
You're here. Let's do this. And it was this routine that helped her get into. A positive mindset around what she looked like, accepting herself and just starting the day off in a really positive way instead of looking in the mirror and, saying, oh my gosh, the bags, the wrinkles. I'm a mess. I, I struggle with that all the time and I tried this, and I gotta tell you, it felt really cheesy.
And silly in all the things, but it is interesting. So I actually, I wanna, I want you to give it a try, but all the
listeners too, give it a try and see how different it is to look at yourself and accept yourself and celebrate yourself instead of say something negative. it, really, is impactful and it's a reminder for me to do that more because it's definitely a, morning struggle for me.
[00:12:47] Tamar: Yeah, I hear that. And a lot of us, when we look in the mirror, it's a confrontation. And when you're confronting yourself in the mirror with all that criticism, guess who's staring back at you? A very unattractive version of yourself. It's not warm, it's not gracious, it's not lit up. Other people see you lit up, warm and gracious.
You don't, 'cause that's not who you present to yourself in the mirror. And I think part of what. You're talking about with Mel giving her a high five is, can I have a warmer, softer image, stare back at me, and then maybe I can see the beauty come through despite the criticism.
[00:13:17] Karen: How do we support our friends and loved ones who are going through the aging process in really struggling with a specific birthday? I, this is coming up more and more. I'm 46 and, I have friends of all ages and I would say, everyone kind of moves through the 40, oh, yay, I'm turning 40.
But once that 50. And then 60 60 does seem to be something, because I have had more people not wanna celebrate that birthday and tame down any celebration we might plan or whatever because they actually seriously are struggling with this concept that they're 60. Tell me, how do we support our loved ones family?
wives, husbands with these big decade birthdays.
[00:14:14] Tamar: I wrote, just to bring this up, I wrote my book, how to Have a Happy Birthday, and I have this companion workbook. The workbook actually has questions that help us dive into what some of our issues might be around aging. One of the questions I really like. Because I feel like the people that don't wanna turn 60 are really struggling against their self image of being an older person.
And so the one of the questions I ask is, what have I lost that I no longer have now that I'm older? And we can come up with some answers, right? We can come up with some answers of what, I can come up with some answers of what I no longer have now that I'm 59 and a half that I had when I was 20 and 30.
[00:14:51] Karen: Yeah. What? What would you say? What
are
[00:14:53] Tamar: my, I mean my ability to have children. My ability to jump on a trampoline. my, my luscious, dark black hair, right? Smooth skin. just on a superficial level, on a deep level. my anxiety, some of my neuroses. I mean that too, right? But then the question is, the next question is what do I have now?
That I didn't have before as a result of being older. And I can tell you right now, self-confidence, deeper wisdom, more empathy and emotion, a, greater enjoyment of life, a greater ability to enjoy life, right? So I think we need to ask ourselves some questions, have some heart to heart conversations with ourselves, and we can do that as friend.
We can do that with our friends. okay, so you're afraid of turning 60. Why? What's going on for you? What are you afraid you're losing as this number lubes? But what do you have now? You get to have entering into your sixties. I have more freedom now. When I turned 60, guess what? I'm going to India for 10 weeks with my husband.
I couldn't have done that when I turned 50. I was a working girl. I'm not working now in that way. So I had the freedom, like hooray. I love, I'm so excited about my sixties, if that's what that means. So I feel like. Let's have some heart to heart conversations and allow people a safe space to really share what they're grieving.
Because if they're not looking forward to a big milestone birthday, it's typically because they're afraid of losing something and that can trigger grief. A lot of us are very attached to our youth, especially if we were hot mamas and hot papas rocking and rolling back when we were younger. That was part of our identity.
It was part of our fun, it was our sex appeal. And as we get older, a lot of us, especially women. Start to say that we feel invisible. We feel like we're not as powerful, we're not as attractive. all these words come up when we start talking to women who are aging. And I wanna say something here about that.
I definitely am invisible as I'm 59 and a half, but I'm invisible to the 20 and 30 year olds. I don't wanna be visible to them. I wanna be visible to my peer group. And you know what? I'm very visible to my peer group. My peer group sees me. I see them, so I wanna challenge anyone who thinks they're becoming invisible.
You're actually not. You're staying in. You're staying in step with your peer group. You're visible to them. They're visible to you. We're all aging with our peer group, and I really like that. I like aging with my peer group. I like aging with those people Born in the mid 1960s.
[00:17:04] Karen: Yeah, I love that. I was so excited to tell you the story. I couldn't wait, so I just got off the phone about an hour ago with my own mom. She is turning 70 in, let's see, 10 days, and she took a month off work. And she is in Europe with my dad and they are planning. They went on this wonderful Mediterranean cruise together and she is staying, my dad is flying home.
