Feel the joy!

I love celebrations. And I've just experienced so many of them: Last week I helped my fiance celebrate a significant birthday, and I celebrated my only niece's lovely wedding. On the day she was married, my youngest son turned 39 and his youngest child (the grandchild I saw being born a year ago!) turned one. I had been in Phoenix a couple weeks earlier to celebrate both those birthdays, knowing his family was unable to attend the wedding. The day after the wedding we had another family birthday: one of my wonderful daughters-in-law.

What fun all these family times are! These occasions are good times to focus on the gratitude I feel for the special people in my life. They are times to savor and enjoy each relationship and every occasion we get to spend together (even when they bunch up as they did last week!).  And they surely are times to tell those I love just how much they do mean to me.

It's all too easy to move through our all-too-busy lives without stopping to feel the gratitude, to savor the relationships and the times together, and to speak our love. Sometimes it's as though we are sleepwalking through life just trying to keep moving and get it all done. Maybe it's time to smell the roses, to live awake and aware.

Today: Take time to breathe deeply. Focus on the gratitude. Celebrate the big events—and the small ones. Feel the joy!