What Are Your Feelings Really Telling You? - July 25

In today's 5 Minutes in Nature, Liz continues her exploration of the principle of Thought. She reflects on how our feelings aren't a measure of what's happening in the outside world—they're a reflection of the thinking and mood we're experiencing in the moment. As we begin to recognise the power of thought to shape our perception, we gain the wisdom to see which thoughts are worth listening to and which can simply be allowed to pass.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me, Liz Scott, On a wonderful lazy day on my holidays in Scotland where the sun is shining. It's a beautiful temperature, Quite cool but warm at the same time. It's a summer's day and I'm just sitting in the park where I was yesterday, Just continuing this conversation about thought. And if you remember yesterday, I was challenging this idea that situations can make you feel a certain way. And today I want to talk more about thought because thought is the medium that has us interpret situations. So it's not an event that makes me feel a certain way. I used the dirty coffee cup example yesterday. My husband leaves the dirty coffee cup in the kitchen. On one day, I feel unloved and uncared for and I wonder if our marriage has come to an end. And on another day, I just see a dirty coffee cup and I put it in the dishwasher. Thought is the interpreter of the situation and it's really helpful to understand this. We don't see something as it is. We are seeing the world through the interpretation of thought and thinking and mood in the moment. It's a wonderful thing, Thought. It's not the baddie at all. But it is the only way in which we get to experience being human. So even as I sit in this park and I look at the tree in front of me, I'm not actually seeing a tree. Bear with me here, It sounds a bit wild, I know, But just bear with me. I'm not seeing exactly what's there. I'm seeing an interpretation which has come through my senses, Through my eyes, Through my brain, Which has generated an image which is created through thought. Interpretation of the world that is out there through thought and that is the same with the physical world and it's the same with my emotional world too. Thought is the medium through which I experience being human and that is just really useful to know and the reason it's useful to know is that it means that I no longer believe everything I see or experience to be true because I know that that it's coming through the medium of thought. So a dirty coffee cup, For example, That might make it look like it makes me feel annoyed or angry, When I feel those feelings of frustration or anger, Or I feel unloved, I know to distrust what I'm seeing in the moment. Because the beauty with the mechanism of thought is it comes with a dashboard, And the dashboard is our emotions. So when I feel an unsettled emotion, It doesn't matter whether it's anger, Frustration, Guilt, Regret, Insecurity, Whatever that unsettled emotion, It comes as an interpreter of the way that I'm actually emotionally seeing the world in that moment. If I'm feeling unsettled, I'm seeing an unsettled world. If I'm feeling frustrated, I'm seeing a world that is frustrating. It isn't the situation out there that makes me feel a certain way, It is the feeling that I'm in, The mood that I'm in, That has me see the world in a certain way. And that's a big game changer, Well it has been for me. Now, You know with this, I'm not asking you to believe anything. I'm asking you to be curious and to see what is true for you. So today, I want you to be curious about what your emotions are telling you, Not about the way the world is, But the way that you are seeing the world through thought. A really quick example, If somebody comes to me and they say they've got a difficult conversation to do in a few days time, Well, I know that that isn't true. How do I know that? Well, Because they haven't had the conversation and no conversation is intrinsically difficult. It is only a difficult conversation because you've got difficult thinking around it. And the conversation itself is just a conversation. The same with a coffee cup. A coffee cup on the side that's dirty is just a coffee cup. On one day it looks like it's the end of a marriage and on the next day it's just a coffee cup that needs to be put in the dishwasher. The coffee cup does not intrinsically have the power to make me feel a certain way, Nor does a conversation in the future. So when you just start to see how thought is at play and you see how your emotions are letting you know whether or not to trust what you're seeing in the moment, Then you know you're starting to navigate using the full dashboard of life, The full dashboard of what it is to be human. So today, Just reflect on that. Your feelings aren't letting you know about the state of the world out there. Your feelings are letting you know about the state of your mood, What stories you're running in your mind. It's just letting you know about what thought you are in in any one moment. And that's a really helpful thing, Not something to get rid of not something to change but just something to understand. Well I hope you've enjoyed this reflection on thought. Let me know your thoughts on thought and of course don't forget to join me again tomorrow for another five minutes in nature.

Reviews

Thank you Liz for these last two talks on thought.
I have, now three, situations in my world that are giving rise to all kinds of unsettled thinking. 💭 Thanks in part to you and your work, I know the blue clear sky is just above… The waiting for the thoughts to pass without getting caught up is the challenge.

I sometimes think of thoughts as bubbles rising to the surface, quietly trying to reconcile the present with our past experiences, memories, beliefs, and emotions. A dirty coffee cup doesn’t create annoyance on its own. It simply gives a particular thought bubble an opportunity to rise. On another day, a different bubble rises and the same cup is quietly placed in the dishwasher. The event hasn’t changed. The thought attempting to reconcile it has.

The invitation isn’t to judge the bubble or push it away. It’s simply to notice it. “That’s interesting, this is the story my mind is offering.” In that moment we create a little space between the thought and our response. Instead of automatically reacting from old patterns, we can choose the response that best serves this moment. The bubble eventually dissolves, but awareness remains. Perhaps that quiet awareness, more than the thought itself, is where our freedom begins.

Thanks Liz. You are making us dig deeper. Just to let you know I wash my cup by hand. ✌️❤️😂

Good. Morning Liz,
Thanks for your message yesterday.😌
Human thoughts are mostly driven by our ego.
We are all living in a dream (like you have rightly said). A dream, which is completely different to anyone else.
This dream, created by our thoughts (ego) most of the time doesn’t take into account our heart and our body.
Calming our thoughts (ego) and realising that our heart and out body have also their own « thoughts », open up the doors to a complete new world.
Basically, not only our spirit (brain) drives our lives, but also our entire body.
Deeply listening to these three capital entities like a symphony (each notes are important to make sure that the symphony sounds great), will bring us to the essential. The Source. This little light we all can see in our baby’s eyes, but our thoughts (ego) do not really pay attention, or don’t want to see it (this could be another subject of discussion).
Note: This little light can also be found in all animals on earth.
Thoughts (ego) make us human, but we need to make sure that they do not drive our lives without boundaries.
Have a fantastic weekend.
Rodolphe
PS, Thank you so much for your little podcasts every day. They light up my days, right from breakfast. 🙏🙏

I love this so much, so inspirational. I am about to leave home for a long working week abroad thinking ooo this will be such a long and exhausting week. And now I think, we will see how it goes.

My own thinking truly started shifting since I started listening to your 5 minutes in nature and some of the courses. Thank you! Have a lovely day. 🌻🍀