4. How do you recognise wisdom?

In this episode we ask how do you recognise wisdom ? 

We all have access to wisdom — but how do you know when you're hearing it, and when you're just lost in the noise of life? In this conversation, we explore the difference between deeply knowing in your bones and the spinning of a busy mind.

About this podcast

We believe the voice of the older woman is medicine for the world.

Elizabeth Lovius and Liz Scott are two women post-55 with a combined century of living, loving and learning. Although opposites in personality, pace and lifestyle, we share a deep passion for inside-out transformation. Our individual career journeys have led us to inspire, coach and teach people to reconnect to their own inner wisdom in business and community settings.

In The Wild, Wise Feminine, we share our unfiltered conversations about what it really means to come into your own, be seen and hold the line for love.

Whether you're navigating the territory beyond menopause yourself, or simply curious about the wild wisdom that emerges when women start trusting what they know - we'd love you to pull up a chair.

If you want to get in touch - contact us at:  lizscottcoaching@me.com

For more about and how to work with Elizabeth Lovius www.elizabethlovius.com 

For more about and how to work with Liz Scott www.lizscott.co.uk

Transcript

Liz Scott 0:01

Hello and welcome to the Wild, Wise Feminine.

Elizabeth Lovius 0:09

We believe the voice of the feminine elder is medicine for the world. We are Elizabeth Lobius and Liz Scott. Two women with a combined century of living, loving, and learning.

Liz Scott 0:26

In the Wild Wise Feminine, we share our unfiltered conversations about what it really means to come into your own, be seen, and hold the line for love.

Elizabeth Lovius 0:39

We'd love you to pull up a chair. In this episode, we ask, how do you recognize wisdom?

Liz Scott 0:55

We all have access to wisdom, but how do you know when you're hearing it and when you're just lost in the noise of life?

Elizabeth Lovius 1:04

In this conversation, we explore the difference between deeply knowing in your bones and the spinning of a busy mind.

Liz Scott 1:23

So today's topic is something I'm so looking forward to reflecting on with you, Elizabeth. And I guess we might have got different ways of exploring it. But ultimately, as I see it, it's about trusting my intuition, knowing when to trust my intuition, and knowing when I'm getting lost in the noise of a busy mind, a busy thinking. And I've been reflecting on this for quite a few years now, but I know for some people it might be a new area. So I I don't know if you've got another way of describing it.

Elizabeth Lovius 1:55

Yeah. I'm going to start with a story. I'm going to start with an actual um workshop I ran on leadership, high potential leaders. And one of the first questions we ask is, What would be a miracle for you? That's the context. So what would be a miracle for you if you could do be or have in your leadership? And she said, I'm going to take you literally, because I know it's a miracle and I can't have it, because it's a miracle. And I've tried everything. And what was the my miracle would be to stand in front of a group of senior leaders and feel confident and not terrified and sick and panicky. And I know I can't do that because this is how I know. I've read every book, I've been to every expert, I've studied every process, I've applied them all, I've done them imagining the audience naked, that didn't work either. You know, it I've done all the tips, the techniques, the strategies. I've studied. Do you know what? She said, I could write a book on how to deliver a present presentation with confidence. So I know I can't. And that was her certainty. Two weeks later, she says, Oh my god, I can't believe it. I just gave a presentation to a senior group, and I saw in the moment, insightfully, what it was that I needed to see. It changed everything. And what I saw was it's not about me, it's about the audience, and they want to hear it. And up till then, I other people had told me that. I knew that as information intellectually, but I didn't see that until I did. In the moment, live, insightfully, my own knowing, clarity, insight said, Oh, it's about them, not me. And all that noise went away. And suddenly I enjoyed the presentation because I wanted to give them what they wanted. Everything changed. Now, people had told her before, other people. That's what I call intellectual information. Other people will have had their own answers, experts, there'll be data, all of that is not unuseful, it's very useful. But until we have our own recognition inside of us, our own sense of knowing, our own wisdom guiding us, that is just noise. And this is how I distinguish it. So Emma had her own insightful knowing in the moment, some moment of clarity, some shift in perspective. These are all other words for it. And suddenly she knew something, and it changed everything. And it was her miracle. And this is what I think most of us do. We try and change and fix ourselves. We go everywhere else to find the answer. We get lots of conflicting ideas. You should do this. No, you should do that. I mean, parenting. You know, there's just all everyone's an expert on parenting. But in the end, none of that's going to help you in the aisle with the three-year-old tantrum. Maybe, but probably not. Your presence and own knowing in that moment to meet the moment, that's what wisdom's designed for. I call it wisdom. Your own sense of knowing in the moment, knowing in your bones. And that's how I distinguish it. Intellectual knowledge is useful, but it's the servant. Your own insightful wisdom. That's the master. And that's what we that's how we know what is ours to do.

