The Psychology of your 20s - 277. Let's talk about birthday anxiety

Episode Date: February 21, 2025

I'm turning 25! Here are all my thoughts and feelings about ageing, dealing with expectations around birthdays, loneliness, the pressure to have fun and a much needed mindset shift towards growing older. I also discuss my GO TO birthday routine that brings me peace, growth and clarity every year! Listen now and thank you for another wonderful year with the podcast :)  PREORDER MY BOOK: https://www.psychologyofyour20s.com/general-clean   Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast For business: [e-mail]    The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. New listeners, old listeners, wherever you are in the world. it is so great to have you here back for another episode as we of course talk about the psychology of our 20s. All right. We're going to talk about birthday anxiety today because it is my birthday. The day that this comes out, I am turning 25, 25 years old. We are halfway through the psychology

of your 20s. And the biggest question I always get is whether I'm going to do a psychology of your 30s. I have five more years to think about it. So I will answer that question a little bit closer to the date. But yeah, it's my birthday and it's bringing up a lot of feelings. But it's also probably the most peaceful, serene birthday I have had. I have never felt more comfortable with aging and more comfortable with the age that I'm at and more comfortable with what I'm choosing to do today than, ever before and it's made me really, really reflective and it's made me want to talk about

this experience of birthday anxiety that I've had for so long and all the stress that usually comes with gaining another year, gaining another year of life, getting another year of experiences. And I want you to note that I did not say getting older. I like to position it as something that we are given, something that we are gifted. So this year I'm in New York City. I've been in the US for like two and a half weeks for work, for work being this podcast and for mantra, of course, doing some like amazing recordings with some incredible guests that are coming out soon. And by being in New York, I know a few people, but honestly, like, I don't have a huge, broad, wide group of friends here. My boyfriend's back in Australia or my close friends,

my family are back in Australia. So I couldn't do like a big thing this year. I couldn't do like a big party. I couldn't like celebrate with my closest loved ones. And you know what? I think that's part of why I feel so serene about it. Like my plan is to go to a diner tonight and I'm going to get breakfast for dinner and I'm going to do my little birthday routine, which I'll talk about later in the episode that I do every single year and I have never felt more excited about it. Like I said before, this experience has not always been the case. And I am sure for many of you who are listening, you don't find that this is the common theme that defines your birthday. It's normally quite an intense experience. Birthdays are really, really reflective by nature.

You know, they demand pause, much like a new year. You know, they feel like this very specific point in time where everything from the past feels very present and you're ruminating on who you are, what you've learned, and also who you want to become. Like, you're very focused on the future. We're getting older. What if things don't work out the way I want? I have less time. I feel like my body is aging, even though if you're in your 20s, like you're still really at the peak of your youth. But all of these feelings and this contemplation is naturally very paralyzing. And that combined with the very sensitive social element as well, you know, the pressure to be around friends, the pressure to do a big thing, the pressure to have fun, all of that can create a real cocktail of complicated emotions.

And surprise, surprise, a lot about this does come down to our psychology as humans, as very deep thinking creatures and creatures who nonetheless love celebrations, but also feel overwhelmed by them at times. You know, we're full of oxymorons and contradictions, it seems. but today we are going to hopefully all together feel a little bit better about birthdays. I want to talk about what makes them so difficult at times, specifically the three main reasons that we struggle with gaining another year. And then I also want to talk about why and how to rethink this process of aging

and to rethink birthdays in general so that they are something that you look forward to, that you're excited about, that is not stressful, and that if anything, can actually bring you a lot of knowledge about yourself and a really important space to reflect and grow into this next year of who you're becoming and who you're going to be. So I know birthdays in our 20s are a big topic, and so many of you have asked me for this. So I'm going to stop rambling. And without further ado, let's talk about the psychology of birthday anxiety.

So I think the reason that birthdays can be so psychologically, mentally, emotionally, sometimes socially taxing comes down to three specific reasons. The first is very existential reasons to do with aging, to do with progress, to do with milestones. The second comes down to expectations and the pressure to seemingly have this perfect event or this perfect experience to mark another year. And the third series of reasons, I think, are quite social reasons that have to do with loneliness, perhaps a great deal of comparison as well. So I want to talk about each of these individually, starting with very existential reasons. So I think for the longest time, the reason birthdays felt so troublesome to me was that it was a sign that I was getting older. And that is something that was very, very scary.

My perspective on aging, though, has changed. and I used to be really scared of it. I used to joke with my friends that I would be forever 22. The reason that we are scared of aging, and if you can relate to this, I'm sure you've already come to this conclusion, the reason that we are scared of aging is because we are scared of the unknown.

