Hello and welcome to five minutes in nature with me Liz Scott.
Oh it's a bit chilly this evening up here on Dartmoor.
I'm actually sheltering in a thicket of gorse bushes.
These are thorny bushes and there's a very cold southwesterly wind and I've just got my back to it.
I've got some bushes behind me and I'm actually just admiring them.
They're very beautiful.
They've got these very green dark thorns on them and then peppered all over them are beautiful yellow gorse flowers.
They are absolutely a picture so it's really rather nice to be in the midst of them.
And today is a reflection on a conversation I had with my friend this morning.
She's more than a friend really,
She's a real wise woman and we probably connect maybe three or four times a year.
She doesn't live locally so we hop on a phone call and we always have a rich conversation hearing about each other's lives and hearing about each other's journey.
And one of the things I scribbled down on my notepad as I was listening to her and that's what I want to talk to you about today was a phrase which is wherever you are is wherever you're supposed to be.
Wherever you are is wherever you're supposed to be.
And I don't actually remember why I scribbled that down or I don't exactly remember what part of the conversation it was but as I walked this evening it came to me and this is what I wanted to share with you.
There is a temptation sometimes,
For me anyway I don't know about you,
Where I end up doing something or finding myself in a particular circumstance or having a particular experience which I don't want to be in.
Maybe it's somebody I'm meeting,
Maybe it's a work experience,
Maybe it's a social experience,
Maybe it's a life experience but I'm kind of like I this isn't what I signed up for this is not what I want.
And today's reflection is actually well if that's where you are that is where you're supposed to be.
The pain and the suffering is not in where you are.
The pain and the suffering is in where you think you should be instead of where you are.
The more you believe that where you are is not the right place and the more you wish for another place to be and the more you berate yourself for taking a wrong turn the more suffering.
Wherever you are is wherever you're meant to be.
Several years ago,
I'm 57 now,
Several years ago when I was in my 30s I tried to have children with my husband.
Probably over a course of 10 years we tried and tried and it soon became clear that we needed to engage with IVF treatment which we did and it wasn't successful.
And then we embarked on two years of an adoption process and we were right at the end of this adoption process and we're about to be matched up with a child and I just realized deeply it wasn't the right thing for me to do.
I knew in my heart that unless I had a big yes for adopting a child that it had to be a no because it was going to be such a commitment.
So in the end we didn't have children of our own,
We didn't adopt a child and in the end we actually got a dog and sadly our beautiful dog just died last year but he has been in a way something for me to nourish and be responsible for in a way that I would have loved to have had a child in my life.
And I know that if you had asked me in my 30s what I wanted more than anything I would have said I want a family,
Like that is really what I feel I want in my life.
I want a child,
I want to be a mother,
I want to experience what it is to have a family unit but it wasn't to be.
And I've come to terms with that over the years,
More than come to terms with it,
I realized that absolutely that was exactly the right thing to have happened to me.
How do I know that?
Well I know that because that is what happened because whatever happens is what's supposed to happen and wherever you are is wherever you are supposed to be.
The pain comes in wishing I was a mother,
The pain comes in wishing for a different outcome,
The pain comes in wishing my life were different than it actually is.
So today's message is just a reminder is wherever you find yourself in life that is exactly where you are supposed to be.
It might be you wish you weren't there but you are there,
Don't add to your suffering,
Allow it,
Be with it and realize you might not understand exactly why but it is exactly where you're supposed to be.
Join me again tomorrow for another five minutes in nature,
I look forward to speaking to you again then.
