How frantic do you feel? Do you have this sense of too much to do and never being able to quite get on top of everything? It’s October now, where has this year gone? Here we are hurtling towards the C word, via the B word (maybe) then suddenly another year is over, we are a year older and what do you recall of the last year? What are the stand out moments, were there any? Does life feel like a giant hamster wheel?
We can feel very discontented about our lives and relationships, we are fed images constantly of what life ‘should’ look and feel like, how we should/could be. We are assaulted by claims for our attention, email, text, WhatsApp, phone calls, meetings it is exhausting.
We can start to look outside to find the elusive thing that will make it all ok. If only we had a certain car, house, waist size, hair colour or work. We comfort ourselves by spending, binge watching TV, eating too much. It’s a type of self hypnosis, it soothes us in the very short term but doesn’t last. What is to be done to slow everything down and also being truly soothing.
The answers lie inside us and it starts with a moment by moment awareness of now. It’s being alive to all of your senses, that moment when you smell the rain, or see a smile or hear the birds singing. You pause for a second and are quiet, it’s a beautiful moment like a pearl found in an oyster. A stranger offering you a hand, that first mouthful of coffee or te, newly baked bread. More pearls, the warmth of the sun, greeting your beloved, the smell of dinner, sinking into a comfortable bed. More pearls.
At the end of the day reflect on all these little starbursts of sensation, where your heart lifted and you paused and the world stopped for a moment, a string of pearls. Some days the string is longer than others, but I guarantee there will always be some.
You then start to recognise that smooth, tranquil peaceful state lies inside yourself, like a steady candle flame. It’s always there just ready to be recognised, you carry it with you always. 
It can be like a touchstone in the middle of a frantic day, just pause for a second and feel that awareness and peace of now. Another pearl. I guarantee that life will slow down and you will feel more peaceful and alive to everything around you.