Be Curious Not Critical - July 10th

Hello and welcome to five minutes in nature with me Liz Scott on a beautiful sunny day watching the butterflies as they dart around this little wildflower patch of ground in our village and it's a bit of a busy day the lawn mowers are still out I can hear there's a bit of DIY work going on seagulls going overhead in the village there might be just a few distractions and noises but I want to follow on from what I was talking about yesterday and yesterday if you remember we were looking at you are not alone in other words there will be times when you feel unsettled thoughts and feelings and it might look like everyone else has got their life completely sorted and you are the only one in the world that ever feels unsettled or insecure and the truth is that we all as human beings have moments of feeling settled and moments of feeling unsettled so yesterday we were just exploring this idea that you are not alone you will have moments of feeling unsettled and that's absolutely part of the human experience and today we're following on from that a little bit because I find it also very helpful to notice what happens when I get lost in unsettled thoughts and feelings first of all it's worth noting that I have some real habitual thought loops that swarm around me sometimes a bit like the summer flies and when those thought loops swarm around me I can get completely lost in them and the ones for me in particular are things like I'm not good enough I look around and everybody just looks so much better than me or I'm not lovable even though I know I'm well loved and I've got a great family I start to think that maybe nobody actually loves me or I think I'm a fraud I look at what I do in my work and my coaching and my training and I just think no I'm a fraud I don't know why people come and pay to listen to me or speak to me I am just a fraud or I might feel overwhelmed and I feel this sense that everything is just too much and I have got so much to do I almost don't want to do anything I feel stuck with all the stuff I need to do it's everything I feel a bit helpless everything just feels too much so all of those are examples of my habitual thought loops those are the thought loops that I get lost in and I've been really curious about them over time so much so that I don't really get lost in them anymore they turn up and I notice them more quickly when they arrive and that's really very useful when a thought and settled thought arises it comes with a feeling that lets me know that I'm lost in my thinking and as I recognize that then I don't find myself getting sucked down the whirlpool of despair and it's really helpful also to understand what I'm like and how my character changes when I'm lost in those unsettled thoughts and feelings so for me when I feel unsettled I'm less patient I want an answer more quickly when I'm in lost in those thoughts and feelings I find that I'm less productive I'm less able to be in the flow I feel a bit more snidey I make maybe I'm not so good at connecting with people I make comments that distance myself from people rather than bring me closer to people so I'm telling you all of this because I'm absolutely okay with the fact that I have these moments when I fall into unsettled thinking and then as a result I have some behavior and characteristic behavior that emerges because I get lost in these thoughts and feelings and my request to you is that you start to be curious about that for yourself so it's two questions really today can you start to get curious about what your habitual thought loops are do you remember I told you mine was things like I get overwhelmed or I'm not good enough or I'm not lovable or I'm a fraud those are mine and we all have our little pet thought loops so just be curious what are yours what are the habitual patterns that you often trip up into and there's nothing wrong in it remember you're human and it will happen and then the second thing is just to be curious about well when I do find myself caught up in those habitual thought loops how does my behavior change what am I likely to be like what are my characteristics like and this isn't to beat yourself up or to do yourself down it's just to be curious about it so just have a little think for yourself what are your habitual thought patterns and what are your habitual behaviors that come about as a result of those thought patterns