Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me,
Liz Scott,
And you join me on an evening walk.
I'm out in the evening.
It's nearly nine o'clock and it's still very light,
But it's very grey.
It's a dimpsy light.
We've had a mist here for most of the day,
So everything is damp and the leaves on the trees are really weighted down with the dampness of the mist,
So much so that they keep dripping down like plops of raindrop coming from the trees.
Even though it's not raining,
It's just that the leaves are so damp and wet.
And today I am reflecting on the power of pause.
The power of pausing.
What do I mean by that?
Well,
It really occurred to me,
Having had a conversation with a friend,
That there's a lot to be said from pressing pause,
Particularly when you feel as though you're on a bit of a self-righteous mission.
And my friend was telling me about a mutual friend who sometimes writes very long wordy messages or sends very long voice messages to her.
So let me just,
For the ease of explaining the story,
Explain what's going on.
So my friend,
Let's call her Jill,
Gets messages from Mary,
And Mary often will just go off on one,
As we'd say,
And send a very,
Very long message.
And then Mary will suddenly delete the message or apologise for the message,
Saying,
Oh,
I'm ever so sorry,
I just sent that without really thinking.
Now the impact on Jill is that she ends up,
Having read the message,
And feeling a little bit taken aback by what's being said.
And even though nine times out of ten it's followed up with an apology,
That Mary wishes she hadn't sent it,
Jill is still left in the experience of that message.
And it's so important,
I think,
To reflect on pressing pause,
Particularly when you feel that urge to say something.
You feel that self-righteousness bubble up inside you.
You want to tell someone they've got it wrong,
That you feel as though you need to tell them.
You've got that almost irritating thought,
Or a thought that's like an irritant,
That wants to be expressed.
And it's almost as though it's,
As I would call it,
It's almost a little bit like you then proceed with a bit of verbal vomit.
Yes,
Verbally,
You vomit out what you want to say,
Without really being mindful of how it's going to land with anybody else,
And whether or not that is a good message to send.
I mean,
I often,
When I feel a little bit self-righteous,
Maybe I've got an email that I'm bashing out,
Ready to send somebody because I think what they've said is wrong,
Or they need to be corrected on something.
I now know that when I feel like that,
Even though I'm in the midst of feeling absolutely right in what I'm saying in that moment,
Justified in what I'm saying,
I now know that those feelings of righteousness and justification are actually not telling me anything other than I am lost in my thinking,
And they are telling me to pause and to look within.
So,
When you feel those feelings,
Then you feel that impulse to communicate or to say something to someone,
My recommendation is that feeling,
That feeling that you desperately want to say something,
Is you use that feeling as a sign,
As a message,
To press the pause button.
For me,
When I've pressed that pause button,
And I've maybe shown the email I was about to send to my husband,
Or I sleep on it before pressing send,
Well,
Pretty much 100% of the time,
Actually,
When I do that,
I realise I'm so glad I didn't send that email.
It didn't come from the right place.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't communicate clearly with people,
And I'm definitely not saying that it's okay to take any kind of behaviour from anyone.
What I'm saying is notice where your actions come from,
And if they come from a place of anger,
Or they come from a place of annoyance,
Or they come from a place of irritation,
Then you are not coming from the right place to communicate whatever it is that needs to be communicated.
So,
When you feel like that,
You feel that urge to say something,
Press that pause button before you are compelled to communicate with someone else.
Press pause and just check that your communication is coming from a place of groundedness and love.