We are naturally as humans always going to feel a little bit anxious and a little bit uncomfortable with somewhere and someplace that we have never been before. You have never been. in this next year of your life. You have never been 27. You have never been 35.

You have never been 66. And so because of that, it feels very unknown, very uncertain, very unstable. And with that empty space and with that uncertainty, our brain likes to fill that with fear. It likes to feel that with catastrophic ideas and imaginations of what it's going to be like. And they're not always positive. The other reason that we are scared of aging, other than the fear of the unknown, is a similar fear of the unknown, and it's a fear of death. It feels like each year we are, you know, closer to the end of this journey than the beginning. I used to be very, very scared of this.

And I can openly admit that and talk about it now because of how much time I have spent thinking about it and overthinking it and intellectualizing it until the cows came in. like it was an obsessive thought of me for me for so long of what happens after we die and aging is just this is just this terrible thing that's bringing me closer then i realized that aging is actually absolutely necessary because the alternative to not getting older is that you would always stay the same and that you would always stay in the same place as the same past version of you you would never be able to grow and you would never be able to experience new chapters. Turning 25, 27, 28. Yes, it's a privilege and I know a lot of people talk about how there are so many people who don't make it to that age and you should live for them and realize that it's an opportunity. Yes, that's one way of

seeing it, but I also think that time holds experiences. And so if this world was perfectly designed or however you want to think about it, aging is an important. part of that because aging is what brings you into the future. Aging is what brings you excitement, brings new surprises. If you were to stay 17 for your whole life, if you were to stay 25 for your whole life, you would never get to experience what it's like to be a grandparent, what it's like to be senior in your career, what it's like to, you know, own a home that you love, what it's like to gain maturity and perspective, what it's like to feel your frontal lobe develop, what it's like to feel your frontal lobe develop. That is really how I started to see it. Another way I started to see it in my

brain that felt more comfortable is that age is really just a number and it's so cliche. I know, but it is so true. It is so true. And I see this philosophy reflected in so many people that I love and that I know in my life. So a couple weeks ago, I celebrated my grandfather's 90th birthday. Now that man Turn 90, he drank more than me. He drank more than any 21 year old. He pulled out like this really nice bottle of port. He had this big birthday cake, all of his friends. My sisters who are literally like 18 and, I don't know, 17 at this point, genuinely, like they left before the night was even over.

Like my grandparents were the last to go. We walked home with them, all tipsy and drunk. And not only was my grandfather still this, like, had this youthful exuberance and really wasn't showing his age, but he also had, you know, the blessing of so many stories that we got to hear. And it made me realize, like, you can take your age as a sign of who you need to be and you need to be this person who becomes more grouchy. You need to be this person who, according to society, becomes less happy and exudes less joy and finds less pleasure and things, but you also have the choice to take your age,

you know, keep it as something that's just on your birth certificate or just on your driver's license, and embody the ages that you feel and all the positive parts of that age that you want to bring forward with you. Another reason that birthdays can bring up some negative feelings and some specifically existential feelings comes down to feeling behind when it comes to your life plans. feeling like you should be further ahead, feeling like you should be more accomplished, and yet here you are and you look around, everyone else seems to be doing these amazing things, and you're lost, and you're behind. And now, as you get older, all it's going to be is this game of catch-up. If you can relate to that, I think what you're experiencing is not so much birthday anxiety,

but milestone anxiety. Anxiety to do with feeling like you are not. hitting specific socially approved targets when you should be. Now this is a real conundrum for a lot of us in our 20s. I saw this quote the other day that it feels like between the ages of 18 and 35 we're all in some imaginary race and we're not sure what the race is but we know that we're behind. That is really what this period in our life feels like and a lot of it does come down to comparison against our peers, but also comparison against this weird indoctrinated blueprint that we all seem to understand. We all seem to have this weird sense that by 30, you know, we probably should have, should be married. By 25, we should be knowing what we

want to do with our career. By 28, we should have met our best friends. We should have brought a home. there are all these seemingly important milestones to hit before you reach your 30s. And the thing is, all of those milestones are external. We do not compare important measures like happiness. We do not compare important things like growth, like self-knowledge, authenticity. We don't think about how far advanced we are in terms of our emotions and how we internally feel. we are really focused on the external, how our life appears to other people, and that is a huge source of disappointment and sadness and frustration.

