Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me,
Liz Scott.
I was talking to someone the other day who had only just come across the term FOMO,
F-O-M-O,
And she didn't know what it meant.
And she said,
Do you know what FOMO means?
I've just discovered what it means.
And I had heard of it before.
It means fear of missing out.
And it's sort of a term that's used to describe this compulsion sometimes people have have to do something,
Not because they particularly want to do something,
But they don't want to miss out.
That's the sort of the motivation behind doing something,
Fear of missing out.
Well,
I was reflecting on this and expanding it a bit more for myself,
And I realized that life is actually a delight when you treat it as an unfolding,
An unfurling,
As something being created,
As something evolving,
As you kind of be on this journey with life and seeing what comes next.
And rather than looking around you and wishing that you had what somebody else had,
Or maybe if you go this direction or you need to go this direction because if you don't you might miss out on something.
Rather than have all those stories playing out,
It can be really helpful just to recognize that life turns out the way that it turns out.
And I don't know if you've ever gone to a restaurant and looked at the menu and chosen something off the menu and then when your food has arrived you look at everybody else's food and think I wish I'd chosen that.
You spend your whole meal eating something and not really savouring it because you wish that you'd actually chosen something different off the menu.
For me that's such a great analogy when it comes to living life.
If I spend my life wishing that my life was different,
Wishing that I had a different outcome when it came to having a family,
As you I know from previous Insight Timer recordings,
I wasn't able to have my own family.
So if I was to spend my entire life looking at everybody who's got children and thinking,
What have I missed out on?
It would be a pretty bleak life.
Or if I looked at people with particular income levels or particular jobs or particular gifts or skills and thought,
Oh,
I wish that was me,
I've been dealt a rough hand.
Just spend my life feeling a sense of lack,
Feeling a sense that I wasn't good enough and that my life really wasn't panning out like it should.
So what's a different way to turn up to life?
Well,
For me,
It's about just relishing what is.
So I choose something off the menu of life,
And I am present to it.
And there's something I've really worked out,
And we're talking in metaphors here,
But what happens to me in my life might not be what I would choose to happen.
I might have a preference as the way that my life turns out.
But I sure realise for me that when life doesn't turn out as I wish it would turn out.
There is always a lesson and a learning for me in that experience.
And I don't know if that resonates for you.
When I am with the way life turns out,
And maybe it turns out in a way that I like,
Maybe I choose off the menu and I think,
This is a nice dish I've chosen off my menu,
Or whether I choose something off the menu and I think,
Ooh,
I don't like this.
I wish I had something else.
There's always something for me to experience.
Experience and learn in that.
So for example,
And I've talked about this before in Insight Timer,
I wasn't able to have my own children.
I wasn't able to have a family of my own and it was something I longed for for many,
Many years.
I realized deeply that my life has unfolded in a way that is unique because I didn't have children of my own.
There are many blessings I have in my life that I wouldn't have had if I had had children.
Does that mean that if I could wind back time and have a family that I would choose not to have a family?
Well,
I don't know about that.
But I do know that with what I've got off the menu of life,
In the life that I am living,
I feel truly blessed.
So however life turns out is the way it's supposed to turn out.
And there are blessings in whatever you've experienced and are experiencing.
There are blessings and gifts for you to see,
Even if you can't see them quite yet.
Let me know your reflections on what you've heard today and of course don't forget to join me again tomorrow for another five minutes in nature.
