When The Mind Is Loud And Wisdom Is Quiet - March 05

How can you tell whether you’re listening to the noise of thought or being guided by deeper wisdom? In today’s 5 Minutes in Nature, Liz reflects on how to recognize the difference. When you notice the unsettled energy of a “thought storm” — the tension, the urgency, the mental spiraling — it’s often a sign to pause, turn inward, and listen more deeply for the quiet clarity of wisdom.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott up on the moorland of Dartmoor in an evening where the sun is shining. This has been an awesome beautiful spring day and quite unusual as you know we've had a lot of rain and grayness and mist recently so today has felt like a real blessing and it's been interesting because walking outside and not wearing my waterproof rain jacket and waterproof boots and not taking my umbrella and wellingtons I sort of went outside thinking what do I wear? What do you wear when it's not raining? It just feels so different and I'm really smiling just to be able to look up and see blue sky. Behind me in the west the sun is starting to set and I am up in this wonderful peaceful landscape speaking to you and I'm following on the conversation around wisdom and thought which I started yesterday. Today I was with my Wise Woman Circle and it was the topic of conversation. The invitation was to explore when we get lost in thought and how do we know how to detect what is thought? What is intuition? What is wisdom? How can we tell the difference between the two? And the conversations swirled around different areas but people came up with different ways in which they were able to identify for themselves whether they were getting lost in a thought storm or whether they were being guided by wisdom. One of the things that came up about wisdom was this sense of knowing of rightness. It came with a real sense of not needing to think about it. It just felt right. That's when somebody absolutely knew they were being drawn by wisdom. Somebody else said I know when I get lost in thought I have this sense of busyness of speeding up and I know that when I'm looking to fill all the gaps in my diary I know I'm being overtaken by thought and agitated thinking. Somebody else said for me agitated thinking shows up and I get a signal that I'm lost in it when I find myself talking about what I should do, What I ought to do. That for me is a realization that wisdom is taking a back seat. And then somebody else said yes I just get fleeting moments of wisdom. I feel like most of the time I am lost in thought. And at that point I reflected because that was such a beautiful, Honest, Authentic conversation and for me one of the things that felt important to point out was particularly in that last comment that wisdom was fleeting and thought seemed to be the constant is that that was actually the wrong way round. And this evening as I look up at the blue sky I can see the blueness of the sky and I know that for weeks and weeks and weeks we've been in mist and rain and grey cloud but what I know for sure is that the blue sky is always there. If I took off in an aeroplane above the clouds I would see the blue sky and what's so helpful to realize about wisdom is that it is the default it is like the blue sky it is always there it never leaves us and it does get covered over by thought. Thought and thinking and moods concerns about the past or the future all of these can cover over the blue sky but it doesn't go anywhere. And what I find is that when I realize that I'm lost in thought and thinking for me I'm often lost in a sense of overwhelm or not good enough that's my habitual thought pattern that comes into play. My signal is that when I feel those things I know not to trust whatever I'm thinking in that moment. If my thinking is telling me I'm no good or my thinking is telling me I'm not a good daughter or a good wife or if my thinking is telling me I should do more things then the feelings of unsettledness and agitation don't tell me anything about who I am but they just let me know I'm lost in thinking and that noticing that recognition is wisdom that is wisdom showing up it's always with us always showing up even when the blue sky is clouded over we know that it is always there and it will always guide us. So today is just a reminder that wisdom is our default it gets covered up by thoughts and moods and the past and the future but wisdom is always there and that's what I'd love you to take away from today. I'll be back again tomorrow with another Five Minutes in Nature.

Reviews

I like the image of blue sky always there behind the fleeting clouds. Wisdom is always there!

I enjoyed this one Liz. So funny when you asked what to wear when the rain stops. It has been the same here in Dublin and I remember on Sunday week when I came out at the church people were all talking about the wonder of the blue sky and the Sunshine 😂😂 PS I hope your husband is doing well and on the mend. Tony.

I love the metaphors you reference in this talk! Thank you.. (and hooray for sunshine!) 💛🙏🏻

So insightful, Liz. I love that wisdom is always there, like the blue sky above the clouds of thought. Thank you ✨
Calynne