Birthdays, I think, just really naturally bring that out. I will also say we also are very, very focused to our fault at comparing ourselves to people who are doing better than us. We often engage in what we call upward social comparison. knowing that it's going to make us feel bad, knowing that it's going to hurt our self-concept and our self-esteem, but we just can't help ourselves. It's like we almost convince ourselves subconsciously, mentally, that if I feel bad enough about where I am, maybe that will force me to work harder. If I look at someone that I'm envious of or that makes me feel less accomplished, maybe that's this weird

sense of self-punishment that's going to motivate me. And that is absolutely not the case. there is no big finish line that we are all working towards. Like not one single person on this planet has the exact same goals and the exact same vision of what their life looks like. It's all different. And even people who get to the point or even people who you admire for getting to the point that you want to be, they are still looking at their life and feeling some sense of dissatisfaction.

I can absolutely tell you that. It may even be the case that they are looking at you and thinking, God, I really wish I had as much peace as this person has. I really wish I had as much time and space for growth. I really wish that I was still at the beginning so I could make different choices. There is something to be compared against or with for every single person. So as you're comparing yourself to someone else, they're comparing themselves to someone else who's probably comparing themselves to you.

So I know that that can be a really, really hard part about birthdays is feeling behind and feeling lost in your 20s. I always remind myself when I'm at that point because I think as humans we all end up in that comparison spiral. I always remind myself to think about what I've achieved in terms of personal growth and reflection in the last year.

So as I'm turning 25, I feel like this 24th year of my life, I became so much better at feeling less pressure around social media. I became so much better in managing my overthinking. I became it so much better in feeling satisfied with the friends that I have rather than feeling like I constantly needed more or that I was constantly on the precipice of loneliness. That means more to me and that impacts me positively more on the daily than any kind of achievement that I've had publicly. That sense of inner growth and homeostasis and progress is really, really important. Okay, we are going to take a short break, but when we return, I want to talk about two of the final reasons that we feel a lot of stress, anxiety, maybe sadness around our birthdays.

And my perfect routine for combating that, stay with us. 2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. And on my podcast, 2%, I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange model. world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts, and more, to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry. We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory. We got it wrong. Many of the problems that we are freaked out about in the world are the result of stress. Put yourself through some hardships, and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled,

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Listen to Love Trapped Podcast on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid games. prizes. And Rule 2, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends, oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist. I felt like I got hit by

a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Let's talk about the second reason that birthdays can be so hard and it's expectations.

It's this pressure to have this perfect, perfect day, this perfect party, these perfect friends who are all going to wish us happy birthday. and often we are let down. I would say 99% of the time when you have grand aspirations for a big birthday blowout and, you know, how you expect everyone to treat you, you're often disappointed. I think any time we say that we are supposed to do something, we're supposed to be happy, we're supposed to be loved, we're supposed to have all this fun, we're supposed to, you know, just ease through this, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. You know, when we put should or supposed to before anything,

often it's not going to look the way that we have imagined it. Now, I think this also comes down to comparison, right? We see people having these huge birthdays with lots of lots of friends and it looks so fun and they look celebrated and loved. Of course we want that. That looks amazing. And so we go about trying to make that happen. The thing that we don't see in those photos, in those pictures,

is all the stress that usually comes with having those kinds of huge events and huge expectations. Now, if you were someone who specifically struggles with control, the idea of like a big birthday party that might seem really impressive and fun from the outside is probably going to cause you a lot of internal chaos. For the starters, you're going to want every single thing to go perfectly. You're going to want it to perhaps look exactly as you imagined it. and you are going to feel responsible for other people's fun. Tell me if you relate to this, but I've often found whenever I have thrown big birthday parties,

I always spend about 50% of the night looking around me and making sure that people are chatting, making sure that people are enjoying themselves. I most certainly spend the first hour wondering if people are going to show up, wondering if people are going to go away and say that was fun or they're going to leave early. Now, for a day that should be focused on you and should be focused on, you know, this incredible achievement of growing up and experiencing more, I find that big events like that take all of the attention you should be showing yourself off of you and onto managing other people's feelings and other people's perceptions. It often creates this experience where you can only feel happy in hindsight. You can only feel happy with rose-tinted glasses on. So throughout the day, you've probably felt very on edge, very overwhelmed, very rushed.

