Hello and welcome to five minutes in nature with me Liz Scott.
I'm walking very slowly down a lane that's going to take me home,
Slowly because it's quite dark now.
You can probably hear there's a stream beside me,
There are potholes in the in the lane and I've got enough light as the day is fading away to see the shininess of the puddles which I'm avoiding because I think the puddles might be potholes that might be much deeper than I'm aware of so I'm trying it's almost like I've got on island hopping on the the bits of the lane that are above water.
It's a very wet wet lane here and today's reflection is about nervousness,
It's about believing thinking and it's really got me thinking about a conversation I had today with somebody.
Earlier today I saw a friend,
Very briefly,
When I go out walking these days often I say I'm going out for a short walk and it is in distance a short walk but I end up bumping into people and chatting and it was one of those chatting walks so it wasn't very far but I took about an hour to walk a mile and I kind of like it when I've got time and I've got time to chat with people I really enjoy it.
And I bumped into a friend and she was explaining a bit of a troubling time that she's had with her family probably over the recent years but it sort of intensified in recent months and she's got grown-up children and she was just telling me how tricky it had been,
There'd been a family meal and it'd been quite a tricky encounter and words had been said and she was kind of teary and upset that members of the family were stuck in stories that were really unhelpful and painful and it meant that they were short or maybe didn't show much compassion or kindness in their communication with each other and with her.
So she was rather upset about this and I and I listened in to her and I sort of been reflecting on that for a while and then I bumped into a dog walker and this dog walker's got a little poodle she's probably two or three years old,
Sweet little thing,
That was me just going down a pothole there,
She's a sweet little thing and she's also quite a nervous dog and when I walk past him particularly when I'm near his home apparently she's fine when she's away from her home but near her home there's a lane I walk along and if I bump into him on this walk and he's walking his dog she barks she kind of I think she thinks it's still her territory this lane.
I'm really aware that some dogs just are nervy and what happens is they're not being aggressive they're just scared and their bark is not a form of aggression it's a form of saying just keep away from me and I know how to deal with it I just sort of crouch down I don't look at it I turn my back to the dog I put my hand out so if it wants to come up and sniff me it can and sure enough she did and she settled down and everything was fine but it just occurred to me that in the same way that she gets nervous and what she does when she's nervous she shows a form of aggression that's what we do as human beings and that's what I think was happening with the family of my friend is that when they felt nervous when they feel insecure they don't reach out with understanding and love and compassion they reach out with the equivalent of barking of getting people to steer clear to keep away from them to lash out first before they are maybe on the receiving end of some unkindness and it made me understand really the dynamic of what was going on and I just wondered gosh in the same way as I just kind of understood how to deal with that little dog it's there's no point shouting at it or telling it off she's just scared and actually if you allow her to realize you're not frightening and she can come to you then her fear dissipates and she can just be a dog and I wonder if that's a little bit like people really I know that maybe when I feel a bit nervous or I feel a little bit insecure about meeting somebody and I'm a bit scared I can put up a defense or I can be a bit distant or I can be a bit clever I can be a bit snappy and what I was curious about in all of this is what it what would it be like if we could just understand that there are times when people are aggressive or snappy or unkind when really they're just scared and they just need a bit of love and compassion I wonder what it would be like if we could meet those moments of aggression with a bit of compassion or we could meet those moments of nervousness with a little bit of compassion I wonder what it would be like then
