Hello and welcome to five minutes in nature with me Liz Scott.
The sun is shining!
My goodness we haven't really had a day where there's been a bit of blue sky and a bit of sunshine for what feels like weeks and so today I'm out on a slightly longer walk and I'm going to record a couple of insight timer pieces just because it's so good to be outside and not be chasing or running away from the rain.
And as I walk through these lanes they're thick with mud and mulching leaves and streams that are still overflowing from the excessive water and rain we've had recently.
There's something really beautiful about being present here outside.
It almost feels like a spring day,
It's got that sense of warmth about it,
Unseasonable warmth and I am so enjoying just breathing in the air,
Breathing in the oxygen.
You can probably hear the trees rustling above me,
There's a holly tree above me that's rustling its leaves in the wind and I am reflecting on a course that I'm running with some women.
It's going to happen in January next year and do you remember a few days ago,
Maybe a week ago,
I was talking about the importance of ritual.
There's something about the importance of ritual so every time I have a conversation I'm lighting a candle,
I'm selecting a stone and I'm just really being present.
I just want this to be a nourishing conversation where she feels it's the right thing for her or she feels it's not and that for me is so important and it's a bit of a different space that I've been in.
I've run courses many many times and when I've run courses in the past there's been a little bit of agitation in me,
Really wanting somebody to sign up,
Really kind of hoping that they will and that agitation isn't with me at the moment.
I really just want to hear and feel and be present to whether this course is right for the women and I actually want to share something that one of the women said because when I asked her what she would like from the course or what her aspirations were she reflected and said well she said to be honest my goal in life is to reflect on joy and peace.
She said that for me is what success is and I've just felt this well of love surge in me,
The simplicity and the power of having that as an aspiration,
A goal,
That your goal is to feel joy,
To experience joy and to feel and experience peace of mind.
You know often what happens is we chase things thinking that they're going to give us joy or thinking we're going to get peace of mind so we rush our way through a to-do list or we buy something that we think is going to ease our lives or make us feel happy or or we do an activity that we think I need to do this in order to feel peaceful like I need to meditate or I need to do yoga or I need to go walking but actually when you just gently reflect on experiencing joy and experiencing peace of mind and then allowing yourself to be guided towards those aspirations rather than trying to make them happen in your life.
It's a very different experience so one of the things I'm learning as I'm speaking to these women is that I am learning so much and it's it's beautiful for me to know that I'm going to be facilitating a space with these women and also I realize that whilst I might be the one that appears to be the teacher actually I'm learning as well and just these conversations I'm having with women are helping me see what there is what richness and nourishment I can learn as I reflect on having joy experiencing joy and having peace of mind and experiencing peace of mind as I reflect on that for myself I feel an incredible nourishment.
So today is just a little reflection what would your life be like if your goal or aspiration was to experience joy or experience peace of mind not by trying to make something happen in your life but allowing yourself to sink back into who you truly are and allowing joy and peace of mind to naturally emerge.
