Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott.
On quite a blowy old day,
It's grey,
There are spots and spits of rain as I walk up on my morning walk and I'm heading up onto Dartmoor.
You might hear the wind in the trees above me,
It's quite blowy.
It's quite a cool day for the middle of summer and as I'm walking up I'm reflecting on a friend of mine,
Let me call her Jill,
And Jill is going in for major surgery very soon,
Which means she's going to be out of action.
And I want to tell you a story about her when it comes to her accepting support.
And I'm hoping it will give you some reflections on maybe how you say thank you to people when they offer you support.
So Jill's major surgery is coming up,
She's got a young teenage boy and this young teenage boy is very active so needs lots of different lifts to take him to different activities after his school.
And Jill is a mum that loves just the duties of being a mum and supporting her son.
And so for her it's going to be quite a blow when she goes in for surgery and for several weeks is not going to be able to drive a car.
Now she's very generous herself and over the years has supported other youngsters.
And one of these youngsters on hearing the dilemma is now a young adult in her early 20s,
Let's call her Susie.
When Susie heard of Jill's dilemma,
Susie said,
Well why don't I come and stay for a few days when you come out of surgery and I can act as a lift taker,
A driver.
I can drive your young son around and just give a little bit of extra support whilst you're you're finding things difficult and you need to recover.
And Jill who inwardly was really delighted with this offer,
Because she told me she was,
Her response to Susie though was,
Only if you want to,
Only if you want to.
And as she was telling me the story,
As Jill was telling me the story of her interaction with Susie,
I realised something really strongly,
Which is there is a way to accept a gift and an offer of support.
And only if you want to is not a generous way of accepting something.
Only if you want to makes it sound as though the other person has this desperate desire to come down and to drive your son around and it's got nothing to do with them actually wanting to support you.
The offer was not about supporting the son,
The offer was about supporting Jill.
And I've noticed it as well when I've also supported this same friend.
I can sometimes go in and just offer her a bit of support and the response I sometimes get is,
You don't have to do this.
And I'm like,
Well,
I know I don't have to do this,
But I'm doing this because I want to do this for you.
I'm not doing this because I enjoy the task,
I'm doing this because I want to offer you some support.
And it really hit me how important it is if somebody does offer you support,
And it's something you want to accept,
Is that you say thank you.
If it's something that really feels helpful,
You go thank you.
That would really help me out.
Or thank you,
I wasn't sure how I was going to do that,
But what you're offering is going to be really supportive.
There is a way in accepting help and accepting offers of help.
There are ways of accepting help so the person offering it feels acknowledged and seen.
So my request to you today is that if somebody offers you help or support,
And it is something that you really would value,
Say thank you to that person and say thank you for what you're offering to do.
That would be really helpful,
Or words to that effect.
Don't diminish their offer.
Don't diminish an offer that was given from love and compassion and care.
So just make sure that when you say thank you,
You really are saying thank you.
