Hello and welcome to five minutes in nature with me Liz Scott out and about on a rather cool evening on Dartmoor.
I'm huddling behind a gorse bush sheltering from a very cool southwesterly wind.
Just looking up left onto the hillside above me I can see two horse riders on a white and a brown horse coming down off the hillside.
They're chatting together so you might hear them as they go by and I can hear above my head the skylarks and I'm watching the sheep graze as the light,
Which is quite grey because of the grey cloudiness of the sky,
As the light begins to gently fade.
And I came across something recently that I really enjoyed as an idea and it really talks to what I see when it comes to unsettling thoughts and feelings.
It used to be in the past that if I came across something or I found myself embroiled in fear or frustration or unsettledness or limiting beliefs,
A sense that maybe I wasn't good enough or people didn't love me or I felt overwhelmed.
In the past I came across these sorts of feelings and it felt as though I just wasn't doing life right.
I kind of had an idea that life was meant to be a happy happy happy place all the time and if I wasn't feeling happy well I obviously wasn't doing life right.
And then when I came across across the inside out understanding,
Also known as the three principles.
Things shifted because I began to align myself with how life works.
As I align myself with how life works,
And basically as I see it,
Is that at my core in essence,
I am okay.
I am deeply okay.
In fact,
I am more than okay.
At my core in essence,
I am the life energy taking form as a human being.
So at my core and essence,
I am that energy.
I am not broken.
I am not damaged.
At that place and space,
I am resilient and resourceful and wise.
So I see that with the inside out understanding.
And I also understand that I'm human and I have thoughts and feelings that come through me and unsettling ones that seem to destabilize me.
And well,
That's just part of being human.
I can both have these unsettling thoughts and feelings and I can also deeply know that I'm okay.
And one of the ways to reflect on these thoughts and feelings is in seeing them,
And this is how it was described to me,
Is seeing them as allowing them in,
Not trying to fight them,
Not trying to close the door on them,
Trying to stop them coming into your life,
Rather than,
It's a better way to see that if they knock on the door,
You just let them in.
And the way that it was described to me recently is that you let them in the front door,
Make sure the back door is open so they can flow right on through,
And just don't invite them in for a cup of tea.
So when you have unsettling thoughts and feelings,
It's not about slamming the door,
It's not about chasing them away,
It's not about hiding,
It's not about putting up defenses.
Quite literally,
In this analogy,
You open the door,
You let them come into you,
You realize that they want to pass right through your house,
Your home,
They go out through the back door,
And all that you ensure that you don't do is you don't give them a cup of tea,
You don't feed them,
You don't dwell on them,
Don't analyze them or think or create more stories up about what they're telling you.
And that's what I really see can be so helpful for me in my world.
So today's reflection is that is when you come across unsettling thoughts and feelings,
Just let them in,
Let them in,
Let them do what they need to do.
Show them the back door is open.
Don't entertain them.
Don't try and engage with them.
Allow them to come in.
Through your life and out the back door.
And that is what it is to be human.
It's not about feeling happy all the time.
It's just being with the flow of life and allowing what is to be and not resisting it and not trying to fight the way life is.
Let me know your reflections on this.
Does this resonate for you?
Are you okay with allowing unsettling thoughts and feelings to come in through your front door of your human life?
And to allow them exit through the back door without entertaining them along the way.
I would love to know your reflections on this.
It's always good to hear from you.
And don't forget I'll be back again tomorrow with another five minutes in nature.
So please do join me again then.
