Hello and welcome to five minutes in nature with me Liz Scott.
I'm just about to walk down to the river path and I can see that the path,
The river is so high at the moment,
We've had so much rain,
That the path is lapping with water and when I crossed the bridge and I was looking down towards this path I could see it was covered over with water and my initial thought was well I won't walk along by the river today,
I'll go along by the roads and I'll go a different route,
But as I've sort of kept looking at it and got closer and closer I've seen walkers and runners navigate around the wet patch and so I'm feeling yeah I can I can navigate around this,
I can find my way along the path and that's what I'm doing.
I'm just treading over lots of debris from bits of twigs and branches and you might be able to hear,
Well you can probably hear the weir in the background,
But you might be able to hear the lapping of the river as it goes over the path and there's a little raised area which I'm walking along and I can see probably as I'm walking in about 20 foot I can probably get back onto the path again.
So I'll keep talking and walking and hopefully get back on the path,
But today is all about actually the difference between having a goal where you doggedly take every step of this goal that you've planned and you're going to complete and the aspiration,
Having an aspiration that dynamically shifts and changes as you get closer towards it.
For me what I've learnt in my life is that it's much more helpful to have an aspiration and to turn up and see what life presents and then adapt rather than have a goal that I absolutely commit to and get to regardless of what happens in my life.
And this is such a great example,
You know,
Just coming up to a river path,
Not being sure whether to take it,
Knowing that I can give it a go,
Which I've done,
Knowing that if it doesn't work out I can go back.
It's not as though I said I have to walk along the river path a day regardless of what happens and in doing so I would just stride on without this sort of beautiful gift that we've all got which is dealing with what happens in the moment.
I remember once speaking to a head teacher,
I was coaching her and she was very proud that she said whenever I've got something important coming up,
Anything coming up,
She said I know the way it's going to work,
If it doesn't work that way I've got a plan A,
I've got a plan B,
I've got a plan C,
I've got a plan D and she was so proud that she worked all these things out in preparation for how she would respond.
I remember talking to her and thinking wow that sounds really exhausting and at the time it was before I'd come across the inside-out understanding or truly understood it even though I instinctively knew that the way that she dealt with life was going to be really tiring because the thing is we we don't know what's going to happen in the future,
We don't know how life will turn out and whilst we might have an aspiration,
Like I've got an aspiration to walk this path to exit a key alongside the river,
If things change then I can change,
I can change my plans and the bit that she hadn't realised,
Deeply realised for herself,
Is that she has got a gift,
You've got a gift and I've got a gift that we are able to respond in the moment and trust our wisdom and intuition.
You can probably hear I'm getting close to the road bridge now so I'll just pause.
We can trust our wisdom and intuition in the moment and that is a powerful powerful thing to know because it means you don't need to try and work out all of the scenarios that may or may not happen and how you might respond to them.
What it means is that you have an aspiration,
You're guided in a certain direction and then you know you'll be able to to turn up and manage whatever happens in the moment.
So today is just a reminder you don't have to plan everything to the last letter,
To the last bullet point,
You don't have to get a spreadsheet out to plan your life.
It's good to know your direction of travel and it's also good to know you can trust your intuitive wisdom to turn up in any moment and support you in taking the next step.
