Hello and welcome to Five Minutes in Nature with me Liz Scott,
Down beside the River Axe at Exeter Quay.
All is still and gentle.
I'm just looking over the water and I can see a couple of swans on the bank preening themselves.
There's some men,
Workmen up a ladder,
Doing a little bit of work on the quay itself.
And there are boats on the water,
Rowers,
You'll probably hear some rowers go by any second.
Dog walkers.
It's just a wonderful gentle waking up of the morning here down on Exeter Quay.
And as I was walking onto the river itself,
I'm just about to leave the river to walk up now into the town,
And here are the rowers just going by.
You might be able to hear them.
It looks so easeful as they go by,
Four of them in a boat.
As I came down to the river earlier today,
The river had a mist on it.
It was a river mist.
I'd walked down a hill,
It was not misty at the top of the hill,
Down towards the river,
And then to the river it was in the mist.
I was in the mist itself.
And of course,
You know,
The nature of a mist is that it's cold and you don't see very far.
And it just got me thinking because,
You know,
The mist is a little bit like our moods,
Our thinking,
Our thought patterns,
In so much the mist has characteristics in the mists.
The characteristics of a mist is that it's cool and you don't see very far in it.
The characteristic of,
Say,
The rain is that it's wet.
The characteristics of a sunny day is that it's warm.
I mean,
The different types of weather have different characteristics.
And it's similar to our moods,
Really.
Our different moods have different characteristics.
So if I'm feeling overwhelmed,
Then everything just feels and looks overwhelming.
That's the characteristic of an overwhelmed thought pattern.
And one of the useful things about recognising thought,
And as you know,
This is one of the areas I find really helpful,
So I want to keep sharing it with you in different ways.
But one of the things about thought is that many of the traditional self-help models want you to try and change your thoughts,
Change your thinking,
Think different things.
And I find that that is kind of helpful up to a point.
But the truth is what's most helpful is understanding the nature of thought.
So in the same way that I understand the nature of the mist,
It's going to be cool and I won't be able to see very far,
It's useful to understand the nature of thought.
And one of the things about thought that I absolutely know to be true,
Because I've been experimenting with this now for over a decade,
Is that thought comes and thought goes.
And it doesn't really matter how hard I try to get rid of sort of unwanted thoughts.
They kind of go in their own time,
A bit like the mist,
Really.
The only difference is what I have found is that when I engage time and energy in thought,
In trying to change my thoughts,
Or in thinking I should be thinking something else,
That seems to exacerbate the very thing that I want to get rid of.
So when I'm feeling overwhelmed and I start berating myself for all the things I've put in the diary,
And then I sort of think I must get more organised,
And I try and do all these things to placate the feeling of overwhelm,
I just seem to exacerbate it.
Whereas what I do know about thought is if I just take my awareness away from it,
Stop feeding it and fuelling it,
It does settle and move on in its own time.
And yesterday was a good example,
I come up and help my mum,
She's quite elderly,
And I often find that I have a habitual agitated thought when I arrive here.
I've travelled up a busy road,
Travelled through traffic,
Arrive at my mum's,
And I feel agitated.
There are things that I should be doing at home,
And I know I've got a busy weekend of cleaning and looking after her,
And I have quite an agitated sense of thought.
And because I understand the nature of thought,
I don't try and get rid of it,
I don't feel guilty that I feel it,
I just know,
Oh,
That's my habitual thought of coming to help mum,
Popping up again.
And I know that the best thing I can do,
Because the nature of that thought,
The characteristic is that I can be a bit snappy and short,
And I don't want to be snappy and short with my mum,
I love her dearly.
And so what I do is I take myself off,
Get a cup of tea,
Sit down on my own,
And just allow that thinking to settle.
So today is just about being kind to yourself,
Notice your thoughts,
And just to realise that when you leave thoughts alone,
They tend to settle of their own accord.
When you try and change them,
They often get worse.
