When is the last time you were in a parade?\u00a0 Like actually in the parade itself?\u00a0 Marching down the street smiling and waving at the crowds along the route as you enjoy the music of the marching band\u2026<\/p>\n
For me it was today as I drove the homecoming royalty (which included my daughter)\u00a0in the back of my convertible down the parade route at the high school.\u00a0 As I slowly drove around the track I thought to myself \u201cLife needs to be more like a big parade!\u201d<\/p>\n
You see when you are in a parade like that it is impossible not to be totally present in the moment.\u00a0 Not just physically present, but mentally as well.\u00a0 You are focused on your surroundings, enjoying the view and smiling and taking in the faces of those around you.\u00a0 You are fully present in the moment to totally appreciate it in every aspect.<\/p>\n
So often in life we are physically present for things but our minds are racing a million other places and worrying about a million other things \u2013 we end up mentally somewhere completely different then our physical body is at any given moment.\u00a0 It\u2019s like we are constantly disconnected from ourselves.\u00a0 When we allow that to happen we literally miss the actual moments we are living in because we were mentally somewhere else.<\/p>\n
That is why I have decided we each need to live in our very own parade.\u00a0 We need to walk through each day as if it is our parade route, smiling and waving to those faces we pass by.\u00a0 We need to be present, both physically present and mentally present.\u00a0 We need to focus on each moment and appreciate each step along our own parade route.\u00a0 We need to hear the music of the marching band in the air and have that spring in our step as we walk along the route.\u00a0 We need to enjoy each segment of our life parade.\u00a0 Laugh.\u00a0 Smile.\u00a0 Wave to everyone (wrist, wrist, elbow, elbow \u2013 you gotta do the proper parade wave!).\u00a0 Skip along. Dance at times. March to the beat of the drum.\u00a0 Throw candy to the crowd.\u00a0 Make them happy.\u00a0 Be happy yourself.\u00a0 Don\u2019t worry about what\u2019s ahead in your parade route \u2013 know that it\u2019s just more excited people waiting for you to pass by them so there is no need to be concerned, just focus on what\u2019s around you in that moment!\u00a0 This is your BIG PARADE!\u00a0 ENJOY IT!<\/p>\n
Have a great weekend everyone!\u00a0 And go live in your parade!!!
\n~Amy <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When is the last time you were in a parade?\u00a0 Like actually in the parade itself?\u00a0 Marching down the street smiling and waving at the crowds along the route as you enjoy the music of the marching band\u2026 For me it was today as I drove the homecoming royalty (which included my daughter)\u00a0in the back […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[174,501,500,1327,449,2097,2086,2085,2083,89,2090,2096,2095,571,2089,7,55,180,1146,2064,464,181,64,2081,2082,2088,77,448,1521,2092,1031,349,2087,354,2091,2084,2094,81,275,2093,173],"class_list":["post-3797","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anxiety","tag-appreciate","tag-appreciation","tag-ashley-lewis","tag-be-happy","tag-beat","tag-big-parade","tag-convertible","tag-crowd","tag-dance","tag-disconnected","tag-drum","tag-drums","tag-focus","tag-focused","tag-future","tag-happiness","tag-happy","tag-high-school","tag-homecoming","tag-joy","tag-laugh","tag-life","tag-live-in-the-moment","tag-marching-band","tag-mentally-present","tag-moment","tag-music","tag-parade","tag-parade-route","tag-past","tag-peace","tag-physically-present","tag-present","tag-route","tag-royalty","tag-skip","tag-smile","tag-stress","tag-wave","tag-worry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3797","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3797"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3797\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3798,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3797\/revisions\/3798"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3797"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3797"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.amyreesanderson.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3797"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}