Hello and welcome to five minutes in nature with me Liz Scott.
Oh my goodness the evenings are drawing in so quickly at the moment.
I've just walked up the hill really quickly to get up onto Dartmoor trying to get the last of the evening sun but I've already missed it.
It's dipped behind the hill and the hill now is silhouetted dark as the sky behind it is still bright where the sun is sinking and soon it's going to be really really dark.
I've got a torch so I'll be okay finding my way home.
It's like a race at the moment to get out before the sun goes down.
It's turned cold here and the rain means that there's a dampness in the air.
It's a damp cold.
I'm never usually reluctant to go walking but this evening as I heard the rain and I felt cold and I knew it was going to be cold coming out I was like oh maybe I could just stay indoors but I haven't.
I've come out walked up the hill.
I'm a bit warmer now and loving just being in this very dark grey light as it shifts from day to night.
And when I was coming out the house my husband was listening to a podcast.
It was a couple of men I know,
Quite well-known coaches,
Who were talking on this podcast and he paused it as I walked into the kitchen.
He was doing a bit of cooking and he said oh these guys are talking about coaching and you know this guy is really successful and he's earning several hundred thousand dollars or pounds or whatever it was he was earning and I just noticed in me this kind of sense of ah a bit of relief really like oh I'm so glad I'm not chasing that anymore.
Do you remember yesterday as I sat on that rock in the sun and I realised what success was for me which was sitting on a rock in the sun having walked with a dog in just enjoying life and feeling the slowness of life.
It was just a reminder today that that is not me.
Like chasing the money,
Chasing clients like that.
I thought it was me but it's not anymore and it's actually such a relief to realise that.
I've had a day where I've spoken to some of my most powerful women friends,
Women that in my world feel as though they are both mentors and peer support and I'm a mentor to them,
That we are powerful figures in the world,
All of us.
In one of the conversations with one of my women friends she was saying how her friends in their sort of late 40s,
50s,
She said oh my goodness they're working so hard just to keep a roof over their heads.
And it reminded me of a story that my mum told me and in the village that she lived in,
The house that she lived in and grew up in belonged to her grandmother I think it was.
And every week her mother would go and pay a little bit off the house because she was buying it off the grandmother and she would do that with a handful of coins and each week the grandmother would make a note of what was paid and what was still owed and it just felt like it was much more simple in those days.
It just struck me that nowadays it feels like never have we been so monetarily rich as a society and yet equally so poor.
What we do for money and yet what we have to give up in the pursuit of that money,
Not to be wealthy and rich,
Just to keep our heads above water.
It just feels as though we've never really been so poor.
And then as I was walking up the hill it struck me that never have we had so much.
Like if my grandmother was to see the lifestyle I lead and I've got a house and I've got a car and my husband's got a car and we eat really well and I've got a computer and I've got this thing called a mobile phone,
She would probably be aghast that we have so much stuff and yet we have so much stuff and yet what is that at the expense of?
And that's really the gap I'm moving into with my work is it feels as though we are missing out on something fundamental in our lives,
Something around belonging,
Community,
Something around connection,
Breaking bread with people,
Sharing space,
Being connected to the land,
Listening to nature,
Listening to our world,
Knowing where food comes from,
Feeling very present and grateful for what we have in our lives.
It feels as though there's a big space there.
Actually we're so busy just trying to keep afloat,
We don't have time for the richness and nourishment that is our birthright.
So that's my reflection today and I don't know what your thoughts are about it but it is about this phrase that occurred to me is never have we been so monetarily rich,
Never have we had so much money in our lives and yet never have we been so poor.
What's your reflections on that?
