Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott.
Goodness me,
Yesterday was a wild day.
We do occasionally get these days,
I mean this year it has been occasionally,
Where the mist descends.
It's very grey up here on Dartmoor where I live.
The wind howls in from the Atlantic and with it comes a storm and we had rain aplenty yesterday,
So much rain.
And the day was dark,
You know,
Here we are in June,
It's the lightest time of the year,
The longest days,
And yet during the day we needed to put the lights on and I had lots of wet waterproof clothing that needed drying off so we even put the heating on for a little while just to dry some things off so I could,
When I went out for my next dog walk,
I had some clothes that weren't sopping wet.
And you know what happens like this,
The weather comes in and we have a blast and then today it's gone.
It's still a little bit overcast,
There's a coolness in the air but as I look over this fence from this lane that I'm walking up into a beautiful field meadow with long grasses swaying in the wind,
It's just a different day,
It's a different day.
You know that just reminds me sometimes,
Those days where it's wild windy weather.
I can have days where I feel flat or low or upset or unsettled or guilty or frustrated or angry,
You know,
Fill in the gap with whatever the adjective might be to describe how I feel and the next day,
Quite literally the next day,
I can feel differently.
It's gone,
I feel settled,
It's just like the weather,
Just like today where yesterday was a really dark,
Wet,
Damp day and today it's not.
And it can do the same with my feelings and emotions which is sometimes I get lost in unsettled thoughts and feelings and it feels uncomfortable in my life and I'm lost in a busy head of different thought loops and thought storms and then inexplicably,
Pretty much,
They disappear,
They move on.
The piece that I really want to share with you today or the question I want to ask you today is,
Well first of all,
Does that resonate for you?
Do you have moments in your life where things feel pretty awful and then they shift and the shift happens and you can't explain it,
There's not a reason for it,
It just shifts,
It's a bit like the weather,
It just shifts.
And for me the bit to reflect on today is that once the mood weatherstorm or the weatherstorm of your moods has passed,
Treat it like a new fresh day which is what I'm doing today,
It's like I'm out,
I'm walking,
I'm enjoying the outdoors.
Yesterday happened,
Of course it happened and there are consequences of the wind and the rain but actually today I don't have to focus on the wind and the rain,
It's gone.
For me it's about shifting into the day as it is now and it's the same when I feel unsettled,
When I find that unsettledness has moved on or that sadness or depression or frustration or whatever it might be,
I don't need to dwell on it anymore,
I don't need to ask questions about why I was feeling it and I shouldn't feel that anymore or whatever it is for me which is often berating myself or telling myself off for having negative or seemingly negative thoughts and feelings.
The most important thing is just to notice,
Notice the weather,
Dress appropriately,
Deal with it and once it's gone,
Enjoy and relish and flourish in a new day or we're talking about the weather of our moods,
Enjoy and flourish in a new mood,
In a new space.
Don't dwell,
Don't overthink,
Don't question,
Just step into the newness of the new day and enjoy what it has to offer.
So today's reflection is do you find yourself able to step on and step through and step beyond those troubled times or do you find yourself getting lost in thoughts and feelings and concerns about how you have been feeling and what you should have done differently?
Today the request is to step beyond that.
Once your unsettled feelings have gone and left you then just enjoy what it is to step beyond those unsettled feelings,
Don't overthink and just enjoy what it is to live in the moment each and every day.
You don't have to dwell on the past.