She is staying to do the Camino in Spain with her best friend and. She has trained for this. This has been a lifelong dream of hers, and she was not gonna let anything stop her. And I saw a picture of her. She's living her best life. She's healthy, she's vibrant, she's confident. And I just felt if this is what 70 looks like, bring it, because it, just gave me a lot of inspiration on.
Don't stop. this was a goal of hers for a long time and here she is at 70 doing it. And I just thought I need to list some things that are lifelong dreams and continue to work towards those no matter the age,
and do them while I can. But 70, I just, I feel so proud of her and just seeing her smile and her vibrancy makes me.
Really, it feels like it has carved a path for me in a direction that's very healthy and somewhat exciting. And, I just, I couldn't wait to tell you that because I, knew you were turning 60 and then the 70, what do you think about turning 80?
[00:18:50] Tamar: it's funny, I've spoken with people who've turned 80. I talk to people ahead of me. I want, they're trailblazers. What's it like turning 60, 70, 80? And from what I'm hearing about 80, 80 is when things start to happen. to your body in a particular way that's more dramatic than in earlier decades, oh boy, I didn't expect that.
So it's possible that's true. I don't know. But you said something about your mom, first off, it gave me chills and the best way to hear that this is how she celebrated her 70th. It's a great example of taking charge of your birthday, planning for it, doing what you want, and then allowing yourself to enjoy it.
And so I give her. please wish her a happy birthday for me 10
days from now. but you also said something else about your mom and her fulfilling this dream of walking the Camino. She's healthy and she trained for it. In other words, she's physically fit. This is something we cannot overestimate enough.
The importance of investing in your health alongside your wealth. We all know that we have to put our money into those 4 0 1 Ks and get our retirement savings up if we can, but you've gotta invest in your health as well, because if your body's not working and it's not healthy when you're 60 or 70 or 80, life's not fun.
You don't get to hike the Camino. So I, can't overestimate that enough that being healthy is a very important thing to invest in, to make sure that you can enjoy your life as long as possible. So I just wanna say that, what was the other question you just asked me? Oh, about turning 80.
About turning 80, yeah.
Yeah. It's a big number and if we make it to 80, a big achievement, a lot of people start dying. I have friends and family that didn't make it to 70.
[00:20:19] Karen: That just, that hits pretty hard. I just, being 46, I'll, tell you, I, when I was 45, I felt actually a little bit different than I do now. I read all these studies and, it said there's two major ages in your life that you experience aging rapidly and. 45 and 46 were markers, and I was cruising through 45, feeling pretty good, not understanding any of the aches and pains, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I feel like my memory.
Started just struggling a little bit and I was feeling like some back aches and I feel like I'm really healthy and active and, there was multiple symptoms that started stacking up where I started really feeling my age and I realized, oh my gosh, I am in perimenopause and, I, I, It was hard for me to say that word.
It felt, and I will like, I'm more comfortable with it now. it felt unsexy. Old and undesirable, and there's something inside of me that felt like, okay, you're past your prime. this is the marker that you are starting. And it was, a journey for me to ex. Accept that, process it, and then even feel comfortable talking about it.
Now, I can talk about it all day long, and all I wanna do is educate my girlfriends and even all the men in our lives about what this, is like for women and what they're going through too with hormones. But I have personally struggled with some of these concepts myself. This hasn't been, Karen is so positive and, thinks it's so easy to age.
I have been hit in the face with all these aging things happening really in the last year, and, I'm trying to learn how to best work with my body and also just be authentic about it. If, you tell other people I'm struggling with this, many of your close friends probably are too.
[00:22:39] Tamar: Yeah. Yeah. And you're, eliminating Yeah. And you're eliminating the shame. we have, thank goodness this generation is talking a lot about menopause and pre menopause, thank God, because it wasn't spoken about when it started happening to, to me, in my right around the same age you are.
So this is almost 15 years ago. Think back society. Society wasn't really talking about this back then. I was getting anxiety. I was getting depressed. I wasn't able to sleep. I was getting emotional. I'm like, what the heck's happening? This isn't me. Thank God. My acupuncturist said, your hormones are changing and it's perimenopause.
And then I was okay understanding where it was coming from, but if you don't know where it's coming from, you feel like you're going. something's really wrong. I'm turning into someone I don't know. So it's really important that we share and we talk with our girlfriends, with our male friends, with our audiences about this aging process because I think that the more that we can air it out, we can be prepared for it when it comes and, feel more supported through the journey once you hit menopause.
I found for me, and I've heard this from other women, everything gets much better. All those symptoms disappear. You're on the other side of the river, men sees is like a river that flows. And when we cross it, when we're a young girl and we cross it, we become, childbearing young, women.