Then during the event, maybe you get like a couple of hours of a bit of bliss, but you're still worried about other people's feelings. And then the next morning, sometimes you even have like a bit of an emotional and social hangover. And then it still may not have met your expectations and you've put money into this party and you put your hopes and dreams into it, that can lead us to feel very, very let down. You may also have the experience of not telling people what you want, not wanting to be a burden,

not wanting to like outwardly say, hey, please make a big deal about me, please make a fuss. And because you haven't communicated it, everyone thinks you want some small thing, you're left disappointed because you wish that someone had read your mind. And the sad thing is that they couldn't. And you know, it's like you can't go out and say like I want a surprise birthday party because then you're not surprised. But some part of you is like I just wish these people would be able to see into my brain and know what I want,

which even for our closest, most nearest and dearest friends is sometimes impossible. On the flip side, I've also spoken to people who have said to me, I have these big expectations, but I also know that I'm going to feel very awkward being the center of attention. And I know I'm going to feel very strange about it because I have this fear of being perceived. But I can't help that feel like that if I don't do this, I'm also going to be very lonely and I'm going to feel very socially isolated. So it does become a bit of a catch-22. and if, you know, for some reason, you don't have friends around you, you're feeling a little bit

socially isolated or alienated at the moment. The experience of like having a birthday pop up can really put those deeper emotions into perspective. I feel like a birthday is a great way to put a big shining spotlight on what you're feeling insecure about. Are you feeling insecure about not having enough friends? Are you feeling insecure about not making the most of your 20s? Are you feeling insecure about being behind? Are you feeling insecure about your looks or your age? A birthday is going to bring all of that to the surface. It's going to bring your loneliness, your dissatisfaction, your insecurity straight to the top of your mind. So I want to talk about how we can do this better. How can we have better birthdays? Now, as someone, as I said, who used to have these big

birthday parties and always end up feeling somewhat disappointed and let down, I have come to realize that I am not someone who wants to have a big all-out celebration, even if that's something that I really thought that I've wanted for the past, I don't know, 15 odd years. Like for my 21st, I remember doing three different kind of events. Like I did a birthday dinner with my family. I went away with some of my friends and I went to the pub for like, for my actual day of my birthday. And yeah, it was fun, but it was more stressed than it's worth. So my new thing is to choose some activity that I've really wanted to do and that I've put off for the past year and to do it, even if it means doing it solo. Now, for this year, it did happen to mean that I'm solo traveling and that's

something that I really wanted to do. But just before I recorded this episode, I went to the Tenement Museum in New York City. That is my favorite museum in the world. and I booked two back-to-back tours and I went solo and I felt completely content. Maybe for you, that involves going out and getting your nails done and getting a massage and putting the money you would have spent on a fancy dinner or a party into yourself. What is something that you really wanted to do this year that you haven't had the opportunity to do? Do that on your birthday. Maybe it's the zoo.

Maybe it's a karaoke night. that is how to make yourself feel less pressure to be happy and to have fun in the presence of others and to almost like have fun by yourself. I also do this thing every year and regardless of whether I'm doing a big thing or a small thing or a completely solo thing, I make sure that around the time of my birthday I take myself out on a date. Just me and my notebook and I will go out to a restaurant. Often I will literally not have anywhere in mind. I will take myself for a walk in a part of the city that I know will have places to go.

I will find a restaurant. I will get a table by myself. I will bring my journal and I will ask myself four questions. And I've done this every single birthday for the past five years. The questions are, what is the most important thing that I have learnt in the past year? What is the thing that I am most grateful for from the past year? what is the most important thing that I've done in the past year? And what is one thing that I really want to achieve in this next year or that I really want to experience or see?

And then I just let myself also do some general journaling. I just let myself spill out onto the page. That's obviously what I'm going to do tonight when I go get my little breakfast for dinner situation. And I use, actually, I should have said this. I have a specific journal that I only use for this. So it's like my birthday journal. And so I'll often read back on all of my other entries. Obviously now I have so many that I kind of, well, not that many, but enough that I kind of

forget what I've said and what I've been reflecting on. So it's actually a really beautiful, serene experience to really sink into the life that I was living when I was 23 and the life that I was living when I was 22 and the problems I was having when I was 18 and I feel like I'm right there with her and yet I'm also growing and I'm also experiencing a whole different life in some aspects of it. So that routine is really, really important to me. More generally, if you are dealing with birthday anxiety, my tip is just to do less and to be totally okay with doing some things alone and making it a little bit smaller. That is always going to lead to a more happy experience, in my opinion.

I also think that instead of feeling like you need to be silent around your fears of aging or your sense of loneliness when it comes to a birthday, whatever it is, please, like, talk about it with someone. Every single time I have brought up this specific feeling of stress and worry when it comes to my birthday, the person I've spoken to has said, yeah, me too. I completely get where you're coming from. I'm very lucky that my best friend's birthday is three days after mine, so I feel like we always share these parallel experiences.

