Hello and welcome to 5 Minutes in Nature with me,
Liz Scott.
And you join me on a really delightful evening walking through the outskirts of Exeter on a track that I usually walk along on my morning walk.
But it's really lovely just to get out and about in the evening in the same environment and just to witness how different things are.
It's so much busier with people walking along it at this time of day.
In the mornings it's quite early when I walk.
It's almost deserted apart from dog walkers.
And you'll probably hear people walk by me.
They're walking slightly faster than me.
I'm just sort of strolling along at a very slow pace.
And today is the seventh part of a conversation that we've been having about the three principles.
And if you remember over the last few days we've been exploring what the three principles are.
And in short and in essence the three principles are the principles of mind,
Consciousness and thought.
And I've explained my take on what these principles mean.
And today is a bit of a so what.
Because when I first came across these principles I found myself being incredibly curious about them but not really fully understanding what they were.
And I went on quite a long journey over several months listening to different people and going on different workshops just to try and understand what are these principles.
There's something here but I just can't understand them.
And I think my intellectual mind was the part of me that was trying to grasp them.
Today is about the so what.
Because if you were a little bit like me and you have been trying to understand these principles intellectually well you will probably find yourself thinking I don't get it.
What's the big deal about these principles?
What else is there?
Okay,
I've memorized them,
So what?
And I,
When I first came across them and I started sharing them in my training I would wait for groups to be amazed at these three principles that I was placing in front of them.
And without fail people would look back at me quite blankly because they're just words.
They're just words.
And the real experience of shift comes when you have these three principles integrate into your lives in a way that it is an understanding and it's experiential.
It's like put them to the test I suppose.
Many people start off with the principle of thought and one of the great things about the nature of thought is one is that when it's unsettled it tends to settle on its own.
You don't need to do anything to make it settle.
So that might be something for you just to put to the test.
See what you notice about that.
The other thing that's very helpful about thought is that when I feel unsettled my feelings let me know how my thinking is.
My feelings are really important.
They give me good information about the quality of my thinking in the moment.
The clarity of my mind in the moment.
And when I feel unsettled or insecure or upset or guilty or overwhelmed or unloved those feelings aren't telling me anything about me as a person.
They're just telling me about my thinking.
So put that to the test as well.
Just test out those feelings as they arise within you.
You don't have to act on anything.
Just observe and notice what's going on for you.
And I guess ultimately the key for me is looking deeply within.
And this has been something I have explored for myself.
So I share it with you and it might be it's not your way and that's fine.
It's just that we spend so much time in our culture looking to change our circumstances,
To change our thinking in order to have a better life.
And I've come to realize it just doesn't work like that.
There's no point me trying to change my circumstances and experiences or my thinking to have a better life.
That's not the starting point.
The starting point is to look within.
To look within to that deeper intuitive wisdom.
I call that wisdom mind.
To experience it and to look and to expect insights to arise.
And those insights arise and then thought interprets them and then I might take action based on my thinking and thoughts.
But the first step is always,
Always to look within.
So this has been a little bit of a whistle-stop tour of the three principles.
And if you want to learn more,
Just let me know and I can talk a bit more about them.
Or alternatively,
Why not just look at my course on Insight Timer called The Three Principles in Introduction.
I hope you've enjoyed this little exploration and conversation about the three principles over the past week.