And when we cross it again, we lose our child-bearing abilities and we become older women. And it's a very distinct change that happens each way you cross the river. I'm very different being postmenopausal than I was premenopausal. that's just nature, right? And that's part of aging. And unless we know that it's coming, it can be hard.
And yeah, we can feel grief, that our childbearing years are over and that our sex appeal, which is related to childbearing by the way, it's really great that we're so sexy when we're young so that we can be attractive and have babies, right? that's just the DNA working, that's our animal nature.
So let's just. Sometimes I look to nature like as our animal selves to help make sense of some things that I otherwise couldn't figure out. but it's lovely. I like being this age. I can't overstate it enough. There are consequences to it that are, not as ideal, right? I talked about the aches and pains and the osteoporosis, but in terms of the wisdom, the confidence, the ability to have the life I want more than ever.
Hooray. I made it. I feel really good about that.
[00:24:54] Karen: Yeah. Tell me about the ways that men and women process aging differently.
[00:25:00] Tamar: I think that, I don't know. I'm not an expert on that specific part of the aging process. I'm not a, I don't consider myself an aging expert. I just consider someone who's been paying a lot of attention, Yes. and, have my very strong ideas about it. It seems like in up until recently, men were allowed to get old.
Men were allowed to get old. They were allowed to get their wrinkles, their gray hair. They were allowed to lose their hair. We still found them sexy and attractive. They weren't insecure about it. Society, the, billion dollar youth promoting market discovered that they were missing out on 50% of the market by not marketing to men.
So now they are. So now I'm seeing men, with all sorts of procedures being done right, the laser removal of the top layer of sun damaged skin to get that baby smooth skin and the, the hair dye, of course, and the. Facelifts and whatever I'm seeing that happen with men more than I've ever seen before because they too are now starting to feel the pressure of needing to remain young and vir, whether it's because of the workplace, we've become much more obsessed with hiring the young people, especially as our workplace has become more technologically, saturated because we know that young people are just so quick with the tech stuff.
generally speaking, so men, and I've, I hear this from my husband who's 59, and he, reminds me like. tomorrow men also feel the pressure of getting older. They also feel like they're being left behind for younger men, so that there's now a need for men to feel like, to stay in the game, to stay in the race.
They have to look younger as well. I think it's a disservice to everybody. I feel like this pressure to remain looking young doesn't help anybody, especially the young people who are coming up. and it's up to us to change it. I can either buy. Or reject what's being sold to me. It's my choice.
When we do something collectively, we either give it power or we reduce the power. That's our choice as individuals that form a collective marketing power. I, the other thing about men I will say is that. This is again, DNA in nature. Men can still have babies well into their seventies, right?
Even their eighties. So because of that, and that's, actually a good thing for the human species because we need, back in the days when we were procreating and getting the human species up and running, it's good that men could still, Impregnate younger women of child, varying age so that the chances of the species continuing was good.
So let's just keep that in mind that's a nature thing. That's a DNA thing. And but consequently, older men tend to be, still be attracted to younger women if they're single and they're looking in the dating field, they're, is a, 59 and a half year old man looking to date a 59 and a half year old woman, or is he looking for a 47-year-old woman?
I'm not looking, I, don't need to date. I'm married, but if I were single, I wouldn't be looking for a 47-year-old man. I'd be looking for my peer group and maybe a little bit older, but it doesn't work like that with men. So men and women are different as we age, and society treats us differently, although that is starting to change.
[00:27:51] Karen: What are some ways that you think we can help celebrate these big milestone birthdays if we're not on some crazy budget and we can't go to Europe? what are some ways that you have found in all your interview experience and research that is meaningful to celebrate these big decades?
[00:28:11] Tamar: So you just used the key word right there, meaningful. So what's meaningful to me as I hit a, as I hit a milestone, birthday is gonna be different than what's meaningful to you. The trick to having a happy birthday, whether it's a milestone birthday or not, is for you to get in touch with what would bring you joy, what would bring you pleasure, what would delight you, and then plan for it.
in advance to make it happen so that it can happen. Is it a solitary journey? is it a solitary celebration with just one other or two other people? Is it a big celebration with a bunch of people? Is it everybody from your life or just your friends? Like you have to start asking yourself what would bring you joy to celebrate your milestone birthday?
You can do it without spending a lot of money. Let's say you wanna have a big party and it's a barbecue. Where everybody's, and they're doing, potluck. you're not spending anything except maybe you're paying for the, paper plates, right? So you can ask friends and family and enlist their support to help you celebrate.
there's all sorts of ways that you can do, but you have to be creative and thoughtful about it well in advance. I'm not gonna wake up on my 60th birthday and say, okay, now. I have to plan for it, right? Same for you, for your 50th. You gotta start thinking about what you wanna do and allow yourself to be flexible.
