Hello and welcome to five minutes in nature with me Liz Scott.
I'm still in Exeter,
The sun is still shining and I am still having a little stroll out in the back garden at my mum's house.
I come up quite regularly to help support my mum,
She's quite elderly and needs additional support and between me and my brothers and sister we come and support her and stay over with her and just make sure she's looked after and fed and watered.
And today's reflection is about bringing our own essence and characteristics into the world.
If I look at my siblings,
We are all so very different.
We all had the same parents,
We all had a pretty similar upbringing,
And yet the characteristics of all of us are so very different.
And there is something to be enjoyed,
Admired and celebrated about the difference in the spirit,
Characteristics and essence of all of us.
I,
For example,
Know that I'm quite a quiet,
Introverted person.
I'm really happy with my own company.
I find that I enjoy walking and doing activities that have me be on my own.
I love socializing with friends on a one-to-one basis,
But I'm not so keen on going into parties.
I'm reflective.
I love to write.
I love to do these recordings here on Insight Timer.
You see,
That is me.
I'm sort of sensible.
I'm reliable.
I turn up and I do what I say I'm going to do.
That's a sort of a pen picture of me.
And there are other people in the world.
In fact,
I was talking to a friend yesterday and she was in a little bit of a pickle because she had just been on a retreat and the retreat,
She'd loved it.
She said it was the most beautiful retreat.
And,
But what she said is that was tricky is that she had a bit of a character clash with somebody on this retreat and she was getting in a real frustrated story in her head that she shouldn't be getting into this character clash and she shouldn't be berating someone,
She should be better than that.
She's done a retreat which was all about spirituality and here she was finding herself lost in a story of irritation at the behaviour of another person.
Now,
My friend is one of these passionate people.
She walks into a room and lights up that room.
She's got an energy about her,
Which I could only ever dream of having.
She's sparky.
She loves connecting.
She loves engaging with people.
She's brilliant at socializing.
She is naturally all of these things.
That's the way she's made.
And as we talked,
I realized that she thought she should be more like me,
More introverted,
More quiet,
More calm.
But that's not her.
And we had this conversation where I really wanted her to see that what she brought to the world was absolutely special and unique and brilliant.
And for her to be more her.
Now that doesn't mean that she goes around being angry with people or saying things to people that she's going to regret.
Because what I noticed is that her old way of being would have been to sort of roll up her sleeves figuratively and got into a bit of an argument with this person that she didn't really connect with on the retreat.
But she didn't do that.
What she did is she found a way of not saying something she was going to regret.
And then she found me and she vented her frustration with me,
Which meant that she didn't actually say anything to this person that would have come out of her mouth and would have been damaging and hurtful.
In a way,
She was responding in her way.
She was finding her path to resolve and find a way of connecting with this other person.
And her path is not my path.
And I really want to say this because I can fall into that trap of wishing I were different.
And I know that that's not where the power lies.
The power lies in me fully shining with the light that comes through me and illuminates the qualities that I offer to the world.
And that's what I want with you too.
Allow your light to shine through you and be unashamedly you.
That's what the world needs.
And only you can uniquely be you.
That's your job.
Let me know your reflections on this and don't forget to join me again tomorrow for another 5 minutes in nature.
