Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott.
Taking a stroll along the River Ex in Exeter as I head in towards the city centre.
It's always so silent,
Quiet down here.
You might hear the occasional runner or cyclist go by or dog walker but actually being beside the river,
Well it's just very,
Very peaceful.
Although I have to say I'm a little bit alarmed to see that the river level is looking quite low.
We've not had a lot of rain recently.
And what I've noticed is that there's this very thick green scummy top to part of the river.
It feels as though the river could just do with being washed through.
So I've seen it looking a bit healthier but today it's not looking quite as beautiful as always.
And isn't that useful just to know that the river can,
I think,
In the same way that when we feel a little bit off colour the river is saying,
I'm feeling off colour,
Give me a little bit of rain,
Let me flush all of this through.
And today is very much about looking at wisdom,
Our intuition,
Our wisdom in the moment.
And I was just walking along as I do and just reflecting on some of the nice things I've done recently and one of which is I went on a walk with my sister.
Now it was a very different day because we'd just had some very heavy rainfall.
We were up on Dartmoor and we were walking through some quite boggy,
Marshy area.
And as we walked through this boggy,
Marshy area,
And you've got to be ever so careful,
You've got to really know your footing and you don't want to go down a bog because if you get too far down a bog it's really hard to get out.
And so you look out for the ground that you can see is firm and you sort of,
It's like stepping stones really,
These tufty bits of grass,
You navigate slowly along these bits of grass.
And my sister turned to me and she said,
Look,
I'm going to go first.
She said,
Because if you go first and you land up in a bog,
I wouldn't know what to do.
And she said,
If I go first and if I land up in a bog,
She said,
I know you'll know what to do.
And inwardly I was a bit confused because I thought,
I've got no idea what I'd do if you landed up in a bog.
And temporarily my mind went into a bit of a flurry of like,
Well what if she does and what would I do and what are you supposed to do,
How do you get someone out of a bog and how would I get help and would I leave her or would I run and get help?
And my mind went off into chuntering,
Into considering all these different things of what would happen if she fell in a bog and I needed to rescue her.
But actually,
Very quickly,
This was fleeting,
It was one or two seconds of a flurry of thinking.
And then I just settled because I just thought,
Well,
I'd know what to do.
I mean,
I'd do my best and I'd know what to do in the situation.
And what she probably didn't realise is that in this situation,
She too would know what to do to help me out of a bog.
There isn't an instruction manual that I've read and memorised on how to get people out of bogs.
It's just that I know I can trust my wisdom in the moment.
So I don't need to put in a load of additional thinking to try and work things out.
And I was listening to a little podcast today and there was something that the host said which I loved and really relates to what I'm talking about today.
She said that when she works with a team and she says when we get a little bit stuck with things,
We have a comment in our office which is,
You can't eat tomorrow's breakfast today.
You can't eat tomorrow's breakfast today.
In other words,
Oh,
I do apologise for these very loud seagulls.
In other words,
We spend a lot of time trying to work the what-ifs and the what-nexts out in our head,
Completely forgetting that when something happens,
We know what to do.
We have this extraordinary wisdom system that helps us take the next step.
And the next step will be dependent on so many factors that until that actually happens,
Until those factors are actually in place and we are in this situation,
We can't predict what is the best thing to do.
So today is just a little reminder.
Trust your inner compass.
In the moment,
Your inner compass will point you in the right direction.
Trust that deeper wisdom.
In the moment,
It will point you in the right direction.
That doesn't mean you don't plan.
It's really helpful to plan and do all of these things,
But we often forget we have a system,
A guidance system within us that is so useful,
So healthy and so intuitive.
So today,
See how you get on in trusting your inner compass and trusting your inner guidance wisdom system.
