The Art of Doing Nothing
It’s been a busy few months for me, I mean really busy.
How has it been for you?
It seems as though one minute it was April, then I blinked and it’s now somehow July.
It seems that more and more of us are living life at a hundred miles an hour, very rarely stopping to pay attention to what’s going on around us.
Last weekend, that changed for me.
It was another gloriously sunny day and I found myself in the garden.
We have rabbits at home that during the day have the run of the garden.
They had done their usual running and jumping and come to rest next to my favourite chair in the sun.
They had obviously had enough of their high speed world and were having a well deserved break, I decided to join them.
As I sat there, feeling the warmth of the sun on my body and concentrating on nothing but watching the rabbits at my feet something amazing happened.
I started to feel the tension of the week literally dissolve from my body.
Once I noticed this, I smiled and studied the different markings and colours of the rabbits’ fur.
As I did this my mind quietened and all the busyness of my thoughts slowed down and I relaxed even more.
This made me curious, how much “nothingness” could I take and what effect would that have on my wellbeing?
So here’s my plan. I’m going to do an experiment “in real time” so that you can join in too.
We can master the “art of doing nothing” together.
Of course, we all know how to do nothing.
We all know how to lie around and waste time.
But many of us are too busy to do it much, and when we do it, our minds are often on other things.
We cannot relax and enjoy the nothingness.
Doing nothing can be a waste of time, or it can be an art form.
Let’s start really simply and I’ll give you the advanced techniques for doing nothing next week.
Ready?
All I want you to do this week is find a chair and some time and sit in it!
Seriously, that’s it. I want you to sit in a chair, with no distractions and do nothing.
I’m curious to know how long you last before you feel compelled to go and do something.
Keep practicing and let me know your best time and what you noticed.
Until next week.