Live Life Fully

 

Live Life Fully. In honor of departed friends and family’s lives. I am almost 100% certain that that is what they would want for us. To LIVE. I write this on the one-year anniversary of my good friend, Autumn’s parting. And the 4-year anniversary of my friend, Christian’s parting. Both from stomach cancer. It’s an emotionally challenging day but after reading a message from Autumn’s dear mom yesterday, something stuck with me. Rather than getting caught in the whirlwind of painful and sad emotions and memories from this day, I want to honor my angel friends by living full out. That might mean something different for everyone but whatever living fully means to you, I recommend doing it. We have been given this incredible gift of life and part of that is learning to fully enjoy this gift and live life fully.

 

 “LLF” is what I wrote on my hand this morning before coming into work. I needed something to help me through the day, especially being surrounded by caring individuals all day but who had no idea what I experienced one year ago today. I was thinking and LLF can also stand for “Love Life Freely” and “Laugh, Love, Flow.” However you interpret it, LLF is a reminder to stay in the present moment, feel gratitude for this moment, and choose life.

 

 

So I dedicate this day and this post to my angel friends and to their families, friends & loved ones living fully in their honor.

 

Honoring Our Angels By Sprinkling More Life into our Days

On Day of the Dead or All Saint's Day, I have my loved ones in mind who are now angels. It's comforting in a way to imagine all my angels watching out for me. But I do miss their earthly presence. Their legacies of living life to the fullest live on though and their memory reminds me to have more fun. A few weeks ago, I wrote a letter to myself about this exact subject. It keeps coming up. I think as adults we sometimes get very "adulty" and forget that having fun is equally--if not more important than getting all the "adulty" things done in our lives. Here's my letter:

Dear Self,

Your job now is to focus on relaxation and sprinkling more fun into everyday. Life is much too precious to go day by day only working and not relaxing or having fun while doing so. Life is about adjusting the lens we use to look at what’s going on and responding differently as our awareness grows and we see the sheer beauty that is available to us if only we look for it. There are little things that we can do everyday to relax more and sprinkle more fun atop our day-to-day duties and activities and routines.

• Create a calendar of all the fun things you do

• Track your gratitude daily for the simple joys in life

• Schedule time every week just for you and dedicate some time to what delights you

• Slow down and breathe, savor the moment when you can, especially when you become aware that you’ve been holding your breath or running around not really living this beautiful life

• Step back to enjoy the view better and see the bigger picture for perspective
• Pace yourself, especially when busy

In sprinkling these seemingly simple yet fun activities into our lives on a daily or even bi-weekly basis, we honor our loved ones' lives by living our lives more fully and having fun while doing so.

(This is my fun costume from Halloween this year. I was a travel bug. :-) It was really hard not to have fun while wearing this!)