Sun-Lover Cards 🌞

Aug 1, 2023 — Just think, in a few short months, we’ll be back to wishing for warm weather and begging for sunshine!

We have two sun-lovers in our Cardie Community to thank for the timely and popular birthday card to the left. The photo was taken by Anna Ditkina here in relatively mild Miami (temp 90). And the message was written by Oriana Wood, who makes her home (and loves finding homes for others!) in scorching Scottsdale, where they’ve seen 31 straight days with temps above 110 degrees.

I’ve always loved Oriana’s way of looking at birthdays as “another trip around the sun.” And I definitely view them as a time to pause and look back at the past year, congratulate ourselves on the opportunities we’ve embraced, celebrate the adventures we’ve experienced, and acknowledge all the ways in which we’ve grown.

Over the weekend, I was laughing with my great friend of 40 years, Contributing Cardie Gay Gelman, about what a journey we’ve been on so far. We met long ago in Chicago, I moved to Miami Beach, and she now lives in Los Angeles. As Gay said so well, “It’s fun knowing what I know of you, and still be discovering more about each other after all this time!”

Growth has always been vitally important to us both, so Saturday we found ourselves giggling again about a six-week course we took together back in Chicago: We met at the facilitator’s house every Wednesday evening hoping to learn how to actively acknowledge the best in ourselves rather than focusing on our shortcomings. (At least for that one night a week!)

I remember the first session like it was yesterday: Gay and I and four strangers sat in a little circle and were all instructed to, one-by-one, finish the sentence, “I acknowledge myself for …” Then do that as many times as we could using as many different self-accolades as we could muster. Well. You’d have thought we’d been told to recite the Gettysburg Address in Greek. “I acknowledge myself for …” was so dang daunting! Blatantly brag on ourselves, out loud, to five people we’d barely met … are you kidding me?!

We all six sat similarly dumbstruck until the facilitator, Rick, singled out someone who quickly said, “Can’t think of a thing.” Undaunted, Rick insisted, “There must be Something you can feel good about having done recently.” He said it patiently, as if he’d seen this same discomfort many times before. “You were open-minded about coming tonight, right?” he tried, and the look on Gay’s face said exactly what I was thinking, “Yep, big mistake!”

But our relentless leader went right on to propose, “Try, ‘I acknowledge myself for my commitment to growth.’ It’s like building confidence-muscle,” he explained. “When we consciously acknowledge all the little things we accomplish along the way, we gain strength and resolve to tackle the bigger, more important stuff we want to achieve.” Ahh, that made sense, but we were all still reluctant to step up and chime in.

It was when one guy shrugged, “I got nothin,” that our mentor smiled benevolently and asked, “Did you get out of bed today?” A dozen eyes rolled. “Seriously. Try it,” he said, daring each of us in that circle. “‘I acknowledge myself for getting out of bed today.’” In unison, we tried that, only to hear his fast follow-up, “Did you brush your teeth?” We all laughed, which broke the tension, and then soon found that Rick was right. Momentum kicked in and our acknowledgment of increasingly meaningful accomplishments began proudly spilling out. That week and each week after we left feeling GREAT.

It’s a very empowering practice when you do it regularly, though surprisingly difficult at the start. Within Cardthartic, we all feel blessed that so many caring Cardies and great Reps and Retail Partners make a point of sending kind praise our way. Yet it’s another thing to see accomplishments through our own eyes, feel the pride, and give ourselves credit for the good we’ve done with our days.

So today, especially if you’re marking a milestone such as a birthday, we cordially invite you to find a few minutes to sit and acknowledge yourself for all you’ve made happen already this year. And, a la Rick, here’s a starting thought for you. Having had the honor of fulfilling your card orders, and getting to know more of your amazing stories, at Cardthartic we know for a fact that you can rightly say, “I acknowledge myself for being thoughtful. I acknowledge myself for being compassionate. I acknowledge myself for being kind.”