Hello and welcome to five minutes in nature with me Liz Scott down beside the banks of the River Ex in Exeter.
This is a glorious morning,
Blue sky above me,
It's early morning and this is the first morning as I've walked along the river I've really noticed daylight.
I come and look after my mum every other week so probably every other week I'm noticing a gradual increase in the amount of light but today I really smiled I was walking in light all the time.
And I met a friend yesterday and I want to talk about overwhelm and she gave me such a helpful metaphor when it came to my overwhelm and I just thought I'd love to share it with you.
One of my habitual thought patterns that drags me down is the feeling of overwhelm.
What I've noticed with people I've worked with and my friends is that we all have habitual thought patterns,
You'll have something different to me,
Mine happens to be overwhelm or not feeling good enough and you'll probably have your own and they're all made of thought.
But one of the things that I realise is that overwhelm doesn't always appear in my life because I've got a lot of what I might call unpleasant activities so lots of chores or things I don't particularly want to do where I kind of think I'm feeling overwhelmed with it all.
Overwhelm can also occur and this is what I was talking to my friend about when I have got lots of things I really want to do and in my world at the moment I'm finishing off my book which I'm enjoying and I love writing.
I am going to the gym which I'm really enjoying and I'm enjoying building up my body slowly.
I want to do more walking and I want to do more writing and I want to do more audio courses for Insight Timer.
I want to see my friends more,
I want to do more reading and as you can tell there are lots of things I want to do which all of them are really lovely things but they all take a long time and also in the midst of that I like to have time for myself like having downtime is really important too as well as coaching and creating courses for new clients.
So there's so many things,
Lovely things that I want to do and just to let you know by the way as a reminder I'm on on the quay here in Exeter so you might hear runners going by or traffic or dog walkers.
So there's all these things I want to do and she said to me my friend it sounds as though you've got this most glorious buffet ahead of you and you're choosing what to put on your plate and I really love that because that sense of overwhelm of kind of so much I want to do and I haven't got time to do it all it kind of shifted and I first of all felt this extraordinary sense of gratitude and privilege that I've got this wonderful array of things that I want to do in my life and then I really enjoyed that idea of it as a buffet which is about if I go to a buffet which is full of all the most delicious foods that I love to eat I don't pile my plate high I pick and choose and eat slowly the temptation can be can't it just to put everything on the plate and then look at the plate and think oh my goodness I've got to get through all of this but actually when you just pick and choose what you want and then you spend time really tasting the flavors of what you've got on your plate and you do it slowly it's really clear when you become full and that's useful because just because the buffet is in front of you doesn't mean you've got to eat it all that's what I really got from that conversation so today's reflection is what am I going to put on my plate from the buffet that is in front of me I can't physically do everything I haven't got enough hours in the day to do everything so what is it that I'm going to choose how am I going to make those decisions and and I've got to realize that as I choose one thing it means something else will probably need to be put on hold because for me this isn't about rushing through life this is about savoring life and I want to savor all the things that are in front of me so today is just a little reflection on another way for me to look at overwhelm I don't know if that resonates for you in your life at all but maybe just look at it like a buffet if you've got lovely things that you want to do in your life but can't fit them all in what if it's a delicious buffet what if you've just got to pick and choose you don't need to pile your plate high how does it look like then it's been great to connect with you today and I look forward to joining you again tomorrow for another five minutes in nature
