Hello and welcome to Happy Place. I'm Fern Cotton and today I'm sharing the very special

chat I had with Bjorn Nathiko Lindblad.

You know the next time you have a problem arising on your horizon, the next time you feel

like you're just about to get into an unnecessary conflict with somebody. Just whisper this mantra

three times internally and you'll see how your difficulties will evaporate like you

know do on a sunny morning. I may be wrong. I may be wrong. I may be wrong. Imagine a world

where a few more of us remember that mantra a bit more often.

In his mid-20 Swedish born Bjorn swapped his career as a business executive for a life

as a forest monk in Thailand's jungles. 17 years later he left becoming a meditation

teacher and public speaker. Nathiko is the name he was given while living as a monk.

It means one who grows in wisdom. That wisdom is something that really shines through in

his book. I may be wrong which I read and loved every single page. As you know I'm an avid reader.

But this book really really will stay with me forever. It's not only just laced with the

most incredible wisdom but it's also gentle and beautiful and eloquent and there's so much

storytelling in there. I think I've read it in two days. I literally could not put this

book down. So I spoke to Bjorn remotely in mid-December last year and at the time Bjorn

was really not very well at all. He was diagnosed with ALS which is a progressive nervous system

disease that he's had for some time and he was very open in this chat about being terminally

ill and also knowing that you everybody listening to this now would hear this episode after

he had died which was very moving in itself because he was open about it. He knew this

chat would go out after he had passed away and I found it very difficult to know how to

end the conversation knowing that I wouldn't speak to him again. And the way that Bjorn

...