Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott.
I take you daily out into nature to explore her wisdom and often I'm up on Dartmoor and today is no exception.
I'm here up on the moorland and the moorland is actually a vast expanse of open land.
It's a wonderful space to feel freedom.
There's few houses,
There's just livestock,
Ponies,
Cattle and sheep wandering around.
Often when I get up onto Dartmoor,
Right up onto Dartmoor,
Up to the hills which are called tours,
Up to the tours with these huge wide open vistas,
I feel this extraordinary sense of freedom.
Today I'm actually in what's quite unusual on Dartmoor.
I'm in an enclosed field so I needed to come through a gate to get into this field and there is a stream on one side of it and then there is a fence and a gate if I want to pass through the field to get to the other side.
Today as I reflect on this field which is enclosed and it's got boundaries,
I'm actually reflecting on this whole idea of boundaries in our life.
I'm actually quite reticent about using the term of boundaries when it comes to me setting boundaries in my life and let me explain why.
I am one that really feels the importance of checking in towards my inner compass,
That deeper intuitive wisdom.
That deeper intuitive wisdom connects us all.
We all have access to it.
For me as I look toward that deeper intuitive wisdom day to day,
Moment to moment,
I feel a guidance and a sense of what is right and what is not right in that moment.
So for me a boundary when I come from exploring my inner compass,
That intuitive wisdom,
A boundary is not something that is set in stone.
It might fluctuate from day to day.
So for example when I'm feeling tired and I'm feeling a bit crabby and not very communicative,
Well on that particular day as I look into my inner compass it might make a lot of sense to not socialise with people or to keep my distance from people that I love in case I say something that might be a bit unkind because I'm just tired and feeling a little bit crabby and restless.
So on that day I might have a boundary in place which feels important to give myself space.
But that's not every day so I don't want to make this conversation and reflection on boundaries a thing but more of a gentle reflection.
And as I was reflecting on it I was reminded of two people that I've worked with in the past.
Both of these people are extraordinary women,
Extraordinary women,
But they have very different ways of working.
One of them is really clear on what she can and can't do.
She's got a family,
Her family is really important to her,
She works part-time and she is really very good at understanding what her limitations are,
What she's able to agree to do and she's also really clear on what she can't do.
So when I ask this particular person,
Let's call her Annabelle,
When I ask Annabelle if she can help me with something,
If she says yes I know that she will be there,
She's rock solid,
She's reliable and if she says no I completely respect it.
I realise that she understands that she doesn't have capacity for that at the moment.
She has a real sense of her boundaries and I understand that when she says yes or when she says no she is really looking after herself.
There's another person that I've worked with in the past,
Let's call her Tiffany and Tiffany is like an enthusiastic puppy that just wants to say yes,
Yes,
Yes,
Yes,
Yes to everything.
So what's lovely about Tiffany is that she's super enthusiastic about projects and ideas and she loves to get involved and she's got lots and lots of ideas.
But the difference with working with Tiffany is that I find it really hard to know what her boundaries are.
So I'll ask her if she can help me with something and invariably she'll say yes and I'm never entirely sure whether she's able to help or not.
She's the sort of person that will say yes,
Yes,
I'll do that,
I'll do that next week and then when next week comes she has to phone me up to say I can't do it,
I've double booked,
I've triple booked,
I'm not able to do what I said I was able to do.
Today is all about you being clear on your boundaries.
It relates a little bit to what we were saying yesterday about saying yes and no.
What are your boundaries and are you clear on what you can and cannot do?
