The book says, “Breathe! You Are Alive.” And for once, I didn’t argue.
This morning, after feeding the kittens, I stepped barefoot into the back garden, coffee in hand, Kindle open to a quiet teaching.
The sun was already waiting—warming the stone steps, drying last night’s dew. A soft breeze moved through the grass, and Thich Nhat Hanh greeted me with the kind of invitation that sounds obvious until you actually try to live it:
“Breathe! You are alive.”
And just like that, resistance kicked in.
A voice inside me—tight, familiar, endlessly clever—rose up to protest:
“How will you get anything done?”
“That won’t help you get clients.”
“You can’t make a living just by breathing.”
There it was. The gospel of urgency. The work-ethic deity whispering its gospel in my left ear while a Zen monk pointed to the garden and said, “Just look.”
I felt the tug of both worlds: the one that wants to optimise—and the one that simply wants to be.
I let the resistance have its say. I didn’t fight it. I wrote it down in my journal like an old friend who only shows up when the kettle’s on. Then I settled back in and started listening—not to the book, but to the world.
And this is what I heard:
- My neighbour is hammering something just over the fence.
- A motorcycle splitting the air out front.
- The polo ground announcer echoing from one direction, football cheers from the other.
- An airplane overhead, moving like a thought trying to leave.
- Baby birds are chirping somewhere in the hedgerow.
- Bees tending to the raspberry bush without needing permission.
The moment didn’t become quiet.
But it did become clear.
Peace wasn’t the absence of noise.
It was the return to presence within it.
And beneath the hum of the world and the grumble of resistance, I felt something truer than productivity:
The sun warming my skin.
The breath returning on its own.
The simplicity of being alive without needing to earn it.
🛠 the gentle practice
When resistance shows up in your mind—when it says “You can’t live like this,” try this:
- Don’t argue.
- Don’t obey.
- Just notice.
- Write it down.
- Breathe.
- Then look around and name five things you can hear, see, or feel.
Let the noise remain. Let the world spin.
But remember you are not its engine. You’re its guest.
🌀 a prompt for the road
Where does your resistance to peace show up?
And what might happen if you didn’t try to overcome it…
but simply welcomed it as a visitor, then poured it some tea?
☕️ final thought
Peace won’t guarantee income.
Presence won’t solve your inbox.
But maybe those were never the right measures of a life.
You are here.
You are breathing.
And that, my friend, is already enough.
Walk slow.
Think gently.
Live well.