And every year we kind of have the same conversation where we're like, oh my God, another year older, like freaking out together. But we also feel this real sense of parallelness and camaraderie. And we feel like it's quite a unique bond and experience to be going through a lot of these emotions and this process of aging together. The other thing I really like to reflect on and that I think might be useful is I reflect on all the people I know

who are five, ten years older than me. I think it's really important to have friends who are at different stages of their life than you. So I have friends who are 50. I have friends who are 35, I have friends who are 19 and it's really valuable to kind of get the lived experience and the opinions from them. and around the time of my birthday, I always think about a few of my friends who are exactly a decade

older than me. Specifically, my friend Alicia and my friend Lindsay, they at 35 are the most successful, hottest, poised, richest versions of themselves that I've ever seen. And they are also the happiest. And I remember as they were turning 30, I did talk to Alicia about this. I was 20. She was 30. I think I asked some naive question around like, how do you feel about turning 30? And she was like, I'm terrified. I'm absolutely terrified. Five years later, she's like, this is the age I want to be forever. I thought that 25 was amazing. I thought the 21 was amazing. 35 is the best. Like it's, you feel so confident. You feel so much like yourself. And she also said to me, you know, my birthday is not as important as the experiences that I'm having.

Like this is less mentally straining and less mentally exhausting and there's a lot less pressure on it the older I get. And I'm just able to have fun with it. I'm just able to prioritize what I want to do. And it shows. Like she just looks amazing and she has this like shine coming out of her soul that just says I'm present. I know who I am.

And I'm really deeply satisfied and happy. Whenever I feel scared about entering a new chapter in a new phase of my life, I look to people like her and I say, if they've done it, I can do it and look at how amazing it's turning out for them. And it brings me a great sense of peace. My two final, perhaps a little bit alternative tips for dealing with birthday anxiety is to actually celebrate your birthday a week afterwards so that you get over the like emotional hangover of your birthday and you feel like there's less expectations. It's just a more general celebration. And I also really hope that you engage in this mindset shift that I've been taking part in the last

few months, few years, which is to see my life as seasons rather than as just a bunch of years. And I've spoken about this on the podcast before. I found that life felt a lot more stressful when it felt like there was just this huge chunk of years in front of me with nothing really delineating them, nothing really setting them apart, and I was just going to speed right through them to the end. Instead, what I now see, and I think of my life as, is seasons of a TV show. And, you know, I'm still in season two. Like if every season lasts 10 years, and that's still a huge number of years, I'm still in season two. If every season last five years, I'm in season five, but I have perhaps another 15 seasons to go.

My math might not be right with that, but probably isn't. Yeah, but maybe if I live to 100, like it's better to see yourself as existing in these two, three, four, five-year periods where you're learning something new and you're experiencing a new part of your life. And every five years, you celebrate that milestone and you push yourself to move or to do something new instead of just thinking, okay, a year is gone,

a year is gone, a year is gone, really helps me put it into perspective. Don't feel like you're behind. Please, I promise you there is someone looking at your life wishing for it. Know that if you are experiencing a ton of loneliness at this point, you feel like there's no one to celebrate you. That's just this moment. There are amazing, great, fabulous relationships coming your way. And this experience of loneliness is an important one.

It's going to motivate you to reach out. It's going to motivate you to be connected. And I just hope this can be a more positive experience for you. I also want to thank you deeply, deeply, deeply for being with me for this past year from 24 to 25. I know I've gained so many new, loyal, wonderful listeners. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about my 20s in as much depth as I want. I feel like I gain so much more from this than you guys can even imagine. and this is like a personal diary for me.

And this episode specifically, you know, of course I have my journal exercise, but I'm thinking about 35-year-old Gemma or 45-year-old Gemma or 55-year-old Gemma who's going to listen to this episode and be like, wow, we were recording that in a hotel room in New York City. And we felt so much peace and being able to reflect on this moment. So thank you for giving me the opportunity to make that come true and bring the thoughts in my head alive in the form of this podcast, as always, if you have an episode suggestion, if you have further comments, questions, queries, thoughts about this episode and the topic of birthday anxiety in general, feel free to reach out to me at That Psychology Podcast on Instagram.

If you loved this episode, leave a comment, leave a five-star review. Make sure you're following along so that you get notified when we have more episodes coming out and coming your way. But until next time, stay safe. be kind, please be gentle to yourself, and we will talk very, very soon. On the Look Back at it podcast. 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me.

I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a year, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. 84 was a wild year. It was a wild year.

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Listen to 2%. That's TWA% on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this.

He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.