Over the last week’s anticipation , preparation, and planning, it had been a fairly stressful time for me.

The days and nights running up to the wedding had found me being preoccupied with finalising my speech and making sure everything would go smoothly for the groom.

The night prior to the wedding day, had me lying awake in bed, going over and over my speech in my head in order to have it drummed in and ready for the big day.

Saturday arrived seeing both the ceremony and reception going like clockwork and the happy couple could not have wished for a better result, and neither could I. I didn’t forget, or lose the rings and my speech was well received and most importantly no one was offended! All was well.

Because I had nothing on my mind, I had an interesting insight – or at least I thought so!

I noticed that in this moment of having nothing to worry about, I had that sense I think we all get, of ‘thank goodness that is over’ and the unconscious sense that having survived that ordeal, we are somehow ‘home free’ for ever.

Now, I realise this is not a logical thought, and of course if we were asked – ‘do you believe nothing stressful will happen again?’ we would answer ‘of course not’, yet there was a moment for me where I felt this was the case.

Of course we know there will be more challenges – and lots of them. But here’s the thing. I knew it but didn’t process it that way.

How do I know this? Because I did, what I think we all do, I dismissed it.

I automatically went into a default and unconscious thought pattern of thinking ‘I’m free forever now’ which like most things in abundance, we rarely appreciate and usually squander. Time is one such thing.

The insight I got in that moment however was to the contrary. In that moment I suddenly thought that this was only a fleeting moment. That very soon something else would come up and this moment of calm serenity would soon be gone again.

This may sound negative and not insightful at all, but it served as totally the opposite.

It allowed me to almost compartmentalise this moment in time. To look at it as a brief moment to ‘just be’, to enjoy the space between ‘what had just been’ and what inevitably ‘would be’ and to enjoy it while it lasted. To be both conscious and aware of having the opportunity for a short holiday away from what the future would bring to once again engage my brain.

Whether it be anxiety about the future or worries about the past, our brains by their nature always seem to be in the past or the future and rarely in the present. We just do not have the capability to stay in the present for long.

We seem to bypass the present by running from the past straight into the future as we look for solutions to our current reality.

We are very rarely at rest, constantly mentally fatigued from all the ‘to-ing and fro-ing’ from past to present and back again.

It was at this awareness that I wanted to really take advantage of in this moment.

To really enjoy this fact that for a period of time I was free. I know all too well the constant barrage of thoughts that go round and round in my mind and the rare feeling of neurological peace!

It’s all too easy to become obsessed with keep pushing ourselves to both be and achieve more. And this is of course admirable. However in order to be a happier person, to be a more content person which is not something that comes naturally to me, or many of you I’m sure, taking time to ‘Just be’ is essential for our well being.

If any of you have ever studied art in school, you may have experienced an exercise called ‘drawing by negative space’. The idea is to draw the negative spaces only (the space between and around the objects you are focusing on). This exercise is to improve our concentration and to breakdown our preconceived notions of the objects we are drawing. We know a lot about objects themselves, however we most likely don’t know much about random spaces around the objects. Changing our preconception about the space between the objects will help you record more accurately what you are seeing in your drawing. Also by drawing the space around the objects, as a bi-product we create the objects themselves without actually drawing them.

Likewise if we change our preconceived ideas about events and what we call ‘reality’ but instead, take time to experience those moment’s in-between events, they just may give us an opportunity to realign ourselves in preparation for life’s next big, or small adventure.

Take time to ‘Just be’ – It’s free and yet invaluable.