“The quality or state of being conscious or aware of something.” That’s the Google definition of mindfulness. You probably noticed I haven’t posted anything in a long time. I actually had the idea for this post back in August, after I had my birthday party. I’ll tell you why and talk about the importance of mindfulness today.

To start off, those who know me know I’m not always the most “mindful”. Especially when I’m stressed and I want things to go a certain way. I tend to get picky and upset when people try to help, but don’t do things the exact way I like it. That’s rather unreasonable to ask for. Let me give you a bit of context.

So, it’s the morning of my party, and I’m trying to get things ready before people got to my place. I was prepping food and whatnot, but at this point I’m just annoyed by the number of people in the kitchen, as my cousins were there the night before and working on making food before they hit the road for town. I was generally just unhappy by the number of people in the kitchen moving around me. People also offered to help, but as I said before, I tend to be very “my way or the highway” which tends to prevent people from helping me. Ultimately, I was stressed out. I dipped into a bedroom and totally lost it (in relative silence to myself). My mom noticed and came in to talk to me, reminding me that it’s not a big deal and people aren’t going to be worried about everything being ready the minutes they got here. I

had been trying to get a salad ready in advance, as well as make buttercream for a cake. I was getting ready to decorate my cake, which I tend to take pride in, so feeling rushed while decorating also cause me to be grumpy and mean towards people just trying to see where they can help me out.

I decided I was good and the rest could be finished later on This is when my friends started showing up. I put on my best “I’m not grumpy let’s party” face and entertained.

Later in the evening towards dinner, I was working on prepping more things, and I had definitely chilled out a bit. I got toppings and salad ready before my parents kicked me out and did the rest. We went back into my camp when things were ready, I set up the table and everything was in order. While I was internally stressing, my friends were happy with the spread of food and were ready to eat. It made me realize that nobody really cared about the presentation, they just wanted to eat! I thanked my parents for getting everything together, and making it tasty.

Later in the evening when I saw how everyone was just enjoying being together and didn’t care about what my party looked like, I mellowed out a lot. I apologized to my boyfriend and parents for being so grumpy when they just wanted to help me out.

Mindfulness is important because it’s what keeps us aware of others. Life gets stressful, and if you’re anything like me, you get grumpy and mean when stressed. But, it’s not fair to others. we need to keep that in mind. Being mindful doesn’t just mean thinking about others, but keeping yourself in check to show that you do care. Next time you’re stressed about something that really isn’t all that important, thinking about how you’re treating people. And when you’re stressed about something like a test or a job, don’t let that get in the way of being kind.

I hope you enjoyed this post! I say this a lot, but I’m reallyyyyyy working on getting more out for you, especially now that summers over and I’ve fallen into more routine. Thanks!