Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott.
Strolling down past the Ludbrook,
I've just crossed over it on Dartmoor and I'm now walking back down past the old golf course which will take me down a lane which leads into the village that I live in.
And I'm looking down onto the trees,
They're still clinging onto their leaves but they're going this golden yellowy orange and the leaves on some trees have fallen completely so all I can see is the skeleton and the branches and it's so good to be outside.
Honestly if I could give you one gift it would be to say get outside and breathe deeply and find something in the natural world even if you're in a city and it's a tree or a flower or a park go and be in the natural world.
It's what we're made of,
It's who we are,
We are part of it,
We're not separate from it and it does something to go out in nature.
But that's not what I want to talk about today.
Today is just some reflections on the research I've been doing.
If you've been following me you'll know that I've been going through a transition,
I'm 57 years old,
I'm exploring my next phase where I might put my energies,
Where I want to work,
Who I want to work with and in particular at the moment I'm exploring what it might be like to work with older women.
And I've been researching this by speaking to people who are older women and it's been quite an age range from young women who are quite young old women in their mid-40s to the oldest lady I've spoken to is 87.
So that's quite a range of age and it's been so interesting to talk to them,
Ask them similar questions or ask them to reflect on similar questions and then listen to their answers.
And I think one of the things that is coming clear to me is to encourage older women to stand and take up space in the world.
I find that it's so easy for me and for me as an older woman or just me as Liz and the culture I've been brought up and the beliefs I've taken on board and the way I am in the world,
It's so easy for me to take a sidestep or take a supporting role in life.
And yet what I'm seeing is something about taking up space and I don't mean that in a loud,
Aggressive,
Assertive way.
I just mean it that I feel my feet planted firmly in the ground and I bring my attention back to who I truly am and feel that sense of authenticity and then come from that space in the world and to the world.
So when I engage with people,
I can feel and notice maybe my habitual way of wanting to engage,
Which is to be deferential,
To apologize or to listen without speaking.
And I bring my awareness back to within me,
To that grounded space.
I imagine it like I've got roots,
Like the roots of a tree trunk going down into the ground through my feet into the earth and that I'm standing solid in the ground and then from that space I consider what action or what I want to say or how I want to contribute to a situation.
And I think one of the things I've realized is that there isn't any one way that women want to turn up in the world.
So for some women it might be that they feel very drawn to carry on their careers and contribute in a business way or in a managerial way or a supervisory way in what they're doing.
For other women it might be that they've had a lifetime of looking after others,
Maybe family caring and trying to work and juggle everything and for them as they move into this stage of their life,
They actually want to rest,
They want time for themselves.
Other women find expression through engaging with hobbies or activities or crafts or visiting places that they haven't been to before and just finding the real joy in being themselves and not having to be busy.
It doesn't matter what it looks like for you,
The thing I would love you to explore is bringing your awareness back to yourself,
Feeling your rock solidness in the world and then expressing yourself from that authentic place with your feet firmly grounded and rooted in the ground,
Rooted in the earth and then sharing and being whatever you are drawn to share or be in the world.
Let me know what that's like for you.
