Throw Your Own Damn Party
Ep. 212
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This week I want to talk to you about why sometimes you just need to throw yourself the party. You should always make time to celebrate yourself and since I always want to be an example for you, I’m throwing a party next week and you’re invited!

Show Transcript
Hey, welcome to Lessons From a Quitter where we believe that it is never too late to start over. No matter how much time or energy you spent getting to where you are, if ultimately you are unfulfilled, then it is time to get out. Join me each week for both inspiration and actionable tips so that we can get you on the road to your dreams.

Hey guys. Okay, as I’m wont to do, I just start rambling and and I don't tell you until the end of the episode that I am throwing a party and I want you to come and so I wanted to put this in case you don't make it all the way to the end. I am having a throw your own damn party party on August 2nd. This episode will explain exactly why I'm doing it and what it's about and all of the goodness or you can go to quitterclub.com/party and see it. But it's on August 2nd. It's happening super fast. So if you are interested in joining me and I hope you do, cause I would love to party with you, go to quitterclub.com/party and come hang out with me. Okay, now onto my rambling.

Hello, my friends. Welcome to another episode. I am so excited you are here. This week's gonna be a little bit different. Uh so if it's your first episode listening to me, welcome. Hello. I love you already. Maybe start with last week's. Start there and then come back to this because it is sort of a continuation. Last week I released an episode called Be Selfish and it was about learning to put your own needs first. Put your own oxygen mask on first so that you can be a relatively happy, healthy person and be able to show up for the people in your life. And so much has happened since last week. And I'm in a bit of a tizzy. Like it's one of the first episodes where I don't, I have an outline but I have so many things I wanna say, I don't know where this is gonna go. So we're just gonna go with it because there's been a lot going on and there is a lot going on and I've made a lot of changes in the last week and we're gonna have a party and all this stuff. So you know what, I figured it's my podcast. I'm just gonna ramble on this one but I promise it's gonna be good. So let me explain, I put out that episode about being selfish and about putting your needs first and I've been really leaning into this myself. After I'd recorded that episode and I think even maybe the day it actually aired last week, I have been planning my 40th birthday party which is next week. And also this is the week of the four-year anniversary for the podcast, which I'm super proud of. And I can't believe it's been four years and I just love everything that has happened. I'm just sitting in this place of like being very grateful. And I went through my own kind of battle in my head about my 40th birthday. And it was really fascinating for me to watch myself think about what did I really want? What was I doing because I thought I should do or I shouldn't do or my family wanted me to do or, you know, I didn't wanna leave these people out or that people or whatnot. And I came to really like sit with myself and ask myself these questions which I've never done before. And I started recently doing of like figuring out like no, what do I want? What would be like the most amazing 40th birthday for myself? How can I give it to myself? And when I was planning, I I'm planning like a dinner party at my house with a lot of my close friends and family. And I remember when I was getting ready to do the stuff or send out the invites, I was thinking like oh, I should send it from my husband or like he should be involved. He should be the one sending it. And I remember catching myself thinking like why? Why can't I send it out for myself? Right. Because we have this notion that like mmm.. that's kind of sad. Or maybe it’s a little cocky like look at you celebrating yourself. I don't know. We have a lot of thoughts about people showing up and taking up space and knowing what they want and trying to make themselves happy. And I remember thinking that thought and then I was thinking like why are we putting on this charade? Like everybody in my family knows it's not my husband that's making all these decisions. I'm planning it clearly. Like I'm gonna be the one deciding because I know what I want. So why do I have to pretend? Because it almost like makes it more acceptable or it's somehow makes it less sad or I don't know, you know, like what are these thoughts? It was just like really fascinating to me. And I was, you know, independently thinking about things like this. And then I went to a rental company cuz I wanted to rent some tables and chairs for our backyard for this dinner party. So it was a older lady who was very kind and she truly didn't mean anything by this. And it was really funny for me to even see her reaction when I kind of gave her my answer because she truly was not trying to be rude and it was gonna come off, I mean, it was a rude question but I think she was just genuinely surprised. She asked me who the party was for and I said it's for my 40th birthday party. And she got this almost like sad I dunno tone of voice and was like oh, there was nobody else to throw the party for you? Because if I didn't have friends and stuff that stood up and, you know, threw me a party or my husband. And again, I didn't take offense because I'm so obsessed about thinking about people's thought processes. Like she's not trying to be rude. It's truly just the messages that we've gotten from society that like this is something to be sad