Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott,
Where every day in March I take you outside and together we listen to the wisdom of nature.
And today I'm sitting in the back garden of my mum's.
The snowdrops are really looking a bit bedraggled now,
They're going over,
But the daffodils are coming through.
It's a lovely garden actually,
Quite a large bit of grass,
There's a greenhouse,
There's an apple tree.
In front of me I can see some rosemary,
Which is bravely sporting some purple flowers.
And the fuchsia bush,
Which has looked rather straggly and brown all winter,
Is sprouting some fresh green foliage.
So yes,
Spring continues her march in March.
And do you remember yesterday,
I was feeling really quite flat and low.
It was a wild and windy day,
Very different from today,
Where there's blue sky and white clouds and sunshine.
And yesterday my mood mirrored the weather.
I was feeling unsettled,
I was thinking ahead to the pilgrimage that I'll be going on in the next week or so,
And I was worrying and thinking about all the things,
Like my husband is going to help me and it's a big ask for him and there's somebody looking after our elderly dog and that feels like a big ask and I'm going to miss my dog and all these last minute things that were agitating and unsettling and I felt agitated and unsettled.
And you know,
In the midst of that,
My sister phoned me up and talked about a walk that we were planning to do next week.
And it's been in the diary for a while and I'm quite keen to do these walks,
It helps build me up,
Build up the mileage for the mileage that I'll need to do when I'm walking my pilgrimage.
But yesterday,
It just felt too much and I just said to her,
Do you know what,
I'm just feeling out of sorts,
I feel unsettled,
I don't think I can take a whole day out of my life to do this walk,
I feel like I'm having to play catch up and get everything organised and I just can't even think about going on a long walk next week,
It's just going to be too much,
Too busy for me.
And she was very understanding and said,
Okay,
That's fine,
Well maybe we can do a shorter walk or we could do something else.
Then there was a part of me that knew that actually,
I was just unsettled.
I know this really well now,
We talked about it yesterday,
I know that when I'm unsettled,
The place to look is not in trying to fix all the agitated thinking and stories and anxieties that come to mind.
When I'm feeling unsettled,
The place to look is to that settled space of grounding within,
Which is exactly what I did yesterday.
It just so happens that today the weather is now mirroring my mood,
Which is,
I feel light,
I feel clear headed,
I have clarity and a sense of groundedness as I look into the future.
And now as I look at the walk with my sister next week,
It's like,
Well of course I can do it.
It's important for me to do,
It's a commitment to her,
It's good exercise for me,
It means I'm going to get fit for my pilgrimage,
Of course I need to do this walk.
So nothing has changed and yet my whole world looks completely different.
Yesterday in the midst of unsettled thoughts it all felt too much,
Today it feels absolutely right.
And the only thing that has changed is my thinking,
That's the only thing that has changed.
Yesterday in the midst of the stormy weather I brought my attention within and I felt the groundedness again.
And today,
With a clear head,
I look ahead and I can see things clearly.
It's just worth remembering that when we feel unsettled,
Our world looks unsettled.
When we feel settled,
We just make really good choices,
We're able to act in accordance with the way life is.
So if you feel unsettled,
Remember to allow those feelings to pass before you make any major decisions.
Look within,
Find that place of clarity and then from that place of clarity you'll be able to know what is the best way forward for you.
When you're in unsettled thinking it's really hard to make those rock solid decisions.
So your feelings don't let you know about the state of the world,
They let you know how you're seeing the world in the moment.
That's a distinctive difference.
When I feel unsettled it's because I'm in unsettled thinking and if I'm in unsettled thinking I see an unsettled world,
It's distorted.
When I feel clarity I'm seeing the world clearly,
I'm seeing the world as it is.
So just bear that in mind when you feel unsettled,
It's just your system letting you know that you're not seeing the world clearly in the moment and bring your attention within,
Find that place of calm within you and allow yourself to settle.
