The Wisdom Of The Restless Mind - April 04

Sometimes the mind stirs for a reason. In this gentle reflection, Liz invites us to see unsettled thinking not as something to fix, but as a quiet invitation to turn inward — where a deeper wisdom is always ready to guide us home.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to five minutes in nature with me Liz Scott as I slowly trudge my way home down a little gravel path beside a field which in the summertime is a beautiful wildflower meadow. At the moment there's a horse grazing and I know that this horse will be taken off the field at some point soon so the grasses can come through and I love this spot there's a bench here that's where I'm aiming for with you and I often come up here and just sit down and enjoy the beauty of this meadow. And today is a reflection on a conversation I had with a friend. We meet up regularly online for a conversation and she lives in America and we have these wonderful conversations. We both love coaching, We both love working with older women, We both love writing, We both love being creative in our own ways and she today said something and I responded in a way that I was quite surprised by because it just came out of my mouth without me really thinking about it and I wanted to share that with you and see what you make of it. I'll give you the context and then I'll say explain what I said and see see what your reflections are. So she was telling me that she wanted to start on a particular project with her business. She's self-employed and as she was telling me her frustrations she started to talk herself down saying she lacked self-esteem and she didn't understand why she wasn't getting on with things and couldn't understand her lack of motivation and she was kind of giving herself a hard time. I do that to myself sometimes but she was certainly doing that in this conversation and then she sort of turned to me and said what do you what do you think about this and because of my listening and as you know I'm a well-being listener and you can find out more about well-being listening here on Insight Timer with one of my courses but as a well-being listener I know that that is not an invitation when someone says what do you think it's not an invitation to give my opinion that's not what's going to be helpful in a conversation like this. Advice and opinions are not helpful and the other thing that I know deeply is that when I settle and reflect I can listen in to an intuitive wisdom and if I can find language to articulate what that wisdom is saying that can often be really helpful in a conversation when I'm listening to someone. And so when she said to me what do you think I reflected for a little while and this came out of my mouth it wasn't pre-formulated and it wasn't clever it was just what came out of my mouth. I said well you know in my experience there are two reasons I seem to come up against unsubtle thinking when it comes to something that I think I want to do. The first thing that happens is sometimes I come up against unsettled thinking and that's because I've got some unresolved limiting beliefs that need to be seen through so my unsettled thinking is just letting me know I've got some old habitual thought patterns that have reared up and are still present in my life. So that's one thing that unsettled thinking tells me. And then the second thing that unsettled thinking tells me is that it might be telling me that I'm actually about to head off in the wrong direction so it's a warning signal. So rather than a belief pattern or thought pattern that I'm up against unsettled thinking can just be a guidance system to say you don't want to go in this direction. So I said that's what comes to me and I don't know if either of those make sense to you. And she listened and was very quiet and said you know that that's really really helpful, Really helpful. And then as I was walking and I was reflecting on what I might share with you today I realized that actually there's an even simpler way of looking at unsettled thinking. Unsettled thinking is always a hundred percent of the time telling me only one thing and that I'm looking in the wrong direction for peace of mind. So those are my reflections today on unsettled thinking. It's potentially it might be telling you that you need to see through some old thought patterns. Potentially it might be telling you that you're about to take a step in the wrong direction. But actually a hundred percent of the time it's reminding you that you've just lost touch with who you truly are and it's a reminder to look back within. I'd love to know your reflections on this and what it means for you when you come across unsettled thinking and don't forget to join me again tomorrow for another five minutes in nature.

Reviews

Thank you Liz for your insights. In the yogic tradition these usually repetitive thoughts or stories are called Samskaras. Some are good but most are considered emotional baggage. I agree that it gives us an opportunity to look to our intuitive mind to question and reframe them and use them as a guide so we can move forward. Deep soul work easier days than done 😁🙏💙

I’m truly enjoying hearing your thoughts about unsettled thinking and I’m beginning to recognize it in my own mind. Your thoughts on this really resonate with me-it gives me a way to sort my way through to the other side. I want to listen to this another time or two and respond back again.
Thanks, Liz,
Calynne

Thanks Liz. This was a useful prompt to understanding my restless night of ruminating 🙏🕯

Unsettled thinking. Yes I do feel it is our internal guidance system sending us a message to pause.

Inwardly there could be trapped emotions or feelings that need to be resolved to bring peace and clarity so that you can choose the direction or path that is most aligned.

Journaling the feelings and truly listening to your intuition can be very beneficial.

Thank you Liz. ✌️❤️😌

I’m not going to lie… I have only recently in my life, started to understand this difference. When it happens to me now, I call it ‘stories’. Telling myself, “the ‘stories’ are just starting up.” When I recognize it happening - I try to let them play out without getting caught up in them.