Hello and welcome to January Reflections with me Liz Scott.
These nature-based guided reflections take different themes and today is all about resilience in the face of emotional storms.
Today we'll be reflecting on our emotions and the way that they pass.
However uncomfortable or upsetting they are,
It's comforting to know that our emotional state is not permanent.
In other words,
Whatever you're feeling,
It will not last.
So sit down comfortably in a chair with your feet on the floor and close your eyes.
Notice your feet on the ground and take your awareness to the tips of your toes and now bring your awareness up your legs.
Notice your knees and the pressure of your thighs on the chair.
Notice your abdomen moving in and out and in and out with your breath.
And then bring your awareness to your heart and allow yourself to feel the beat of your heart.
And then bring your awareness up your neck to your chin and then your nose and now up to the top of your head.
In a moment I'll ask you to breathe in deeply three times.
With each breath notice your muscles unclenching as you relax.
Each breath slows you down further and allows you to come to the here and now.
Now breathe in and out slowly three times.
Breathe in and breathe out.
Breathe in and breathe out.
Let's go out into nature.
Today you are out in the rain.
You are well dressed up and inside your coat you are dry and snug.
The rain is misty.
It is fine.
It's delicate.
It is gathering on the branches of the trees and falling as thick water droplets all around you.
You are walking along an ancient stony track.
Many feet over many generations for thousands of years have walked this same route.
And on either side of the track rise up gray granite walls.
There is a gate in the wall and you pause looking over the gate.
In front of you is a field that sweeps downhill to the valley below.
And as the hillside climbs up on the other side of the valley you can see a woodland.
It's January and the trees are brown and bare of leaves.
The misty rain is being blown across the valley.
It looks like smoke billowing through the air.
The woodland across the valley is sometimes shrouded and obscured by the rain and then sometimes the trees become visible again.
You are sheltered and dry in your coat and you can feel the dampness of the breeze against your face but you are warm and you are snug.
Beside you lies a broken tree branch.
You can see it snapped off the tree.
It is freshly fallen.
You know that it probably fell during last night's storm.
You remember listening to the howling wind and hearing the rain from your house.
The hood of your jacket is over your head and you can hear the drip,
Drip,
Drip of water as it patters down from the overhanging branches.
You know the rain is here to teach you and you breathe deeply listening to what she wants you to say.
As you breathe deeply,
You cast your awareness within and notice your emotions.
Notice your mood.
What is it right now?
How do you feel?
As you remember the storm of the night before,
You remember a time when you too felt such emotional intensity.
Bring that to mind,
The time in the past when you felt emotional intensity.
Allow that memory to fade and now bring to mind a time when like this misty rain that's right in front of you,
You felt the flatness of sadness.
Remember the time when you felt sad and flat and bring that time to mind.
Then allow that memory to fade.
Then you remember the warmth of the summer sunshine and with that memory,
You bring to mind a time when you felt light and free and unburdened.
You feel that within you and remember it and feel it soak throughout your body.
As you look out onto the rain,
You realize that emotions are like the weather.
Your emotions and feelings change.
They are changing constantly.
Sometimes your emotions feel uncomfortable and overpowering and on other days those emotions have cleared and you feel calm and settled.
The only constant with your emotions is that they are ever-changing just like the weather in this English landscape.
Your emotions like the weather are not personal.
They are impersonal.
They rise and they fall.
Sometimes you are happy and sometimes you are sad.
Sometimes you are angry and sometimes you are calm.
Sometimes you feel overwhelmed and sometimes you feel at peace.
The emotions come and go.
As you stand in this wet day and overlook the field,
You realize that when you are accepting of the rain,
It has no power over you.
The rain is wet.
The rain is cool on your face.
The rain obscures the landscape but ultimately the rain is just rain.
You know it will pass.
You know the rain is not telling you anything about yourself and as you watch it without judgment,
You feel a sense of grounding.
What if you could accept all your emotions in the same way that you are accepting the rain in this moment?
What would it be like to absolutely know in the depths of your soul that regardless of the weather of your emotions,
You are deeply,
Deeply okay?
Notice your resilient core,
The part of you that is not impacted by the weather.
Allow that feeling of resilience to wash over you and breathe it in.
It's time to thank the rain and the weather and to thank nature for her wisdom today.
It's time for you to come out of this guided reflection now.
So notice your feet on the floor and bring your attention to the sounds around you.
Open your eyes and wriggle your shoulders and stretch.
Today's reflection has been about realizing the impermanence of moods and feelings.
Like the weather,
Your moods come and go.
Today you've touched base with a constant sense of resilience,
Something that is with you all the time,
Regardless of the weather of your emotions.
If you've enjoyed being inspired by nature,
Then do join me this January for further nature-inspired reflections.
