From Alison: An epiphany in happiness and being present

Being present has always been one of my greatest challenges in the playroom, here's how I found a way to overcome this.
It's late in the afternoon and I am nearing the end of another playroom session with my son Jordan, we both love music and we have had a great time discussing at length the number of movements that there are in a piano concerto by Mozart - the answer to which is three. As we start the conversation again I find that my mind is starting to wander, I'm thinking about what I might like to eat for dinner, what jobs are left to be done in the house, how I might spend my evening. All these things in this moment seem to be more important than being present and giving Jordan my full attention - after all how hard is it to come up with the word 'three' at the point in the conversation where Jordan asks 'how many movements are there in a Mozart piano concerto'. But if you asked me to take a step back and choose; would I rather spend my time thinking about housework or loving and connecting with my son Jordan, it would be a no brainer - Jordan would get my attention every time. So why am I still thinking about the housework?

Recently, I have found that my approach to life contained lots of purposes like going in the playroom, designing fun games, connecting with my friends, but no real intentions as to where I wanted to go for myself. I decided to take on some intentions that Bears suggested: to make happiness my priority, to love, and to have a closer walk with God. Happiness exists in the moment that we are in right now. We can bring memories from the past into the present and make ourselves happy thinking about them or anticipate an event in the future by bringing that thought up now, but essentially being happy is about being in this moment and deciding to be happy.

So, having decided this, I am back in the playroom again having the same conversation about the Mozart piano concerto. But this time, I build from the conversation because I am present, by pretending to play the piano in a very fast and furious way. Jordan then joins me and we have a piano race to see who can play the fastest and loudest (entirely possible on an air piano). But even more cool, when we get out of the playroom Jordan wants to play a duet of the Mozart piano concerto on the real piano and it turns out he knows the whole concerto in his head and can sort of play it.

So, by making happiness my priority for myself in my life I am more present - How wonderful.