Challenged by a friend on Facebook to photograph something natural and post it everyday for a week turned into a beautiful journey.

Recently I was tagged on Facebook to complete a nature challenge and I was filled with dread. We all know the feeling –   one’s to do list already seems over-burdened  or the challenge seems simply not possible. It’s almost like the 21st century chain-letter – if you don’t forward to 20 people within an hour your life will implode, you will grow an extra nose and you certainly won’t ever attain riches beyond your wildest dreams.

OK so I over-exaggerate a little but this photo challenge involved posting daily for a week a photograph of nature and nominating one of your friends daily to accept the same gauntlet. I balked. And procrastinated and thought ‘But I live in a city’ and dreaded burdening other friends and and and…

Well, of course I did the ostrich thing for three days and eventually ventured out with the dog for her morning walk around our Moobaan, armed with my phone. I don’t usually take my phone as I believe the walk is more mindful without it. I focus on the bird sounds (the for-real bird, the one who squawks ‘for-real-for-real’) and try to allow my thoughts to drift across my mind like clouds in the blue sky. And all of that dippy hippy stuff.

It was a revelation: I discovered beautiful flowers hanging from trees, bushes or in potted plants. I absolutely love the frangipani flower which we all regularly see on the ground in Thailand and decorating our plates but this time I noticed some that hadn’t quite opened in the morning sun’s warmth. But the frangipani wasn’t the only one, because I realised that there are  many other spectacularly beautiful flowers if only one looks.

My friend’s housekeeper later told me that one bloom is collected by the locals to cook in oyster sauce, and that’s obviously what the stout old lady was doing one morning as her maid obediently following behind carrying  handfuls of these flowers.

I looked more closely at the bark of the trees the dog sniffs around every day. I noticed the different textures in the different grasses at our feet. I looked upwards and discovered papayas, pomegranates and bananas hanging off neighbour’s trees.

I am sure the security and gardeners wondered what that mad Farang was doing, one foot on the dog’s lead, kneeling down with her phone trying to get the perfect shot of a dead flower on the ground. To be honest I didn’t care because I was in that all important flow state where time flies by and nothing else matters other than what you are doing. Kids are naturally in this state and it is somehow conditioned out of us as we grow up but it is so therapeutic and extremely good for you.

But best of all I was totally mindful of my surroundings, seeing things I hadn’t noticed before and appreciating once again how very lucky we are to live in this vibrant, bustling, busy city of Bangkok. You just have to open your eyes and slow down to appreciate its nature and beauty and I realised then I can never have enough of frangipani.

So thank you for the challenge, and I hope those I nominated also found it to be a time of similar revelation and calm.

And another lesson…if I had allowed my initial reaction to this challenge to dominate I would never have experienced these revelations and therein lies another revelation: don’t judge, stay curious and open because there is so much more to life if you do.

Alex has lived the nomadic life of an expat for over a decad living in the Middle East, Istanbul, Germany and recently settling with her family in Thailand. She teaches yoga in Bangkok and when not on her yoga mat, waxes lyrical about her oversea adventures. Contactable via: masteryoga@elbolivng.com