I, for years, I wanted a huge disco party. When I turned 50, I was single. I'd never had a wedding. I wanted the disco ball and all my friends, I was gonna rent a room and hire the dj. That's what I was gonna do. My birthday when I turned 50, fell on a Saturday night, and I'd known that for years.
nine months or I don't know. Actually, it was just four months before my 50th birthday, I got engaged. So suddenly I was gonna have a wedding a year later. I wasn't, I didn't need to have two big parties in one year. So I changed my plans for my 50th birthday. I still had a party with family and friends, but it was much smaller.
It was in my own home and it was lovely. But, planned for what you want, and then be flexible as life changes. So think about it. Think about what would make you happy and you don't have to spend a lot of money. There are plenty of ways to find deep pleasure without spending a dime. I sit in my garden and I watch the hummingbirds sip from the flowers I planted for them.
That's priceless. That's priceless. It only costs the money that took was for me to plant the flower and water it. there's lots of joy we can have
[00:30:24] Karen: Yeah. Yeah.
I, first off the gardening thing, I, just bought a little greenhouse and, sent some pictures to some friends and they're like, embrace your old lady era. I'm like, yes. Like
I.
[00:30:40] Tamar: If that's what you're gonna do, yeah.
[00:30:42] Karen: I love going and pruning my roses and watching my seedlings and I'm not terribly successful, but I find a lot of joy in it.
And, you mentioned something though before about planning ahead for your birthday and think of what would be meaningful to you. I'm gonna tell you what not to do, and I'm, like, famous for this is. Doing something that I think is wonderful for somebody else, and it's not how they wanted to celebrate.
I'm like, classic doing this. I put together this surprise birthday. I paid for, a rental, a cabin in the mountains and had a bunch of this person's friends come and, although it was like, thank you so much. it was absolutely not what this person wanted, but what I would've loved, and I need to pause and ask my loved ones how they wanna celebrate, because many times I am deciding my idea.
Sounds so great. They must love it too. And I've made that mistake of going down that path multiple times for multiple types of celebrations. And I will share with my listeners here, make sure you're considering what this person actually really wants instead of what you think you would want.
[00:32:07] Tamar: Thank you so much for sharing that because that's really true. That's really true. The question here is what? What do you want and how can I help you make it happen? What would make you happy for your birthday that's coming up in six weeks or in a month? Let's talk about some ideas. Can I help you have a happy birthday?
What? What sounds fun to you? What can I do? And then if they're like, eh, I don't really feel like celebrating this year. Then you get to say, why not? What's going on? And I don't feel like turning 50, eh, Great. Let's talk about that. 'cause you deserve to celebrate the fact that you made it to 50. We know people who didn't.
Aging is a privilege. Aging is a privilege. So let's celebrate the fact that you're making it to 50. And what are some of, let's talk about what might be bothering you, about turning 50. and, let them start to have some deeper conversations with you or with themselves around.
What their resistance might be to a particular age so that they can overcome it and allow themselves to celebrate themselves on their birthday, which is the most spiritual day of their year. It is the most sacred day of their year. It is the most powerful day of the year because it's their day, their life began.
There's nothing more powerful than your birthday.
[00:33:11] Karen: yeah. There are so many disappointments around birthdays. Not only the fear of aging and realizing, oh, I'm turning 40 or, 60, or whatever that is. But disappointments of others not celebrating how you wanted to be celebrated. Do you, tell me about the disappointments that you've heard about and how to best avoid those.
[00:33:35] Tamar: yeah. So the birthday Blues is chapter two of my book, how to Have a Happy Birthday. Why? Because it's a thing. The birthday blues are a big deal, and part of that, part of what creates the birthday blues are unmet expectations. Typically, when we are children, our birthday avoidance, I think there's a num, there's a, Like a number line, where we're either birthday positive or birthday avoidant or somewhere in the middle for, and I think if you were to draw a line right down the middle, half of us are on one side, half are on the other. So our birthday avoidance, our birthday pain, our birthday anxiety, our birthday blues, I believe typically start in childhood where we woke up, we were happy it was our birthday and our parents might have forgotten, believe it or not, or treated it like it was just another day.
Or we saw our friends have cake and parties and we had nothing. Or our dad, I spoke with one podcast host. Her birthday cor correlated with the opening of fishing season. Her dad would go fishing on her birthday instead of celebrating her day. So the messages we get from a young age about ourselves and our worthiness, and our lovability get really entrenched when one or two birthdays come and go without it being a happy birthday.
