Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me,
Liz Scott.
Yesterday we talked a little bit about insights and I want to continue this conversation because the power of an insight is so often overlooked in the world that we live in.
In schools we are taught to understand things with our intellect.
We build up a base of knowledge of things that we can remember and an insight is the opposite of that.
It's not coming from our intellectual thinking mind,
Our academic mind,
Our ability to think things through.
There's nothing wrong with thinking things through,
It's just that that's not where insights come from.
Insights come from a place within.
They are a shift in perception where you see something completely differently.
Whilst it would be lovely to be able to flick a switch and have insights on demand,
They don't work like that.
Do you remember yesterday I was telling you about the bird feeders?
I put the bird feeders out thinking the birds will come and they haven't come.
I might create the best possible place for insights to emerge,
Creating a place of calmness,
Of clarity,
Of settled thought but that doesn't guarantee an insight.
And I just want to take it forward a little bit further so you get a sense of insights and and what they are and I'll tell you this story of a chap in the village I bumped into today.
He's an older man who's got a dog and he takes his dog out walking and he knows that my husband likes the same football team as he does.
But the thing with this man is the neighbour is that he gets mightily depressed when the local football team doesn't do very well and at the moment that's happening quite a lot.
So when I saw him today he wanted to stop and talk so I stopped and talked and he said oh I bet I bet your husband's really really depressed at the moment.
And he was so super serious with what he was saying I needed to clarify that he was talking about football and not something else because he looked really serious and low and down and I said what do you mean about the football?
And he said well yes of course the football.
And he went on to explain that he was just depressed at the way they were playing and he was reading all these online comments and everybody had different ideas and he couldn't think through an answer himself.
He didn't know what the solution was and the more he was thinking about it the more bogged down he was becoming and just feeling really flat and low about his football team.
For him it was everything.
So that is a really great example of somebody completely and utterly lost in thought and trying to solve their thought or their story about depression through more thinking and it doesn't work like that.
You see what would be more helpful is that this man had an insight around thought and thinking and my husband has had an insight around thought and thinking and so whilst he supports the same football team and whilst he would love this football team to do well and to win he doesn't get lost down a rabbit hole of thinking and thought and depression when the football team doesn't do well.
Why doesn't he do that?
Because he has had an insight about thought and one of the things he knows deeply knows about thought not that it's a good idea like not that he's learned this as a technique but he's seen it absolutely for himself.
My husband realizes that when he invests time and energy in thinking and layering up thinking upon thinking upon thinking he feels really rubbish and he doesn't want to feel rubbish.
So he understands that the pathway to a settled mind is not through more thinking.
So he rather than puts time and energy into thinking things through more and more my husband realizes that peace of mind is present all the time and regardless of what he thinks his team are going to do whatever his team does he really deeply understands that.
With the understanding of the three principles or the inside out understanding one of the things we share is that there is no answer in trying to solve a story with more thinking.
So my request to you is that you experiment with this when you invest time and energy in thought and thinking how do you feel when you bring your awareness back to that settled place within you?
What do you notice?
Don't learn this as a technique see the nature of thought for yourself and as you see it see if an insight occurs for you.
I'd love to know if you do have an insight about thought or whether you have any insights because insights are where true learning occurs.
