Hello and welcome to five minutes in nature with me,
Liz Scott,
Still out and about strolling in Exeter on a lovely footpath.
Oh,
There's a lovely little butterfly that's just flitted by me as I'm talking to you.
And I can hear the occasional bird in the trees and the wind rustling through the leaves,
Which are thick and green and fully out now that it's summer.
And I'm following on from yesterday where I started to talk about negative thought loops and low mood and how not to trust your thinking when you're in a low mood.
You remember that we were talking about how psychological suffering is generated when we try and fix our thinking or we analyze it or we get stuck in it.
And today I want to talk about the other aspect which I find is so helpful.
And that is the space that exists beyond thought and thinking.
And for me,
This is probably the most important part of my way of navigating through the world.
And I attribute this to the three principles,
The inside-out understanding.
Because what I absolutely know,
Deeply know,
Is that when I'm in unsettled thought,
That takes me away from being in the present moment.
And the present moment for me is a space of nourishment,
Of wisdom,
A feeling of love.
A feeling of settledness.
When I am in the present moment,
When I am settled,
I deeply know that I am okay and I know that everybody else is okay.
And that feeling of okayness,
Of settledness,
Of love,
Of peace of mind,
Is not contingent on what is happening around me in my life.
That feeling is me falling out of thought and into the present moment.
When I talk about falling into that place beyond thought,
Below thought,
That still place,
That place of peace of mind,
Of wisdom,
Of love,
Well,
That for me is an experience of my true nature and it feels so settling and calm because when I'm lost in uncomfortable thoughts and feelings,
Those unsettling limiting beliefs,
When I get lost in those,
Well that's taking me away from my true nature.
My whole system is letting me know I am in an uncomfortable place and my uncomfortable feelings are letting me know not to trust what I'm seeing and thinking in that moment.
When I fall out of that,
When I fall back into that sense of who I truly am,
I see through the fear of the illusions of what the thoughts have been showing me and telling me about myself.
And what I do is I fall into the truth about myself.
When I'm on rock-solid ground,
I know I am okay.
I know that life is okay.
I know that I can navigate life with a sense of ease.
And I want you to be really clear that low moods and those unsettled thoughts,
Well,
They're all part of what it is to be human.
You don't need to get rid of them.
They will niggle you and nudge you inside,
But you don't have to believe them.
And at any one moment,
If you leave those thoughts alone,
You can fall back into the truth of who you are.
Over the last few days.
I live on the edge of Dartmoor and we've been quite literally living in a moorland mist.
Probably it's hung about for at least 48 hours.
And this is the same that happens,
I find,
With my moods,
Is that suddenly the mist lifted.
I didn't notice when it lifted.
I didn't particularly notice how it lifted.
I just noticed that I went and looked out the window and thought,
Oh,
The mist has gone.
It went with ease and without any trying on my behalf.
And for me,
That's such a great analogy of what happens when I'm in a low mood.
It's a bit like the mist.
It might hang around a little bit longer than I would particularly like,
But eventually it will go.
And if I just leave it alone,
It will go in its own time.
And I will return once more to that place of peace,
Love and wisdom.
Let me know your reflections on today's five minutes in nature.
This idea that we are at our core and heart,
Love,
Peace and wisdom.
And don't forget,
Of course,
To join me again tomorrow for another five minutes in nature.
I'm here every day.