about let's say, that like somebody else isn't throwing you a party, right? Like we've put on these terms of like morality of good and bad and what it means to be loved. And it's so backwards and it makes so many of us miserable. And yet we all just go because like this is what we've been taught. And I responded to her. I said no, I'm turning 40 years old. I know exactly what I want and I can give it to myself. I don't need other people to give it to me. And she was very gracious and she was very nice and she was actually like wow, I wish everybody had that attitude. So many, I can't tell you how many people we work with who, you know, other people are upset or didn't get what they wanted or didn't, you know, have a lot of criticism about the party or things that, you know, and we get a lot of complaints and I just wish people would kind of take control. And so it was a good discussion afterwards about it. And so again, I I don't think that she was trying to be rude but it really got me thinking like why do we do this? Why do we even have this idea that like it should be embarrassing? Or why are you throwing a party for yourself? Right. Like you shouldn't be celebrating yourself. Who do you think you are? And listen, I have these thoughts. Like I still have these thoughts as I'm throwing the party because I got a lot of people responding on my Instagram saying like oh yeah, I threw myself a party, which is great. Like I threw my 30th party. I threw my 40th. And it's funny because like, again, you'll see people talk about like a milestone parties where it's almost acceptable. Like it's acceptable to have a 30th birthday party. It's acceptable to have a 40th or 50th. Would you do that on like your 42nd birthday? Would you throw yourself a big party? And that was my next question to people was okay, like what did the party look like? Because sometimes we're willing to do it but it's still we tone ourselves down. Like yeah, it was just something simple. And if that's what you want, totally fine. But I think oftentimes we do want more but then we have thoughts of like uh that's, you know, what's everyone gonna think? I can't really go all out. I shouldn't spend that money on myself. Right. And we have all of these like preconceived notions of like what is allowed and what is not and what it looks like to other people. And so it was really fascinating for me to have this discussion with this lady. And when I left, I was thinking a lot about it. And I was thinking about like how this is the source of so much suffering and so much unhappiness in our lives and on the big scale, okay, it's celebrating yourself. And that's a really hard thing to do because it brings in even other aspects like thinking highly of yourself and, you know, being the center of attention which is very difficult for a lot of us who have been taught to basically disappear and not be seen and try to be as, you know, little as possible. But even in the day-to-day things going back to last week's episode, like how do we figure out what it is we want and then give it to ourselves. And I was thinking a lot about like why we play these games, why we act like we don't want something, right. This has happened many a times in my life. And I know it's happened in a lot of other people's where it's like I actually did want something, like I did wanna let's say celebrate my birthday in certain years but I'm just used to kind of being easygoing or go with the flow. And I don't wanna be the center of attention and I don't want anyone to judge me. So, you know, I'll say things like oh, it's not a big deal. We'll just go out to dinner or like we don't need to do anything. And then my birthday comes and passes and I'm disappointed and I'm angry and I'm resentful. I'm resentful at my husband for not making a bigger deal or not buying me a present or whatever. But I never communicated that those are important things to me. Right. Like I keep suppressing it and then I'm filled with like anger. And I was really thinking about why we do this and what it creates in us. Right. Like as we continue to do this with small things and with big things and it's no wonder why this has happened. Like we've all been taught. So when I say our culture, our culture is made up of a bunch of different things and a lot of it is included like obviously the patriarchy, like especially for women and moms, but even for men, right? Like even in the patriarchy and in most of our religions. It doesn't matter what religion you're in, they're all pretty much the same. Not in they're teaching but I'm saying in the cultural aspect of it. I think when we have these ideas that the men should be the breadwinners and they should be the hard workers. And, you know, you definitely shouldn't indulge and think about yourself and celebrate yourself in that way. And for women, like I mean, forget about it. Your whole life is for other people and to serve other people and to make sure everybody else is happy and nobody actually cares what you want. And you mix that patriarchy and religion that teaches us to be modest, right. Teaches us to be humble and have humility. Teaches us that gluttony is a sin, that we should never be indulgent, that there's all of this glory or I don't know, benefit to being selfless and small and not needing things. Right. And then, you know, on top of that, we just stack on capitalism as well. Let's just throw that in the game. And in order for capitalism to thrive the way that it does. Like if you think about it, we're taught that like you have to work hard to deserve everything. Like you don't get to just have things. And this is a lie. Obviously in capitalism, a lot of people don't work hard and get things called generational wealth gets passed down but we like to keep up this facade that