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Today, I’m super excited to share my interview with coach and writer Mara Glatzel about a beautiful way to cultivate self-acceptance and self-love: celebration.

Mara has created a new project called “Born to Celebrate,” a 4-week course, from July 15th to August 15th, all about celebrating who you are. Right now. Right this second. In this skin. In this body. In this weight. With this job. With this income. In this house.

And that’s exactly why I love Mara’s idea of celebration: It’s a path to accepting, appreciating and loving ourselves, without any conditions. Come as you are, and celebrate precisely that.

Below, in our interview, Mara reveals what celebration means to her and why daily celebrations are so important. She also shares how we can cultivate our own everyday celebrations — and much more.

Plus! Mara is generously giving away one spot in her course to a Weightless reader. See below for the details.

You can learn more about Born to Celebrate here.

Also, Mara is featuring interviews with many different bloggers about how they incorporate celebration into their daily lives. Check out this great interview with business and life coach Tiffany Han. I’m also taking part in the series. In fact, I even made a video. My first one ever. (Yikes.) I’ll let you know when it’s up.

Q: What does celebration mean to you?

A: Celebration has become the way that I reconnect with myself and with my intentions for my life. For quite some time, I struggled with the whole idea of celebration, because I thought that I was unworthy of good, loving treatment – even at my own hands.

In reclaiming the idea of celebration, not only have I been able to infuse a mega does of joy and love into my daily life, it as been a crucial tool in developing a positive, trusting relationship with myself.

When I talk about celebration, I’m not necessarily talking about champagne, sparklers, and fancy footwear. I’m also talking about subtle, quiet rituals of celebration like cleaning my kitchen before I make breakfast or taking an extra moment to choose an outfit that I feel really wonderful in.

Celebration is about big sparkly affairs, but it is also about the small ways that you show yourself that you are worthy and deserving on a daily basis.

Q: Why is cultivating celebration so important? 

A: After having spent much of my life searching, reaching, growing, and rampantly consuming social media, I started to have the feeling that I was a project that might never be finished.

We are taught that we get to celebrate after we’ve done the hard work, that we are worthy of celebration when we’ve done a good job in completing the task at hand.

However, for me, celebration has become the work, become the tool that I have used to prove to myself again and again that I am good, that I am doing good work, and that I am allowed to enjoy the journey of becoming instead of wasting my life waiting to get to some artificial deadline.

My coaching philosophy is about recognizing and reclaiming our own beauty and deserving – right now, as we are, in this moment. Cultivating celebration is about recognizing yourself for everything that you are, both perfect and imperfect parts. It is the way that we are able to give thanks for all that you have.

Q: How do you incorporate celebration into your daily life? 

A: I love simple, ordinary celebrations like dressing up for no reason whatsoever, or going out of my way to get my absolute favorite cup of coffee. I celebrate by cooking myself elaborate dinners that require many steps and the meditation of chopping.

I celebrate by washing my sheets and taking a shower, and crawling in bed for a good night’s sleep. I celebrate with sparkling beverages and delicious desserts.

I also love celebrating with others. I think that one of the most difficult things that I have struggled with is making myself vulnerable and asking people to celebrate with me.

For many years, I would tell myself that my accomplishments weren’t big enough or good enough, or that people would think that I was ridiculous for wanting to celebrate a minor achievement. Now, I love to celebrate the small steps and invite others to celebrate with me whenever possible.

Q: You’ve created a class around celebration, “Born to Celebrate.” What inspired you to create it?

A: Recently I was describing the type of women that I work with to a fellow coach. I quickly said, “I’m not sure what it is, but these amazing women are just born to celebrate.”

The palpable resonance of that statement, and the type of person that it speaks to was immediately exciting for me. The course was born in that moment, out of a desire to connect women in a rip-roaring bonfire of celebratory energy.

Too often, we connect with other women around our faults, partitioning our bodies off into parts that displease us or despairing about our lives/partners/bank accounts. I wanted to create a forum for women to life one another up instead of tear one another down. I wanted to teach celebration as a tool for cultivating self-love.

This class is an exercise in putting down the heaviness that you’ve been carrying around, and cultivate rituals for celebrating yourself, as you are in this moment, reveling in your own glorious imperfection. I just can’t really imagine anything better than that.

Q: Any suggestions on how readers can celebrate in their own lives?

A: Yes! I often tell my clients to begin flirting with celebration by figuring out what it is that lights them up, and making a practice out of doing it on purpose. Pay close attention to your favorite everything – at its heart, celebration is about knowing yourself and knowing what you love.

Once you begin to notice and keep track of what feels truly fantastic to you, you have some important data about how to cultivate your own celebrations.

Maybe it includes that outfit that makes you feel amazing or a meal constructed of all of your favorite foods. Maybe it requires the most delicious cocktail you can imagine. Or, maybe it’s a quiet day alone at the beach with a magazine and your favorite flavor of Gatorade.

Your celebration truly must fit and resonate with you, because it is about lighting yourself up from the inside out.

Start by noticing what you love, and begin stringing them together. Then, ask someone else to join you in your celebration. Let the festivities begin!

Q: Anything else you’d like readers to know about celebration?

A: You don’t have to be perfect to begin celebrating yourself. You do not have to have gotten straight A’s or gotten the job or the date. Sometimes, the moments when we really need a celebration are when nothing seems to be going our way.

This is about connecting with yourself on a joyous and exciting level, and encouraging others to join you in positively interacting with your life. You can be ridiculous. You don’t have to take yourself so seriously.

Celebration is about building a life that is brimming with love for yourself, and constructing moments that make you feel deliciously alive.

The Giveaway!

Mara is giving away one spot to her new e-course, “Born to Celebrate,” to a Weightless reader. Simply leave a comment below answering this question: What’s one way you celebrate in your daily life?

One comment per person, please. You have until next Thursday, 7.4, at 11:59 EST to enter. I’ll pick the winner using random.org. Good luck!

 

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    Last reviewed: 26 Jun 2013