Hello and welcome to five minutes in nature with me Liz Scott.
Out and about in my village,
Walking in the dark with a torch and I'm just passing under some enormous fir trees,
Really big big evergreen trees and it's raining a little bit and it's been raining on and off all day.
Quite sort of cold actually in the air today and today's been a funny old day.
I dropped my husband off in hospital for a hip operation and it's all gone fine,
It's all great but I was really surprised because I came back from dropping him off and I felt this extraordinary exhaustion like drained beyond belief.
It was as if someone had,
I put it the way I describe it,
Like I've been hit over the head with a saucepan and I just couldn't understand it.
I'd slept quite well the night before and as I reflected on it during the day I realized that probably inadvertently even though I hadn't been actively worrying about my husband having this operation,
It had been playing on my mind.
He's been in a lot of pain with his hip and we've been literally counting down the days for him to receive this operation so when it actually started to get closer it felt like everything was on tenderhooks and there was a question mark a few days earlier this week about whether or not it was going to go ahead and he had to go and see the surgeon and have a conversation and he got the okay but if you can just imagine probably inadvertently I've been holding on to this knowing he's got this operation and just willing it to happen and so it's been quite interesting today to feel this exhaustion and then to go oh probably the reason I'm feeling so tired is that I hadn't realized how much I'd been almost holding my breath in my mind willing this operation to take place and not getting lost in any of the stories of how it might get cancelled or postponed or something might go wonky or wrong and so it was almost like oh there's no wonder I'm feeling tired I I hadn't realized it but I had been holding this emotionally for some time and it's related actually to what I want to talk about today and why I'm actually talking to you now in the cold damp of the darkness of an evening wandering around the village because I really hadn't wanted to go out I didn't want to go out today I've been I've been out for a couple of short walks but this evening I thought I just don't want to go out it's too cold it's wet lots of reasons crept into my mind and yet there was another part of me that really wanted the oxygen and I can feel it now I can just breathe in and just go oh thank goodness I came out and you see today is a bit of a reflection on inspiration coming from strange places I phoned up my mum and my mum is very elderly and as you probably know she's in the early stages of dementia she's quite elderly and not very able to walk not very mobile at all so she walks with a frame in the house and when I spoke to her she was asking about how the operation went with my husband and I said how is she and she said yes I'm okay and she explained that she'd been out walking around the house on three separate occasions that day so she takes her walker outdoors and she can do a full circuit of the house and it just gets her out and she feels like a real sense of accomplishment for doing it and I just thought to myself if my mum can go out I can go out and that's what drew me out into this night air so today is a little reflection that inspiration comes from unexpected places and there's something for me about remembering that I do know what's good for me I kind of knew it was good going to be good for me to get out and it's also worth remembering that inspiration isn't one way it's not like I'm waiting to be inspired by others I don't know how my actions inspire other people to it might be that I've done something inadvertently that somebody finds inspirational or they have an insight when they reflect on something I've done so today is just a reflection on that really inspiration comes from unexpected places it's about listening to what you really want not listening to the noise in your mind trying to convince you otherwise and it's also a realization that you too can be inspiring for other people never ever underestimate how you with what you do say how you turn up in the world never underestimate how that might inspire someone else
