Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott and you join me in a little village called Buckfastlea.
I've walked today from Totnes to Buckfastlea with my sister and a friend.
We are starting a long trail walk,
A 10-day walk that takes us around the county or the district in the county of Devon called the South Hamms.
It's called the South Hamms Way and it was really wonderful this morning waking up and feeling this excitement that I was going to start walking again.
Now you can probably hear that where I am at the moment I'm in a little park on the edge of a car park and beside me is a very busy A38.
It's a real major route through Devon and I'm pausing here before getting into the car.
It just wasn't quite convenient to do any recordings along the way but it's been beautiful.
We've been following the River Dart and we've gone through meadows and fields and along country lanes through woodland and just absolutely enjoyed the pace of walking which is something that really lights me up.
And it's actually got quite blowy now.
We're on the edge of a storm and I'm hoping that you can hear me beneath the the whooshing of the wind in the the branches of the tree above me.
And today is a reflection which I found so helpful.
My husband last night was talking to my friend who is coming on the walk and he does coaching and supports people with the inside out understanding and often we're asked what it is and how to try and explain it to people who don't know much about it.
And one of the things he said I thought that's really summed it up beautifully is he said I often work with people who spend a lot of time thinking about things that are never going to happen.
They spend a lot of time thinking about and trying to fix things that never actually happen and I thought that is such an interesting way of sharing what I see as well.
A lot of the time and a lot of my life used to be lost in the thoughts of what if,
Trying to project myself into the future and trying to think of things that may or may not happen and then try and fix them before they happened.
And actually engaging on this walking trail is a great example of how it's easier to live in a different frame of mind.
There are so many things I could think about on this trail.
For example I know that part of the path has been washed away in recent storms.
I know that we're going to have to cross over ferries across different rivers.
I kind of know that there are bits of it that we might need to do extra mileage in order to be able to access public transport.
There are lots of things along the way that may or may not go wrong.
I know that today has been a fairly simple easy walk and part of it is going to be along the coastline which is notoriously difficult and hilly and a hard work to walk along and there will be longer days with the mileage.
So there are so many things that I kind of know are coming our way but I absolutely know that getting lost in thoughts and worries and trying to work out how we're going to fix any of it is not helpful.
What I do know though is that at each stage we can settle down and we can look ahead and we can reflect on what might be the best course of action.
I don't need to sit here now and try and work out every permutation of what may or may not go right on this walk.
That doesn't make any sense to me.
What does make sense is I follow a map,
Is I've done some planning,
I've done some research,
I know there might be some hiccups along the way and a hundred percent I know that whatever we are faced with we will deal with in some way or another.
How do I know that?
I know that because wisdom has got my back.
Wisdom is always there in the moment.
When I get stuck wisdom and intuition is my guide.
So today is just a reminder that do you spend a lot of time thinking about things that are never going to happen?
Do you spend a lot of time thinking about things and trying to fix things that are never going to happen?
The joy of coming across the inside out understanding is realising something that most people miss.
Wisdom and intuition in the moment.
When you begin to realise and trust that and see it for yourself then it makes no sense to spend energy and time on concentrating and worrying and analysing and thinking about and contemplating a future that probably will never happen.
So I'd love your reflections on that today and tomorrow I hope you join me on the next stage of my walk with another five minutes in nature.
Don't forget to comment on what you think of today and I look forward to catching up with you again tomorrow.
