Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott.
On a rather grey May day,
The sky may be grey,
Just tiny little pockets of blue sky that I can see,
Lots and lots of cloud,
But all around me everything is still this vibrant green and there is still the whites of the cow parsley and the yellows of the dandelions and the haze of the bluebells that is still clinging on,
The celandines are bordering the edge of the lane,
It's got that wonderful feeling of freshness and spring all about it.
And today as I started my walk,
One of the messages that really came clear to me quite quickly was be kind to yourself,
Be kind to yourself.
I don't know about you,
But I do have the propensity to give myself a hard time and I'm going to give you just a tiny example,
It's not a massive example,
But sometimes it's these small chip,
Chip,
Chip away examples that can be very wearing if you find yourself falling into them in your life.
So it's a really simple example,
Last night when I was out walking the dog it suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't got hold of my friend for a week.
Now that's not in itself a big thing,
I know,
But she's actually been going through quite a lot of stuff in her life,
A bereavement,
She's moving house,
She's got some challenges with family and it's been a quite an intense time for her.
So I've just been sending her the odd message and just reflecting and sending her good vibrations and thoughts and loving thoughts on my walks and it just occurred to me last night,
I completely forgot to do that for a week,
Like life just seems to be taking over.
And the inclination when I don't notice what's going on is to really give myself a hard time.
It's the question,
For example,
Am I a good friend,
What have I done,
I don't deserve friends like this,
I don't know,
I mean I'm making some of this up,
But do you have the same thing happen for you and maybe you've forgotten to do something or you've neglected to do something and that judgmental voice comes in and starts telling you off and berating you for not being a very good person.
So the message for me today is be kind to yourself,
Be kind to myself and the way that it played out for me is that as soon as I realized I hadn't messaged her,
I got on my phone and sent her a little voice message to let her know that I was thinking of her and to suggest that if she wanted to we could maybe catch up for a cup of tea.
And I left it at that and I'm waiting to hear back from her now.
Maybe there's something that you've done,
You've made a mistake,
Maybe you've forgotten something,
Maybe you need to make amends,
Maybe you responded hastily to something and the words didn't come out as kindly as you would have liked.
Once the action has taken place,
Once you have done something,
Once you have realized your mistake,
It seems to me as though there is a choice and the choice is this,
Bring your attention within to that settled space and see what needs to be done.
Maybe it's an apology,
Maybe it's reaching out,
Maybe it's to stop doing something or to start doing something that you haven't done.
And without any further commentary in your mind,
You can do whatever needs to be done and move on with your life.
The alternative is that you give yourself a hard time and do the action as well.
You make amends but you give yourself a hard time.
As far as I can tell,
There is no nourishment or joy in the latter.
Giving yourself a hard time does not make things better.
So my request to you today,
As the thought came to me,
Is be kind to yourself.
Be kind to yourself.
