Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott,
Out and about each day in March,
Experiencing nature's wisdom as I'm out and about.
And today I was listening to a message from my friend.
She's a really dear friend and she's so kind hearted and she's supporting one of her friends whose husband has just died.
And so yesterday she went to the funeral,
She was there early,
She was there in complete and utter support of her friend.
She helped field inquiries,
She helped people get to their seats,
She just supported them 100% of the time.
As she was relating in her voice message to me how it had gone,
I was just struck with her thoughtfulness and kindness and I felt a real sense of gratitude that she was my friend and I know that she would do the same for me if I needed support and help.
And I don't know about you but there are times when I listen to the news and I see the politics in the world and I see some of the sadness and the war and the poverty and the hunger and some of the distressing images and people that lead such unhappy lives.
Sometimes I see all of this and I feel helpless.
I just don't know what to do.
I feel as though I'm such a small unimportant part in this world.
What can I do?
But when I heard my friend today,
I realised something that was so helpful to me and what I realised is that I might not be able to influence the whole world but certainly I know that I want to create a little ecosystem around me of kindness and support.
It's about being with people that offer kindness and support.
It's about being that person myself where I offer kindness and support.
I can't influence the whole world but I can influence and create a nourishing group of friends and family members where we feel nourished and supported together.
I can do that.
And when I realised that,
When I realised that I have the capacity to do that and in fact I am doing that and with my friend this morning when she left the message I got right back to her and just said well done for the support you're giving to your friend who's a friend in need and I just felt such incredible love for the support that she was offering to a fellow human being.
And I really feel that I can do this and I'm hoping you might feel the same that we can do this is that we can create small pockets of love,
Compassion and caring with the people directly associated to us.
We don't need to go far,
We don't need to go wide,
We don't need to change the world,
We don't need to change even big communities or small communities.
We can just look at the people around us.
Be kind,
Be thoughtful,
Send a message to someone today who you care about and just thank them for who they are in the world.
If there's some small thing that you can do,
Maybe somebody's struggling with something or they're finding things difficult,
Just send them a little message and say I am thinking of you.
I feel really resourced just realising that these little pockets and nuggets of friendship groups and friends that really at the heart have the kindness and the love and the support of each other at the core of what they do,
I want to be part of that.
I might not be able to influence the whole world.
I might not be able to engender a sense of love and kindness and support across the whole of the world for 8 billion people,
I get it,
I can't do that,
But I can create a pocket of love and wellbeing around me and that is something I am committed to doing and that is something that brings me great joy and nourishment to know.
So the question for me to you is,
Can you do the same?
Can you be that source of love and compassion to a small group of people in your life?
Can you be the one that blows on the flame of that?
Let's do it together.
Let's create pockets and nuggets of kindness in the world and let us connect with those that we truly love and we truly want to support.