like whatever you get is proportional to how hard you work. And so you have to work hard. You don't just get to like have rest. You don't just get to have joy and celebrations and, you know, whatnot like hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure is looked down upon because it's bad for capitalism. If everyone's just out here like pursuing their pleasure, people aren't working. And so I get it like when you are trying to run a society, certain rules make sense because it helps run that society in a more efficient, faster, better way. But that doesn't mean that one, it's the truth and/or two, it's for the benefit of the individual person, right. Or even in the collective, it's just for the benefit of that society. And yet, so many of us have internalized these thoughts and have taken them as like truths. Like this is the gospel. This is being a modest person. Being a humble person is better than being a prideful person. Like how many of us have heard that? It's so fascinating for me to see, like I went down this rabbit hole of just looking up the definition of all these words that we throw around as good or bad or that we try to like either model ourselves after or reject. And it's so fascinating. Okay. So just take a stroll down with me through the dictionary. The word modest means unassuming or moderate in the estimation of one's abilities or achievements. Why would we want to be unassuming in the estimation of our own abilities or achievements? Like why is that a good thing to not be able to properly estimate your own abilities, to not see yourself fully for how wonderful you are? Why would we ever think that it's better? And the next definition is when it's like of an amount or level, like let's say drink a modest amount, right? Relatively moderate, limited or small. Why are we thinking that it's better to be small? To think limitedly of yourself and your abilities. Then we go to the word humble: having or showing a modest or low estimate of one's own importance. Why would you want to have a low estimate of your own importance? Why is that anything anybody would willingly choose? Unless like we were told, right. Taught that somehow it's better to think less of yourself. So we're all walking around believing, right? We've all been humbled when we were children. When we were younger, we're put down to size. We're made to believe, you know, don't get too big for your britches. Who do you think you are? And we all internalize this. If you use humble as a verb, lower indignity or importance like he humbled himself. Why is this the standard that we're going for? Now, if we're gonna go for humility, which is the noun version of humble, right? A modest or low view of your own importance, same thing. And so I was so fascinated thinking about this. Like this is what we're striving for is to have a low view of our own importance. I'm telling you, I went down on a ridiculous Google rabbit hole and it was saying humility refers to being modest or having a low view of one's own importance. We covered that. It also refers to freedom from pride. Hmm. Okay. Why would we need freedom from pride? Let's look at what pride means, shall we? Okay. Pride: a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievements. Why would we need freedom from that? I'm so confused, right? Like I'm looking at this like what? The second definition for pride: consciousness of one's own dignity. Oh, God forbid God forbid we are conscious of our own dignity. Like it's so mind-blowing to think about the fact that what we have put up on a pedestal is like how low can you think of yourself? How much can you knock yourself down a couple pegs? We don't want you actually thinking to, you know, that you're good or that I don't know, you might be unique or special or lovable. God forbid. And I know that a lot of people mix this stuff with arrogance. And I'm gonna tell you the difference between confidence and arrogance cause I get this a lot. Like we're so worried that we're gonna go to the opposite extreme and just become this arrogant a**hole that only thinks about himself. And it's laughable because if you even have that thought, it means that that would never happen because you're so on guard, right. For this kind of things. And obviously that's not who you want to be. But I also think that there's a big difference between confidence and arrogance. Okay. If you look at the definition for confidence, it's the feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something. Okay. Self-confidence means the attitude you have about your own skills and abilities. It means that you can trust yourself. You have a sense of control in your own life. Like you accept that you can trust your own abilities. Okay? Arrogance is having or revealing an exaggerated sense of one's importance or abilities. Okay? And I think that arrogance is actually a sign of low self-confidence. Typically, if we're really grounded in who we are and love ourselves and know that we are good enough, we don't have the need to be better than anybody else. Typically, the people who are trying to puff their chest up and have an exaggerated sense of their own importance is because deep down they actually don't and it's a façade. They're trying to will themselves to believe that they're good enough. They're trying to mask the hurt that they feel because maybe they have been told they're not good enough or whatnot. And so they have this elevated and exaggerated sense of who they are. You do not have to be arrogant to be fully confident and proud of the person that you are. And when I was looking at these definitions, I started realizing like well, of course we don't celebrate ourselves. When we have been taught that the right way to be, the good way, the selfless way to be is to think low of