Have you ever wondered why it was important for you to stop and smell the roses?

I remember driving down the road and past these huge trees one day. It was at a time in my life when I was ultra busy – had four children under 7 years, so my time was divided between working and caring for my children. Well, it was like those trees were talking to me. They were saying, “Hayley, it’s time for you to come and lie down under us and look up and just admire creation and just be.”

I can’t tell you how tempting it was to pull the car straight over and do exactly that. But then again, I had children in the car and we were on our way home from the school pickup so it just wasn’t going to happen.

But what I learnt from that moment was that we sometimes need to just stop and smell the roses. Just stop and be.

When I pondered that thought deeper I realised that it is like a relationship. If you spend all your time together, the relationship becomes stale. Time apart is as good as time together. So it is with life. If we spend all our time doing and don’t balance it with just being, our doing becomes stale. It is in those moments of just being that we get the light bulb experiences. We need time to stop, to sit, to contemplate, to review.

So I would encourage you to take some time out regularly to just sit and be. Take the time to smell the roses. You will be amazed at how awesome that feels and what brilliant ideas will get whispered into your soul.