Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me,
Liz Scott.
It's wonderful walking in springtime,
My favourite,
Favourite time of the year and I'm just looking at this beautiful fern that's uncurled and unfurled and it looks like it's raising its arms up towards the sky.
I love this time of year,
It's just a superb reminder of the miracle of life,
The miracle of things growing,
Of things being nourished,
Of nature taking her course,
The ecosystems,
I can see a bee here,
Finding its way onto the bluebell flowers,
Collecting the pollen or the nectar or whatever they collect at this time of year.
It's just like everything feels very alive and it has me get quite tingly if I'm honest.
And one of the things that I've been reflecting on is,
And it's very personal to me and I guess the question is,
Does this resonate for you?
It's the sense of slowing down when everything around me feels to be fast.
Now when things seem to be fast,
There are two places they can be fast.
One is they can be fast in the practical reality of my life.
I don't know,
Maybe I've got lots of things to do,
I've overbooked things in my diary and I've got appointments and places to get to and people to see.
That's when life can really feel fast.
But life can also feel really fast when I've just got a lot on my mind.
It might be that in my day-to-day life I'm not actually physically doing lots and lots of things,
But in my mind I'm racing,
Thinking ahead,
Thinking about what I need to do,
Trying to remember to do things,
Finding that my mind is going at a fast,
Fast pace.
So for me,
It's such a good reminder because whether it's my mind racing or whether it's me physically busy,
Busy,
Busy,
When I'm going too fast,
I get a feeling within me.
And I wonder if you have a feeling within you too and it will be your personal feeling.
I'll describe mine,
But yours will probably be different to this.
When I'm going too fast,
I kind of feel a sense of overwhelm.
I feel a sense of a sicky feeling within me that I've just got too much on.
And the temptation can be to try and go faster,
To get through my to-do list,
To add more things in,
To try and speed up the way that I navigate through life.
But I really understand now that when I feel that overwhelm,
When I feel that sicky feeling of going too fast,
It's actually an indication for me to slow down.
It's a reminder of finding peace in life,
Of looking within,
Of navigating through life,
Of walking through life,
Both spiritually and practically and physically walking through life at a slower pace.
My life is not enriched by doing more things.
My life is enriched when I have time to be present and to absorb that which is taking place around me.
I don't know if you could just hear that.
I've just disturbed the pigeon taking off.
And as I walk along this lane today,
I realise that I can walk this lane on so many occasions and not see it.
And yet when I slow down,
I start to see the different colours of greens.
I mean,
Just looking at this wall,
This stone wall,
It's got the green of the moss,
It's got the green of the ivy,
Which is a shiny dark green,
It's got the green of the bluebell leaf.
It's almost like using the word green just does not do it justice.
And I get a thrill as I see,
Absolutely really see all the different colours of green on this lane.
The temptation for me is sometimes to speed up,
So to try and get that thrill through doing lots of different things.
But fundamentally I know that actually the real thrill comes when I slow down and I deeply see and hear and smell and feel that which is around me and really take it in and savour it.
So today the message is,
What does slowing down look like for you?
When do you know it's time to slow down?
And what can you do,
What are you drawn to do in your life to really be present to what is going on around you?
