My Happy Frame of Mind

Ah yes, here we are. A brand new year all fresh and squeaky clean.

It seems like the natural tendency of the human mind is to look back and take inventory. What did I accomplish in 2017? What did I not? It seems like it’s rather easy to get hung up on what we did not do… get… give… However, the thing about the past is that no matter how much time we take breaking it down and deciphering its meaning… we still can’t change it. Learn from it? Yes! So my intentions are to do just that. I will take stock, hope the lessons I needed to learn are still with me, and then I will let the past go and move forward.

I will connect with my aspirations for the new year. What do I hope to accomplish? What would I like to see improve or change in my life? But ultimately, my main intention is to live in the moment. To find joy. To laugh out loud as often as possible. To play.

After all, if I’m not having fun with the choices I’m making then, what exactly AM I doing?!

It wasn’t that long ago that I looked back at the past 3-4 years of my life and felt like I wasn’t truly living at all. I was merely going through the motions. Every month planning in my head that if THIS was the month I were to get pregnant… what would my baby’s due date be? How would I break the news to my husband? And so on. I would live two weeks until ovulation. And once that ‘task’ was complete then I would wait two weeks to see if my period would arrive. It would. Month after month. Year after year. And I was lost in this in between world of what was happening around me and what I wanted to be happening.

When I woke up from that daze, I realized that I truly had no interest in not being fully present for this life. The life that I DO have. So I made a conscious decision to make some adjustments. I’m not saying that I wanted things to change and ‘Voila’, they magically did. Nope. Unfortunately, it was not that easy. I AM saying that by making the conscious decision to be present and to find joy, that gave me a definitive guideline. Each time my mind would wonder down the dark path of the past, or the dream of the future, I would check in… is this fun? Is this making me happy? If the answer was no, I would redirect. What was I doing right now, in the moment… What was joyful about that?

And so I continued on with that daily plan in mind. Smile more. Laugh more. Play more.

This year I have a different purpose. Yet I will apply the same principles. What did I learn from 2017? I will take those lessons with me and move forward. What would I like to see happen in 2018? That allows me a road map. But, ultimately, day to day, in each task, appointment, routine… am I having fun? If the answer is no then, I will either find the joy in the moment or adjust what I am doing. If the answer is yes, then I’m on the right track.