So we shut down to that. The birthday anxiety that can come. Now as adults, as we age, as we face a milestone birthday is very real. we talked about. Those, issues around aging. But I think that what we have to remember is that when it comes to a birthday and celebrating a birthday, we can't rely on other people.
To do for us what we can only do for ourselves. We can't outsource our joy. We can't sit passively waiting for people to prove how much they love us by going all out and renting the cabin and making a surprise party for us. that sounds awesome to me, but to your friend, we already talked about that, but you showed how much energy and how much love you were willing to put out for your friend by doing all of that.
That's what all of us expect on our birthday. We want someone to be a hero for us and go to the world's end to show us how much they love us on our birthday, and that's. That's a recipe for major disappointment every single year, because nobody's a mind reader. Everybody's in their world. My birthday is my responsibility.
It's nobody else's. When I, I've already, it's, September, but as of July, six months out, I was inviting people to my birthday dinner in New York City. Before I leave for India, I have friends in New York City. I'm already planning my six months in advance to make sure that they'll be there, right?
Because I wanna have. What I want for my birthday. That was me planning it. That wasn't my friends trying to figure out what they could do for me. It was, I enlisted the support of my husband to do that outreach to my friends. But the point is, you have to take charge of your birthday. You have to enlist your friends and your family to participate as you want them to, and then you show up with an open heart and a bright spirit and see how the day unfold.
[00:36:08] Karen: Gosh, I just feel like it's such practical advice and we don't talk about birthdays and all these things much, and it really, some of these days are devastating and so disappointing and filled with anxiety. I was really interested, you said half of us have some birthday anxiety and other others don't. what really inspired you to write this book?
[00:36:34] Tamar: I'd had a really terrible birthday when I turned 18. It was my first year away from home. I was in university for the first year, baby, the family, four kids. And as I said, I didn't have any plans. My only plan was to wake up and get all the phone calls from my family, wishing me a happy birthday.
That was a very simple birthday I had planned, and the phone calls never came. My entire family forgot my birthday. When I turned 18, I was devastated and it, unfortunately reinforced ideas that I wasn't lovable, I wasn't important, I wasn't memorable. it was not good. Two years later though, I was turning 20 another milestone birthday.
I was spending my junior year abroad living in France. I woke up, still didn't have plans, but no one was around to do it for me. And I knew that, just the time difference alone. I wasn't gonna get phone calls at 8:00 AM in France. So I, thought, whoa, today's my day. No one's around. I'm gonna take the day off class.
I walked through town, I bought myself a fancy bottle of French perfume I could not afford on my student budget. and I had friends over later for cake. I had the best birthday I'd ever had because I took charge of it and I wasn't waiting passively. So keep that in mind that those were the two back to back experiences that woke me up to the power.
I had to make my birthday happy. And from that point forward, I started paying attention to the energy that would build to the rituals that I would do, to the things that worked and the things that didn't work year after year. But the, IM, the, catalyst that made me realize I needed to write a self-help book happened probably about 15 years ago.
I'd had a friend, a relatively new friend, and I knew his birthday was coming and I said, Hey, what are you doing for your birthday? And he's oh, I don't like my birthday. When his birthday came, I brought him a big, beautiful box of pink donuts, that big pink box, and I said, happy birthday.
And he hit his hand on the table and said, I told you I don't like my birthday. And he got really mad at me. I didn't even take the donuts. And I thought, oh boy, he meant it. He really meant it. It wasn't one of those situations where he just thought, oh, I don't like my birthday, and he needed somebody to do some SMA tasks for him, which I was willing to do.
He didn't like his birthday in a serious way, and I walked, away thinking, oh boy, there's something there. And I started thinking about what might be there, and very quickly, based on my own experiences and stories I'd known of other people, I started to realize I need to write a self-help book about how to have a happy birthday.
That was the catalyst. And then I talked to countless people over the years. It took me years to write the book because again, the birthday comes with its own energy, like Chris. Think of the Christmas spirit. You don't feel the Christmas spirit in July. You feel it in November. Here it comes. And the blah, same with your birthday.
There's a birthday spirit that starts to show up and you start to feel, and so that started to inform like, oh yeah, my birthday's coming, and I'd start writing and writing, and then my birthday would happen. And I'd write and write because I had the direct experience in insight to put into the book as a form of wisdom.
that's what inspired me. And the good news is it's helped a lot of people have happier birthdays. People that have avoided their birthdays, that didn't like their birthdays, they're suddenly celebrating their selves and they're transformed by it. That's the thing, when we allow ourselves to put ourselves in the center of our day, just one day a year, take the day off work, press the pause button, stop pleasing other people.
