Hello and welcome to five minutes in nature with me Liz Scott.
I'm in Exeter and I'm helping out at my mum's.
I'm sitting in her back garden on a concrete step looking over a bleached yellow lawn so dry here in Exeter and there's very little really that is a deep green other than the rosemary,
The leaves on the apple tree and a few apples that have fallen prematurely to the ground.
But it's sort of,
They're like green polka dots on the yellow,
Yellow grass.
And today I just want to talk about something that's so helpful to know.
And it's helpful to know that when you or I are in unsettled thinking,
Then we're seeing a distorted view of the world.
And it's so good to understand this and I'm going to give you a couple of examples just to illustrate this.
When I get into,
I call it red thinking,
So I call my unsettled thinking,
Whatever.
It is,
Whether it's guilt,
Or overwhelm,
Or frustration,
Or anger,
Or overtiredness,
Any unsettled thinking.
My shorthand is,
It's red thinking.
And when I'm settled,
I call that green thinking.
So when I'm in red thinking,
In that unsettled thinking,
I see the world differently.
And one of the things that's so helpful to realize is that when you're in red thinking,
The way you interpret the world is flawed.
And a really good example for me was recently I got an email and it was from somebody who was suggesting that I,
Along with some other people who are supporting some community work,
Might like to organize an event for him.
And I read this email.
And I felt this indignation arise within me.
How dare he think I'm going to organize an event for him,
Where he's obviously thinking he wants me to do it for free,
And why would I do that?
And I'm volunteering everywhere at the moment,
And I'm tired.
And how dare he ask?
I don't know if you recognize that sort of conversation that I had in my head,
Whether that's similar for you too.
But it kind of just agitated within me,
Like I'd stirred an ant's nest and all the ants were running around.
My thoughts were like that.
And that's what I call red thinking.
And one of the things I deeply know about red thinking is not to trust what I'm thinking in that moment,
Not to trust the way that I'm interpreting the world in that moment.
And from that,
I know just to allow my thoughts to settle and respond from that place.
So I didn't answer anything.
I just waited.
And then I answered from a settled place,
Asking some neutral questions about what this was actually going to mean.
So rather than going into victim mode or martyr mode,
I just kind of came to neutral and asked some questions.
It's a much healthier place to respond from.
Eventually he got back and he just said,
Well,
Do you know what?
Great questions.
And I just flashed an idea in the moment and I haven't really thought it through.
And he said he was going to go and think about it a little bit more.
So I was so glad I didn't get on my high horse and berate him for asking the question.
And then another little example,
Because when you understand when you're in red thinking and you understand it's not a good place to trust the world from.
It means you can take action,
A bit like I did with that email.
And a friend of mine explained what happened the other day.
He was trying to pick up a prescription from the pharmacy and the pharmacy was being They were blocking him,
And it was a very frustrating thing.
He was caring for somebody.
They'd said something was ready.
It wasn't ready.
He'd been down two or three times before.
And he kind of just lost it.
He lost it with the pharmacist.
And the pharmacist,
In turn,
Lost it with him.
So they were having a shouting match in the pharmacy,
Each of them angry,
Each of them in their ego.
And then my friend just said,
Oh,
He said,
I just realized I was in red thinking.
And he said,
I just put my hand out and said,
Can you shake my hand?
Can we just start again?
I'm really sorry about the way I'm responding.
And the pharmacist shook his hand and they had this incredibly helpful conversation for both of them that resulted in my friend finding a way forward with the prescription that wasn't ready to be picked up.
Can you see that understanding red thinking is so helpful?
So today is just a reminder about unsettled thinking.
It's like when you're in unsettled thinking,
Don't trust the world you're seeing.
If you come up against somebody else who's in red thinking and you're in red thinking,
Well,
You are really up for fisticuffs and conflict unless one of you realizes what is going on and is able to step down.
Let me know your reflections on red thinking.
Does it ring a bell for you?
And of course,
Don't forget,
To join me again tomorrow for another Five Minutes in Nature.
