Episode 44: The Birthday Lie: What We’ve Gotten All Wrong About Celebrating Life with Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming
What if "happy birthday" could mean something more meaningful and impactful? Not the usual cake and presents, but something truly resonant and joyous.
In this deeply relatable episode, Dr. Katie chats with Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming (entrepreneur, artist, and author of "How to Have a Happy Birthday") for a thoughtful conversation about what it means to celebrate the day you were born.
After years of navigating birthdays that ranged from joyful to disappointing, Tamar began treating her birthday as a personal ritual, a day to intentionally reflect on her past year and celebrate the goodness in herself, her life, and the people she loves. The result? A practice that has brought more fulfillment, presence, and meaning into her life. It's something you can embrace too.
In this episode, you’ll find:
🎉 What it means to celebrate beyond the commercialized birthday practices
🎉 How external expectations and past experiences shape birthday narratives
🎉 Ways to reclaim your personal agency around celebration and self-worth
🎉 The value of pausing, reflecting, and designing moments that feel authentic
🎉 Why honoring your life isn’t selfish, it’s essential
Whether you LOVE to celebrate or avoid it at all costs, this episode is a gentle reminder that you get to create something truly meaningful, year after year!
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About Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming
Tamar Hurwitz-Fleming was born January 9, 1966, and grew up experiencing happy birthdays, disappointing birthdays, and downright terrible birthdays until she turned twenty and realized making her birthday happy was entirely up to her.
With each following year, Tamar started paying close attention to her energy as her birthday approached and how various factors—whether under her control or not—impacted her birthday experience. She noted those observations and put them to work in the following years, so that each January 9 thereafter she was able to successfully put herself at the center of her day and experience deep fulfillment.
She wrote this book to help people find deeper meaning and happiness on their birthdays too.
Tamar is an artist and award-winning environmental educator who has worked internationally and presented to more than 350,000 people, inspiring and motivating them to make positive behavior change on behalf of the greater good. She and her husband, Drew, live in San Francisco and enjoy spending time in Santa Fe and Barcelona, where she became a Spanish citizen thanks to a law that welcomed the return of Sephardic Jews whose ancestors were expelled during the Spanish Inquisition of 1492. She is a big fan of tiny dogs and her favorite birthday cake is strawberry Chantilly.