Happy New, Happy New, Happy New, Happy...

"Write it on your heart, that everyday is the best day of the year." Ralph Waldo Emerson

Few days have passed since the beginning of this new year, 2016! This year we are even going to enjoy one more day than we got used to in the previous 3 years! Can we get any luckier than that?!

It is true we do not decide when a new year starts. Someone did this way before we came to light, and so the calendar is set, at least for now. New year's eve and the first day of each new year are wonderful festive events all over this world, and it is a pleasure to be able to enjoy the food, moods and friendly company that go with this time of the year. Afterall, not all of us here on earth are so lucky to be able to enjoy these moments.

As this transition into the new year is a great opportunity to celebrate life and the community around is being festive with us, it is also an excellent time to practice gratitude, mindfulness and compassion. A bit less, perhaps, to practice self-regulation, even if most of us do realize how much food we eat, so there are so many sparkles of awareness all over our tables! What a great chance to practice awareness while our breathing and sitting practice are being made a bit more difficult by an overfilled belly!

And then, here it comes the day after. It is January 2nd (or January 7th, to tell the truth!). Ahead are more days of the new year already getting older, and not all of them are going to be festive. Routines do kick in. Perhaps they never left, as our 'end of the year' parties are, in fact, routines as well, and we know them rather well.

So, routines never left, but then again, there's nice ones, and there's boring ones, isn't it? As the last year, as the previous version of you (any trust issues unresolved with that guy/girl you left there?!), as the moment just before that new resolution (why do we even wait all the year to make them?), or just before that gong highlighting that a new time has just began. Where are they now, the excitement, the creativity, the happy confusion, the expectations, the good intentions, the curiosity and thrill, the festive mood?

Where are they? Now.

May each day of the year be that great opportunity to celebrate life, to practice mindfulness, to be grateful. To become a beginner. To be a beginner. To begin. To ring the bell of the new moment, the new you, the new breath. To be curious, and to be impressed by novelty in what you think you know. To see how beautiful it is to be able to recall what you know already. To be compassionate, and to listen to your body, to your mind, to your emotions, and to those of so many individuals around you, walking with you, eating with you, breathing with you, even when your eyes can't see them, and your ears can't hear their songs, or their screams. To honor your screams, and your laughs. To make peace, to practice peace, to live peace. To be who you are, even with your confusions about who this 'who you are' is at the end of the day (not even at the end of the new year, and sometimes even moment by moment!).

Happy new year! Happy new day! Happy new hour! Happy new moment! Happy new thought! Happy new emotion! Happy new breath! Happy new me! Happy new you! Happy known you! Happy unknown you! Over, and over, and over again, one at a time, none coming back, just right now, right here. This one. And this one. And this one again.

#mindfulness #decision