yourself, is to be modest and humble. And the wrong way to be is to think that is to actually like acknowledge your own capabilities and uniqueness and power. And again, this benefits patriarchy, it benefits capitalism. It benefits our religions. It benefits control of the masses. So it makes sense why we're taught these things but it's our job to root it out, to see the fact that we have been guilted and shamed into believing that we shouldn't have these wants and needs, that we shouldn't seek pleasure, that we shouldn't celebrate ourselves, that we shouldn't love ourselves, that we shouldn't think highly of ourselves. And you know what happens when we do this, is that we are suppressing our needs. It's not as though we don't have them. This is what I talked about last week. It's not as though you are gonna be selfless and you're all of a sudden super happy about it. You're like you know what, they're right. I actually don't need any of this. I don't need to be celebrated or acknowledged or loved or whatever. I'm totally fine. I love giving, giving, giving, and never getting anything back. I love putting all of my happiness in other people's hands whenever they wanna give me whatever they think I deserve. Right? Like it's absurd when I say it like that but this is sort of what we've been talked about is that like if you're a good person, if you're a humble person, if you're a modest person, then you won't need for these things. And the reality is that we do need 'em. Have you ever met a child that didn't wanna have a birthday party? No. Right. Because they haven't been taught yet. They haven't learned yet. They haven't been programmed yet to believe that it's bad. Who wouldn't wanna be celebrated? Who wouldn't want to have a day of fun, of the things that they want. Have you noticed that kids with anything really don't have a hard time telling you exactly what it is that they want? What their favorite type of cake is. You know, what they want for presents. Like it it doesn't take a lot of thinking because it hasn't been beaten out of them yet. Right? Like it they haven't been programmed to believe that they're bad for wanting things. So it's very quick at the top of their brain. My daughter can tell you exactly what she wants to be for Halloween right now. She can tell you what kind of cake she wants for her next birthday, what theme she wants. And those wants and needs don't go away. We just suppress them. And then we feel bad because we have them. Right? So you feel the guilt for having needs and wants. Gosh, I just, why do I care that they didn't throw me a party? Why do I care that I didn't go the way I want? Uh because you have unmet needs. That's why you didn't care that's why you care. And then if we actually act on it, we have a lot of shame, right? So many of us are great at working for it but then we can't have it. Like we're fantastic at hustling and building for that dream, that destination that we think will feel so good. But when we get there, oh actually like reveling in it. Have you ever noticed like for so many of you um us people, myself included, it's so difficult to accept a compliment? Has that happened? Right. Because you've told yourself like you want this acknowledgement. You're hustling for the validation. You're trying hard out there, whether that's to exercise and I don't know, keep your health in a certain way or the makeup tutorials that you look at to put makeup on in a certain way or the way that you dress or the way that you show up or the things that you do at work. Whatever we're doing, we're looking for this achievement and this validation. And we want other people to get it because we have these needs for to acknowledge it. But then when they acknowledge it, we dismiss it immediately. Someone tells you like oh, I love the outfit you put together, you look so good. Oh my God, I love the way you did your makeup. Oh wow, you were so incredible in court today. Right? And it's like no, it was nothing. No, that was not a big deal. Like we can't even take it in because we feel a lot of shame in having that, in admitting that, in acknowledging our own abilities and our unique qualities and what we have. And then we feel resentment and anger when it's not fulfilled. Right. So if we have it, we feel a lot of guilt and shame. And if we don't have it, we have a lot of resentment and anger. No one appreciates me. Nobody loves me. Nobody does anything for me. I'm always the one running around like doing everything for everybody else. I used to love living in resentment. That was like my go-to indulgent emotion. Cuz I just expected people, even though I never even admitted what I wanted to myself, I just felt restless. I felt like why don't people get me? Why aren't other people making me happy? Why didn’t they make a bigger deal for my birthday? Cause I am a Leo and I actually do like celebrating. And I've just told myself for years and years that I don't because that's what I was supposed to do. And when I started waking up to that fact of like what if it's okay if I just admit what I want? What if it's okay if I celebrate myself? What if all this stuff I've been taught is just wrong and it's why so many people are just so bitter and angry and resentful? And what if I don't wanna be like that? Life just became so much easier. It just became so much easier to be like oh no, I know exactly what I want. And this is how I wanna do it. And because you guys are my friends and family, you guys are gonna do it with me. And it became so much easier to just have my friends and family show up and we love them and not need them to do anything to fill these unmet needs that I didn't even know I had because I was suppressing for so long. And I was telling myself that I don't want them. It's here to tell you that