Celebration Isn’t Optional—It’s How We Grow
When I started my private practice, my closest friends and family through me a surprise business shower honouring my journey as a full-time therapist, pivoting from a fine arts and health promotion background. Emotions ran high, and there wasn't a single dry eye in sight. The overwhelming display of love and sisterhood completely redefined my understanding of which "milestones" truly deserve to be celebrated.
No matter if you're three weeks sober, in remission, have made significant progress in paying down debt, or challenging toxic relationship patterns, you deserve to be celebrated wherever you are in your journey...
Celebration Isn’t Optional—It’s How We Grow
When you skip celebrating your successes... you miss on these 4 growth opportunities.
When we skip celebrating our successes, big or small, we miss opportunities for growth—not just personally, but relationally and collectively. Celebration is more than marking a milestone; it’s a practice that anchors us in belonging, courage, receptivity, and integration.
1. Increasing Belonging
When we neglect to celebrate ourselves, we lose a chance to deepen meaningful connections. Rituals like birthdays, engagements, or even trusting your own journey and marking a milestone (i.e. new business launch, celebrating harvest season etc.) allow us to strengthen relationships, share joy, and weave tighter bonds. Celebration reminds us that we don’t grow in isolation—we grow in community.2. Reinforcing Courage
If we wait until we feel “worthy enough” to celebrate, we risk never feeling ready. When I was building my full-time private practice, my loved ones insisted on celebrating each milestone. Their message was clear: if we don’t honour the journey now, when will we? Celebration affirms our courage and reminds us of our capacity to keep going, even in uncertainty.3. Permission to Receive
Many of us long for acknowledgment and support, yet struggle to let it in. Celebrating ourselves models for others how to show up for us. It communicates our values and demonstrates that we believe in our own worth. Taking up space in this way isn’t selfish—it’s a form of leadership. When we grant ourselves permission to receive, we invite others to recognize their worth too.4. Integrating Growth
Without pause, we can slip into autopilot, endlessly chasing “what’s next.” Celebration interrupts this cycle. It creates space to reflect on where we’ve been, notice how far we’ve come, and align our next steps with what matters most. In ritual, joy, and reflection, we integrate our growth into who we are becoming.Somatic Therapy and the Celebration of the Body
In my private practice, celebration is woven into the therapeutic process. It takes tremendous courage to show up week after week to face intimate and difficult challenges. Honouring these moments is not an afterthought—it’s central to healing.Somatic therapy, at its core, is about building tolerance for experience—not just the difficult or painful, but the positive. Many of us are more familiar with bracing against discomfort than softening into joy. Celebration teaches the nervous system that it’s safe to expand, to feel pleasure, and to let good experiences land in the body. Each moment of joy integrated makes us more resilient, more alive, and more connected to our full humanity.
Much of the inspiration for this reflection comes from Priya Parker’s The Art of Gathering, a beautiful manual on creating intentional rituals that nurture collective growth. Celebration, after all, is not just about marking the past—it’s about shaping the future we long to live into.