Birthday Blog

I do enjoy having a birthday. It's such a wonderful excuse for spending time with friends and family, having coffee or lunch or walking by the sea. Not that I want you to think I don't do that anyway, but having an excuse to do so somehow makes us all feel a little less guilty about enjoying our lives. And yet we should not feel guilty about it. A fair-sized portion of our lives should be devoted to enjoyment, and particularly our own. We spend far too little time taking care of our inner wellbeing. We should spend at least half an hour each day in quiet contemplation under a tree or just in a comfortable chair, without any outside noise - no radio, TV, music. Just silence. It can be very soothing to listen to silence, to hear the breeze rustle through the branches, or hear a lizard scuttling in the dry leaves - and then to notice the silence in between. Notice your breathing, and then notice the gap between the in breath and the out breath. Allow your thoughts to become silent, discarding each new thought as it appears in your mind. Silence your mind and enjoy the stillness.

Take a break from living and just BE.