basically everything you've been taught is a lie and you need to unlearn it. You do not need to deserve rest or joy or pleasure or love or celebrations or acknowledging yourself. There's no amount of hustle and hard work that will get you there. It is you changing your thoughts about yourself and what you deserve and what you are allowed to think. And it's not your fault because you've been taught that you shouldn't think certain things but it is your responsibility now to unlearn those. So that for the rest of your life, if you haven't done it up until now, you can start checking in and figuring out what are those unmet needs? Why do I have these? What do I want? And how do I give it to myself? How do I stop the charade of acting like I don't want anything and pretending or it's dropping hints or getting mad and making other people do it for me instead of just giving it to my d*mn self. And so I'm so excited cause as I was going through this and I'm telling you, I was like so worked up I couldn't sleep one night. And I was I felt like you know the um can't even remember the movie but it's like uh God, a movie about math. And they have like papers all over the wall and you're like connecting dots. I felt like I was doing that. I was like and this is linked to this. And then you're confident and you do this and then we're doing. So I say all this to say that I am having a special party for myself and for you on August 2nd. So this is very like quick turnaround if you're listening to this episode like a week after, it's gonna be too late. But if you're listening in real time, I'm having a Throw Your Own D*mn Party party. Does that make sense? We're gonna have a party on August 2nd. We are gonna show up and we are going to treat ourselves and we are gonna party with each other. We're gonna celebrate ourselves and I'm gonna teach you how to stop like giving into the lies that you've been taught. I'm gonna show you how you've been brainwashed to believe that you should put your needs last and I'm gonna help you start figuring out what it is that you actually want and how to give it to your d*mn self. And most importantly, which most people suffer from, I'm gonna teach you a step-by-step process of how to deal with the guilt that's gonna stop you. Because at first, you're gonna be terrible at it. You're gonna try to do things. You're gonna wanna take that nap on a Saturday. You're gonna wanna have a dinner party for yourself. You're gonna wanna do all these things. And then your brain's gonna start like ugh, that's so like you didn't work hard enough. That's gross. You don't need this. Who are you? We're gonna stop all that. I'm going to teach you how to put yourself first so you can change your whole life and your career. I want you to hear me on this cause I think a lot of this stuff might be like well, it's a little frivolous or I don't have time for this. But let me tell you something: the reason you can't figure out what you wanna do for your career is because of this. You have spent so long doing what everybody else has told you to do and being easy-going, going with the flow and doing the path that other people told you and suppressing your own needs and suppressing your own wants and suppressing your own dreams that you have no idea what it is you actually want now. And it requires uncovering that for you to figure out like oh, this is what I wanted. I just didn't allow myself to have it. Cause I didn't wanna seem like a bad person. The reason you're so burned out and exhausted at work is because you don't know how to say no or advocate for yourself or demand what you deserve or dream big enough at your current job and decide what you want to be doing. All of these things go hand in hand. Keeping yourself quote unquote humble and modest is what is ruining your self-confidence at work and what is creating the imposter syndrome and what is creating this lack of pride and acceptance of your accomplishments and being able to fully see how fantastic you are and advocate for that. And we're not gonna let that happen anymore so I want you to join me, go to quitterclub.com/party and come to my party. Let's hang out. Let's have a drink together. Let's chat. Let's stop this BS. So if you wanna learn all this, I'm gonna give you a PDF. You're gonna have the replay if you can't make the time. I think it's August 2nd at 4:00 PM Pacific Standard. It's gonna be 90 minutes, probably two hours because I just like to talk a lot and we're gonna go through everything and then you're gonna have a replay. You're gonna have a likely very large PDF with tons of questions to be able to like help yourself move through these stages and figure out how to get past the guilt and shame. It's gonna be fantastic. I mean, honestly why would you not wanna party with me? I can't wait to hang out with you guys. I'm so excited about this. I'm so excited because it's sort of like another 40th party for myself and a four-year anniversary party and uh helping you get outta your own way and finally start celebrating the unicorn queen king magic human being that you are and really like learning to live into that. And it's one of my favorite things. And so I am giddy about this party and I hope you join me. So go to quitterclub.com/party and let's throw you your own d*mn party together. Alright my friends, I love you all. I'm gonna go celebrate myself this weekend and I can't wait. It's gonna be a weekend of me really doing what it is I wanna do and having the best time and I can't wait for it. And I'm so excited about it. And I hope you take some time this weekend to celebrate yourself and figure out what you want and give it to yourself and then I hope you come to my party. Alright y'all, I'll see you there. Bye.

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