Put yourself in the center of your life one day a year. To have a happy birthday. It is transformational, it is joyful, and it's empowering. And so I hope that everybody who's on the fence about their birthdays or actively avoidant and anxious about it, I encourage you to consider that there's another way for you to celebrate your birthday with joy and with healing and with, delight.
It's transformational and it's possible.
[00:40:03] Karen: I have. Those people in my life as well that are the pink donut declining friend. and, it is somewhat concerning. It in my heart actually feels sad when I see that. but I have one last question for you, and it has to do with. Acknowledging birthdays. You mentioned in the, previously about wanting to receive a phone call.
I have had this conversation with a couple of friends of mine and I thought this was so funny. A particular friend of mine named Chris said. I can tell who is really deeply connected with me and wants to celebrate me by those who actually reach out to me and call. I don't like all these happy birthday things on Facebook or Instagram.
It's a cheap way of saying something. Just pick up the phone and call me. And I thought, that is interesting. I, thought it was an interesting comment. I now try out, obviously, to call him every year on his birthday, and I have that in my calendar. but how do you think it's best to acknowledge birthdays?
if there's no party planned, and maybe even, they're not even a very close friend, it's their birthday, what can we do for someone that might brighten their day?
[00:41:21] Tamar: It's a great question and there's a lot of different answers. It depends on your relationship with the person, if it's a family member or a close friend, that's very different. And yes, picking up the phone I is appropriate and, I think the right thing to do. If it's a former classmate and a former colleague and you don't really stay in touch.
I get onto Facebook every morning and I say, whose birthday it is, and I wish them a happy birthday, but what I don't do is I don't hit that pre-made AI button. Birthday greeting. I don't do that. it sounds like maybe you do. I don't, because to me, if you do, that's okay. If you don't, that's okay.
but for me, because when that comes to me, it doesn't feel like any energy was put into it. I make the effort to say, happy birthday, Karen. Today's your day and I hope you're enjoying it with good spirit and good cake, and that you have a great year ahead. Like I make the effort to send a birthday wish with true words of the moment.
And I know that has more energy. And love in it because I took a minute to actually craft something personal to that person that day, and I do that. And I enjoyed even with. High school classmates I haven't seen in 40 years. I still do that because I enjoy doing that and I'm into birthdays and I'm trying to help raise their spirit by sending some love because we all wanna give love on a birthday.
We're all like rock stars on our birthday that wanna receive it, and we wanna give the rockstar, love on their birthday. But in terms of the phone call, I agree that you have to know the person. What my husband and I do is we're now do. Voice memos where we'll sing happy birthday to the person and talk to them.
It'll be a minute and a half long, two minutes long, and then we text it to them because a lot of times I'll call, I used to call and sing into their voicemail, but the voicemail would be full or they wouldn't listen to the voicemail. For days, a text will come through and so a voice memo is my compromise now.
forgiving them real time energy that's uplifting.
[00:43:06] Karen: I love it. I like that too. I actually had a family member. In advance text a bunch of family members around the nation who weren't local. Hey, can you record a 32nd Happy birthday video for my wife? And he compiled all them and played them all for her, and it was actually really easy for me. I just spoken to the camera for 30 seconds.
And she got about like 20 or 25 of those, and I heard it went over really, well. That might be a low cost way to do something for someone, but
I really, I love the voice memo, love. Love the voice memo idea. I think it's just totally on point.
[00:43:47] Tamar: Yeah, and it's easy to do and you don't, and then, sometimes people pick up the phone and you don't plan for them to pick up the phone 'cause you're ready to go head out to work. so it, it takes care of that too. Although when they pick up the phone, I feel honored.
that thing you were just talking about, the 32nd video clip that I've seen done for the milestone birthdays, it was done for my brother when he turned 60. I'm asking my husband to compile those videos for me. So when I turn 60 in India, I'm gonna have something to look at and I'm gonna have some birthday energy coming my way on the other side of the world.
So it's a wonderful idea and it's, I think it's really good for milestone birthdays
[00:44:21] Karen: Yeah, Gosh, I just feel like it's such practical advice and we don't talk about birthdays and all these things much, and it really, some of these days are devastating and so disappointing and filled with anxiety. I was really interested, you said half of us have some birthday anxiety and other others don't. what really inspired you to write this book?
[00:44:48] Tamar: I'd had a really terrible birthday when I turned 18. It was my first year away from home. I was in university for the first year, baby, the family, four kids. And as I said, I didn't have any plans. My only plan was to wake up and get all the phone calls from my family, wishing me a happy birthday.
That was a very simple birthday I had planned, and the phone calls never came. My entire family forgot my birthday. When I turned 18, I was devastated and it, unfortunately reinforced ideas that I wasn't lovable, I wasn't important, I wasn't memorable. it was not good. Two years later though, I was turning 20 another milestone birthday.
