Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature.
Now this is a little bit different.
Usually I am on the moorland of Dartmoor,
Overlooking the South Hams around where I live.
Often at this time of year it's grey,
It's rainy.
But today I've travelled all the way to Spain,
In sort of the south of Spain,
Not far from a place called Alicante.
And you might be able to hear the Mediterranean Ocean,
Well it's not really an ocean,
It's a sea,
The Mediterranean Sea lapping on this pebble beach.
I'm not far away from the promenade,
I'm not far away from the road,
So you'll probably hear people and cars going by.
But here I am.
It's very different for me.
Rather than being wrapped up in my waterproof clothing,
I'm sweltering in a very warm,
Dry day.
And today is really looking at this whole area of we will work it out,
Or you will work it out.
In a world that seems very much drawn to try and work things out,
Plan,
Work out the A,
B and C of what they might do and what you might do,
Depending if this happens and I'll do that,
If that happens I'll do that.
I'm offering a different way today.
I'm offering a way of being and seeing what turns up.
I don't want you to hear me say that I'm telling you that planning is not a good thing.
I think planning is really helpful.
I think over planning though is unnecessary.
This is what I've been finding in my life.
And I'm just going to give you a couple of examples to explain what I mean.
If you were listening to a recent Insight Timer piece,
You'll know that when I was looking at the reviews of the hotel that had been booked for us to stay in,
And we hadn't looked at the reviews before we booked,
There were some pretty shoddy reviews,
Pretty bad reviews,
Reviews that said this is the worst hotel I've ever stayed in.
So when my husband and I turned up,
We had very low expectations,
But we didn't,
We weren't angsting about it or worrying about it until we arrived.
And then we arrived and we looked at the hotel and we looked at the options.
And as my husband said,
We stayed in better and we've stayed in worse.
And we both agreed that at the moment,
It just feels like,
Yes,
It's quite a basic hotel,
But it's good enough.
It's good enough for us.
And that for me is a really great example of not over planning.
Had it not been good enough,
Then we would have found some different accommodation for our stay here.
And then the second thing,
Which again is just another little example,
When it comes to this particular break that my husband and I are having in Spain,
My husband's got a very sore hip at the moment.
He's waiting for an operation and it means that he's severely limited in his mobility.
And I,
On the other hand,
I'm someone that,
As you know,
Loves to walk and loves to get out.
My sister quite wisely said,
You know,
What are you going to do?
Because your husband's not able to do much walking.
You obviously like to walk.
How are you going to manage that?
Well,
The truth is we didn't know.
We just knew we needed to come out here and be here and just see and feel what felt right for us to do.
And as it was today,
As we walked down to the seafront,
We found some electric scooters that he was able to hire.
So we were able to go for a walk.
He went on his electric scooter and we met up for a drink and I was able to walk along the promenade and meet him at the place where we had a drink.
So it was almost as like we were both able to get out.
We didn't know those scooters existed.
We didn't know we were going to hire one.
It was,
We came across one and it made sense for us to give it a go.
So today is just a reminder of our ability,
Our brilliant ability to turn up and work things out.
Planning has got a place.
It's really useful.
And also what we've got is that we are brilliant at working things out,
Seeing what's in front of us and taking the next step.
So my request is that you play with that bit.
Often most people are really good at planning.
Why not play with that other bit in your world?
That bit of you that turns up,
Sees what's happening and takes the next step.
You don't need all the answers up front.
Life will show you the way.
