addtext_com_mti0mjqymta4mtqyThe starting gun went off a year ago to plan a weekend of festivities for family and friends. Running this race toward parties, congratulatory recognition, and spurts of exhilarated happiness, occupied my existence. Since time ticks faster during happier moments, celebrations require presence and tapping into our senses to slow the wheel spinning too fast. Mindfulness matters at these junctures.

With reaching this day, great expectations fill the air, including my own. To miss precious, festive seconds implies the mind, ego, and cog of details remains stuck, clogging the emotions from emanating outward or inward. While numbing the challenges and pains associated with planning this large event, my heart pleads for an eventual rush of joy, love emanating from invited guests, family, and friends, and the exhilaration of accomplishment that primes this time.

When the event is over my psyche engages a new existence where anticipatory victory will instead contain a gnawing, pleading or wishing to return to the before and during phase of the festivities. The rules of post celebratory engagement often lead to reviewing photos taken, videos shot, and memories told. Yet I commit to living in the moment when celebration, happiness, and smiles arrive, and the seconds of brightness that linger long afterward.

Present mindfulness matters when living in these festive moments.