My Birthday Wish For You

February 3, 2012 | Filed Under Happiness, Life | 8 responses 

Today is my 54th birthday.  Yippee! Yay!  I love my birthday because it’s a day that I treat as very special. A day that I feel immense gratitude in my heart for my life.

It’s also a time that I reflect on the past year.  So, as part of my annual birthday reflection, last night I re-read the short ezine that I’d written on my birthday last year.  Here it is:

Today is my 53rd birthday. I was planning to write a “profound” ezine today on my birthday about the purpose of life, but I’ve spent the last five days sitting with my 93-year-old aunt who is about to transition from this life. My experience right now is very internal, but I will share more later. This is an extraordinary way to spend my birthday — midwifing my aunt. It may be her birthday today, too — into a new world. Thank you for all your love and wishes. I am full of gratitude.  

About one hour after I sent that ezine, my aunt died peacefully in my arms.  It was an amazing experience and a beautiful blessing that imprinted on me deeply the preciousness of this life.

And it was the beginning of a year of powerful transitions and transformation on many levels.

So what about this year? What’s it about?   I think it’s reflected in my birthday wish for myself– that I live in greater love and acceptance (and less judgment) of myself, everyone else and life.

I got an early birthday gift about how to make that wish come true last week when I was attending a meeting of the Transformational Leadership Council in Hawaii.  One morning, I took a walk on the beach with Alison Armstrong, who is a brilliant teacher, an amazing visionary, and a wonderful woman.

At one point on our walk, I was judging myself for not being more curious. I complained to Alison that, unlike some people who have a curiosity to learn about everything they can, I didn’t care one bit about knowing certain things – for example, I didn’t care about how the sand we were walking on was created.

Alison stopped me in my sand tracks.

She said, “You know, Marci, the quality our lives is influenced by the quality of the questions we ask ourselves.”

I realized that a question I sometimes ask myself, mostly subconsciously, is “What’s wrong with me?”

Alison suggested that I experiment with asking with these two questions, instead:

  1. What if I’m perfect just as I am?  What if, in fact, there are plenty of people on the planet who care about how sand is created, and the universe doesn’t need me to be one of those people.
  1. What is right about me?  Wow, what a concept!  Such a different question than the “What’s wrong with me” question.

I’ve begun this experiment, and I love the results.  I’m really feeling more lightness, love and acceptance. I’ve told my friends about it, and they’re trying it on too.

So this is my birthday gift for you—that you try on these questions and see what happens.

My birthday wish for you is that you feel greater love and acceptance of yourself.  That you experience the perfection of you just as you are and that you’re able to see what’s right about you more of the time.

What if the whole world lived with those two questions?  Then every day would feel like a birthday.

With my great love and gratitude that you’re a part of my life,


Comments

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8 Responses to “My Birthday Wish For You”

    1
      Vijay on February 3rd, 2012 12:22 pm

      Dear Marci,
      First and foremost many many Happy Returns of
      the day :) you have been continuous source of
      smiles and happiness.

      I wish you the best of health and happiness from
      the bottom of my heart. Continue to shine in my heart and I wish you only the best in life.

      My question would be, O Almighty can you also give
      me the strength and ability to make others happy as an angel called Marci does in her lufe

    2
      Donny on February 3rd, 2012 12:22 pm

      HAppy Birthday marcy, wish you all the best… God Blessed…

    3
      Vijay on February 3rd, 2012 12:23 pm

      Dear Marci,
      First and foremost many many Happy Returns of
      the day :) you have been continuous source of
      smiles and happiness.

      I wish you the best of health and happiness from
      the bottom of my heart. Continue to shine in my heart and I wish you only the best in life.

      My question would be, O Almighty can you also give
      me the strength and ability to make others happy as an angel called Marci does in her life?

      Lots of hugs, kisses from Bucharest
      Vijay

      you know me as @bucharesttutor on Twitter

    4
      Tracy Dacko on February 3rd, 2012 1:08 pm

      Hope you have a wonderful birthday, Marci!

      And I agree with you…imagine if we could wave some magic wand and delete all of the “what’s wrong with me?” conversations in everyone’s head, and replacing them with “what’s right with me?” I’d love to see the ripple effect of that one!

      Enjoy your day,
      Tracy

    5
      Brian on February 3rd, 2012 3:12 pm

      Marci, I can’t even imagine you believing there’s something wrong with you. You bring love and light to millions. What’s wrong with that? You bring a smile to my face whenever I read your emails or Facebook posts. You cared enough to see a world deprived of happiness and love and tried to right it with two amazing books and more in the Chicken Soup series. What’s wrong with all that? Shall I go on? Anyway, happy birthday, Marci. I love you. By the way, you hit the 5 by mistake instead of the 4. Have a great day!
      Love, Brian.

    6
      KITA on February 4th, 2012 1:10 am

      Dear Marci,

      Many happy returns for the day! wishing you loads of happiness, joy, good food, warmth and most importantly contentment in this wonderful life.

      I do believe all the questions in our life stem from us comparing ourselves with others and thr another’s eyes. Self acceptance, contentment and forgiveness for self, I would imagine, are the most difficult to work on but not unachievable traits…..

      Wishing you all that and more ….. !

    7
      Elle on February 4th, 2012 6:44 am

      What a great question to ask ourselves. I remember walking on the beach some years ago after the death of my husband contemplating my beliefs, only to discover many that weren’t really mine. I’d accepted them from other people. So I began to ask myself, not why do I believe this, but does this believe serve me?

      Llife changing questions Marci. Thank you for sharing this.

    8

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