I was spending my junior year abroad living in France. I woke up, still didn't have plans, but no one was around to do it for me. And I knew that, just the time difference alone. I wasn't gonna get phone calls at 8:00 AM in France. So I, thought, whoa, today's my day. No one's around. I'm gonna take the day off class.
I walked through town, I bought myself a fancy bottle of French perfume I could not afford on my student budget. and I had friends over later for cake. I had the best birthday I'd ever had because I took charge of it and I wasn't waiting passively. So keep that in mind that those were the two back to back experiences that woke me up to the power.
I had to make my birthday happy. And from that point forward, I started paying attention to the energy that would build to the rituals that I would do, to the things that worked and the things that didn't work year after year. But the, IM, the, catalyst that made me realize I needed to write a self-help book happened probably about 15 years ago.
I'd had a friend, a relatively new friend, and I knew his birthday was coming and I said, Hey, what are you doing for your birthday? And he's oh, I don't like my birthday. When his birthday came, I brought him a big, beautiful box of pink donuts, that big pink box, and I said, happy birthday.
And he hit his hand on the table and said, I told you I don't like my birthday. And he got really mad at me. I didn't even take the donuts. And I thought, oh boy, he meant it. He really meant it. It wasn't one of those situations where he just thought, oh, I don't like my birthday, and he needed somebody to do some SMA tasks for him, which I was willing to do.
He didn't like his birthday in a serious way, and I walked, away thinking, oh boy, there's something there. And I started thinking about what might be there, and very quickly, based on my own experiences and stories I'd known of other people, I started to realize I need to write a self-help book about how to have a happy birthday.
That was the catalyst. And then I talked to countless people over the years. It took me years to write the book because again, the birthday comes with its own energy, like Chris. Think of the Christmas spirit. You don't feel the Christmas spirit in July. You feel it in November. Here it comes. And the blah, same with your birthday.
There's a birthday spirit that starts to show up and you start to feel, and so that started to inform like, oh yeah, my birthday's coming, and I'd start writing and writing, and then my birthday would happen. And I'd write and write because I had the direct experience in insight to put into the book as a form of wisdom.
that's what inspired me. And the good news is it's helped a lot of people have happier birthdays. People that have avoided their birthdays, that didn't like their birthdays, they're suddenly celebrating their selves and they're transformed by it. That's the thing, when we allow ourselves to put ourselves in the center of our day, just one day a year, take the day off work, press the pause button, stop pleasing other people.
Put yourself in the center of your life one day a year. To have a happy birthday. It is transformational, it is joyful, and it's empowering. And so I hope that everybody who's on the fence about their birthdays or actively avoidant and anxious about it, I encourage you to consider that there's another way for you to celebrate your birthday with joy and with healing and with, delight.
It's transformational and it's possible.
[00:48:17] Karen: Yeah, I have. Those people in my life as well that are the pink donut declining friend. and, it is somewhat concerning. It in my heart actually feels sad when I see that. but I have one last question for you, and it has to do with. Acknowledging birthdays. You mentioned in the, previously about wanting to receive a phone call.
I have had this conversation with a couple of friends of mine and I thought this was so funny. A particular friend of mine named Chris said. I can tell who is really deeply connected with me and wants to celebrate me by those who actually reach out to me and call. I don't like all these happy birthday things on Facebook or Instagram.
It's a cheap way of saying something. Just pick up the phone and call me. And I thought, that is interesting. I, thought it was an interesting comment. I now try out, obviously, to call him every year on his birthday, and I have that in my calendar. but how, do you think it's best to acknowledge birthdays?
if there's no party planned, and maybe even, they're not even a very close friend, it's their birthday, what can we do for someone that might brighten their day?
[00:49:35] Tamar: It's a great question and there's a lot of different answers. It depends on your relationship with the person, if it's a family member or a close friend, that's very different. And yes, picking up the phone I is appropriate and, I think the right thing to do. If it's a former classmate and a former colleague and you don't really stay in touch.
I get onto Facebook every morning and I say, whose birthday it is, and I wish them a happy birthday, but what I don't do is I don't hit that pre-made AI button. Birthday greeting. I don't do that. it sounds like maybe you do. I don't, because to me, if you do, that's okay. If you don't, that's okay.
but for me, because when that comes to me, it doesn't feel like any energy was put into it. I make the effort to say, happy birthday, Karen. Today's your day and I hope you're enjoying it with good spirit and good cake, and that you have a great year ahead. Like I make the effort to send a birthday wish with true words of the moment.
And I know that has more energy. And love in it because I took a minute to actually craft something personal to that person that day, and I do that. And I enjoyed even with. High school classmates I haven't seen in 40 years. I still do that because I enjoy doing that and I'm into birthdays and I'm trying to help raise their spirit by sending some love because we all wanna give love on a birthday.
