Hello and welcome to five minutes in nature with me Liz Scott out on my beloved Dartmoor.
I came back from London yesterday and my husband and I went for a very short walk and just breathed in the evening air and I've got up this morning not as early as I normally get up still recovering from quite late nights for me and so the Sun is rising and it's already quite warm.
I'm in a field that's going to take me up to an old burial chamber called Cuckoo Ball and then I'm going to cross a stream and come back again,
Come back home for breakfast.
And the birds are singing.
I saw a woodpecker earlier just in the tree calling.
I'm so glad to be home.
It is so beautiful.
And you know,
Today is a conversation about who we truly are.
And it was a conversation my husband and I were having actually as we were walking last night.
And I thought,
Well,
This would be really nice to share with you.
So who are you truly?
And the temptation when someone says,
Who are you,
Is to.
.
.
To go to a story of who you are.
So if somebody says to me,
Well,
Who are you?
I might say,
Well,
I'm a coach.
I'm a teacher on Insight Timer.
I facilitate groups.
I write.
I'm a writer.
I'm a podcaster.
So I might sort of label myself in those kind of ways.
And sure,
Each of those roles is true,
But it's not who I truly am.
If I look a little bit closer,
I think,
Well,
You know what?
I'm different with different people so for example last night on the walk with my husband as I was walking back I was kind of stopping and saying look at this look at those flowers framed by that branch of the tree and here's the elderflower it's time for creating elderflower cordial and it was it was like I was just speaking my thinking out loud and He enjoys that,
So around him I'm like that,
But with somebody else on the same walk.
I wouldn't do that.
It's because it would feel as though that wasn't who I was with them.
I'm very different with my siblings,
Even with my two brothers.
One brother I'm much more reserved with,
Another brother I'm more forthcoming with.
And with different friends I turn up differently.
Sometimes I'm more conversational,
Sometimes I ask more questions,
Sometimes I will share about what's going on in my life,
Sometimes I will purely be there to listen to what's going on in their lives and with each person I turn up and I wouldn't say I'm being inauthentic it's just that there's a different facet of who I'm showing to the world.
So who am I?
I realize that even to myself in different situations I have,
I turn up differently to myself.
There are times when I'm feeling in the flow and generous and compassionate and at ease and there are other times when I feel unsettled and scared or fearful or frustrated.
All of these feelings represent a different kind of me at a different time.
So who am I?
And I don't have a really nicely packaged answer for this,
But more of a question for you to ask yourself.
Because for me.
.
.
The place I'm looking.
It's not the character that shows up.
It's like each character is like a character in the play,
Has a different costume,
Has a slightly different role.
But who am I beyond those characters?
And I don't come up with a neat answer,
But more of a felt sense.
That there is a continuity.
There is something that is ever-present and unchanging.
There's something that is in the background,
Or you might say is the witness.
Of all of these different characters.
And because that is unchanging.
My assumption is that that is who I truly am.
And that is the place to put my attention.
Let me know your reflections on who you truly are.
And I look forward to seeing you again tomorrow for another five minutes in nature.