We're all like rock stars on our birthday that wanna receive it, and we wanna give the rockstar, love on their birthday. But in terms of the phone call, I agree that you have to know the person. What my husband and I do is we're now do. Voice memos where we'll sing happy birthday to the person and talk to them.
It'll be a minute and a half long, two minutes long, and then we text it to them because a lot of times I'll call, I used to call and sing into their voicemail, but the voicemail would be full or they wouldn't listen to the voicemail. For days, a text will come through and so a voice memo is my compromise now.
forgiving them real time energy that's uplifting.
[00:51:20] Karen: I love it. I like that too. I actually had a family member. In advance text a bunch of family members around the nation who weren't local. Hey, can you record a 32nd Happy birthday video for my wife? And he compiled all them and played them all for her, and it was actually really easy for me. I just spoken to the camera for 30 seconds.
And she got about like 20 or 25 of those, and I heard it went over really, well. That might be a low cost way to do something for someone, but I really, I love the voice memo, love. Love the voice memo idea. I think it's just totally on point.
[00:52:01] Tamar: Yeah, and it's easy to do and you don't, and then, sometimes people pick up the phone and you don't plan for them to pick up the phone 'cause you're ready to go head out to work. so it, it takes care of that too. Although when they pick up the phone, I feel honored.
that thing you were just talking about, the 32nd video clip that I've seen done for the milestone birthdays, it was done for my brother when he turned 60. I'm asking my husband to compile those videos for me. So when I turn 60 in India, I'm gonna have something to look at and I'm gonna have some birthday energy coming my way on the other side of the world.
So it's a wonderful idea and it's, I think it's really good for milestone birthdays
[00:52:35] Karen: Yeah,
I do too. I, you are so articulate and I, just feel like so honored that you came on because I hope this touches people in a way that they feel more celebrated, more loved, more confident at the age they're at. That's our whole message with this podcast, and you are just like the perfect person to come on in and share this message really.
[00:53:00] Tamar: you. Thank you, Karen. It's deeply gratifying to talk to, bright spirits like you that are open to this conversation and that are willing to go deeply into figuring out what's going on here. Why aren't we allowed to just thrive and bloom whatever age we are with joy and gratitude and, our power intact.
Why can't we all do that? We can, but it, we have to have those conversations. And so by welcoming me onto your podcast, I hope that it's helping your listen. I hope it's hope. I hope it's helping your listeners have permission to be themselves without apology and with Grace
[00:53:33] Karen: yes, So tell me what is the best way for our listeners to get in touch with you? They wanna share a message. They wanna get ahold of your book. What are your socials? Give me all of the details.
[00:53:45] Tamar: You can get all that information by going to one website called. It's how to have a happy birthday.com and you can find out where to get my book. I have an ebook, an audio book card back paperback. I also have my socials author dot tamar on, Instagram and Facebook. But how to have a happy birthday.com.
You can message me there. I'm also a birthday coach. I just hung my shingles, the birthday coach. So if anyone's in interested in some birthday coaching a month before and a week after to, I'm up for that too. So how to have a happy birthday.com.
[00:54:16] Karen: Oh, that's so cool. A birthday coach.
[00:54:19] Tamar: Yeah.
[00:54:20] Karen: Wow. Okay. I like, this is really cool. I was actually thinking, gosh, maybe I should hire you for my mom. She doesn't need it. Your mom doesn't need it. I can tell you right now, she does not need it. I would be most helpful for people that are having a hard time embracing their birthday or figuring out what they want to do to celebrate themselves. it would be a one hour call about a month before their birthday with some preliminary homework you would do to submit to me, so I could see what your birthday issues might be.
[00:54:45] Tamar: So we could talk about that. And then a week after your birthday we'd say, okay, what worked, what didn't? What can you do for next year? So it's just like a one, one and done kind
[00:54:53] Karen: Yeah, I love it. we'll drop notes into the show notes so everyone can access that really easily if they're interested. Thank you so much for coming on. You were such a pleasure, and I know that this message is gonna change lives for the better, so thank you so much.
[00:55:11] Tamar: Thank you, Karen. It was a real pleasure to be here with you today. Thank you.
And that brings us to the end of another episode. I hope you enjoyed the content, and I'd love it if you would share this with a friend or family that you think would enjoy it. This is such a great time, middle age, and I wanna spread that message. The best way to do that is to share it, and if you haven't already followed us or subscribed, make sure to do that so you don't miss any of our new content.
I'm going to leave you like I do every episode. Remember, it's never too late. You are not too old, and you're definitely not dead.
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