Liz Scott 5:46

It's a great, it's a great story and a great example. And and I'm kind of going to, I think, add to that. Please. And just yeah, and just sort of reflect on what you said as well. Because I think a lot of people can relate to that idea of of talking in front of people and that that sense of fear and what happens. I was talking to um somebody this morning, it's somebody that that helps it's somebody that helps us out in our house. And um it's she's she's a lovely lady, and she she last week she told us she'd had a a really tricky conversation that she needed to have with somebody. And she just wanted to sort of get a bit of reassurance from us. I say ask myself and my husband, and and and that's what we did. And so today we said, how did the conversation go? And she said, Well, she said, I was up all night worrying about it. She said, I couldn't sleep, so I felt sick. She said, When I went in there, I just I felt terrible, I felt nervous, I didn't know what to say. It was like, yeah, how did this how did the conversation go? She said, Oh, it was fine. It was fine. She said, but I I had a you know, it was really hard and I had a lot of thinking. It was like, but we said, Yeah, but how did the conversation go? And she said, No, that that actually went that actually went really well. It it was better than I ever imagined. And that to me speaks to what you're talking to here, which is we have this incredible uh system that is highly tuned in to the uh unsettling, frightening thoughts, insecure thinking that that can hijack almost like seemingly hijack us. So uh she uh in her in her bedroom as she was trying to sleep the night before this conversation didn't have anybody talked to talk to. She wasn't speaking to the person that she thought it was going to be a tricky conversation, she was just with her thoughts. And this is what people don't realise is that the power of thought to really hijack and bring up the sense of doubt and fear and insecurity, so that you're living seemingly in a future that is frightening. It doesn't exist. That future doesn't exist other than in your own thinking and thoughts. And actually, like you say, when you turn up with wisdom and open heart and a sense of of groundedness, you you you, me, we, we're all designed to beautifully turn up in those moments and be the best we can. I mean, we talked about holding the line for love. It's like for me, it's like that's that's an that's an example. I can hold the line for love that I can do in the moment. But thinking about it, trying to work it out, trying to work out all the different things that might go wrong. No, I can't do that. And so coming back to what you're what we were talking about, which is this real sense is like, how do you know what to trust? Because when you're lost in that, I'm going to ask you this question. Because when you're lost in that thinking, it really looks and feels real. It's frightening. It's like we want to do something to protect ourselves and prevent ourselves from getting into a situation that maybe is going to be damaging or hurtful, might hurt somebody else. So, what you know, what what's your response to that?

Elizabeth Lovius 9:24

Yeah. So um I would say this I've come over 30 years to realize that what what we're talking about now is the most important thing, and it's now my role to articulate and share this with other leaders. But the only way I've come to it is with myself, so it's not conceptual. It's a feeling. I feel closed. I feel driven, hyper vigilant hyper something, vigilant, active, but hyper something, like like like in intensely but it's not peaceful, it's not it's not the real focus of of colouring in. It's got this urge in it, urge, sense of urge, urgency, serious, very serious, it's very serious, and all of these are little signs that I'm not what I call in alignment with my true self, because I know that part of me to be light, unattached, clear, um kind of the simplicity of just knowing. And wisdom is a present time phenomenon, so it's rarely something that comes to me from working out all the things that might go wrong and how I can fix them. That for me isn't about the present time. That's now that doesn't mean that wiz my own wisdom might not say, hey, it's a good idea to take care of that for the future. That feels it uh congruent with wisdom. But to actively, what do they call it? Um, there's a term for it in business. I've it's gone out my head, but it's like actively look at every single thing that might go wrong and try and mitigate the risk, risk management. There might be a time for that, like say if you're setting sail on a on a boat somewhere, but actually you don't want to live there. You don't want to live in everything that might go wrong and what I can do to fix it. Because you know what? That's endless. We can endlessly think of things that might go wrong and try and fix it, and most of them won't happen. And I so for me, it's got a qualitative feeling. It's a present, the more present I am, and if I'm lucky, I might notice I'm not present, and that's a clue. But mostly I'm I'm caught up in the story, so I have my feelings are the best guide. And more calm and settled and present I am, I know that that I'm receiving a nudge. For me, it's like, and just I the best word I've got is knowing in my bones, I'd say, just a knowing. And it's light often. It's a light. Oh, you could, you know, that feels that feels good, you know. It's not intense, it's it's light. Um and it's the truth is in the moment, the wisdom is in the moment. One of the things I want to just say to finish this little piece for myself is we forget that we have this capacity to know what's needed in every moment, and we do not factor that in when we think about the future. Because the version of let's say the worst thing happens. Let's say the person dies, the job goes, the house, you know, burns. Let's say those bad the kid, you know, whatever it is, the thing happens. Because those things happen. I've experienced death, you've experienced death, uh, loss, unfulfilled expectations, right? Deeply disappointment, deep disappointments, heartbreak. So the things happen. But what we fail to do is to take into account our capacity to meet that moment when it comes. And that is our own capacity to know our own, to hear our own wisdom.

Liz Scott 13:45

A story comes to mind. I I was um I love going out in nature and I was out with my sister. We love walking up on Dartmoor, it's the Moorland um near us, it's beautiful. And one of the things about Dartmoor is that there are patches on it that are boggy, and you've got to be really careful. Um, there are places where you know you could quite seriously get stuck. And we were walking on on this uh walk and we were going through a boggy patch, and we were being very careful. We we we could see the clumps, you could see you can see the ground that's stable, and you've got to be very careful about the way you you move from each pocket to ground of ground to keep on solid ground. And um my sister said to me, she said, um, she said, I'm gonna go first if that's okay. And I said, Yeah, of course that's okay. And she said, yes, she said, because if I if I fall in the bog, she said, I know that you'll know what to do. She said, but I wouldn't know what to do. And I was like, I haven't got a clue what I'd do. Yeah, I've never rescued anybody from a bog before. I wouldn't. But what I knew deeply that she didn't know is that in that moment, I've got access to wisdom and I would work out what to do. Like, so I was really happy. It's like what yes, we had taken precautions. Yes, we were going carefully through dangerous ground. And yes, I knew that, and I knew that she would too, but she she didn't realize that herself. But I knew that, yeah, and and if something happens and I need to support you, I'll I'll work it out. I don't need to work out all the permutations of what may or may not go wrong, I'll know in the moment. And so for me, that is having that as an extra um sort of knowing that I've got that to draw on in life, has it's been a game changer, actually.

Elizabeth Lovius 15:43

I love this because we're not talking about something esoteric or strange, we're actually talking about common sense. Yes, and that is another word for what we're talking about. It's when you know you know what to do, it's obvious to you, and you know that you will know and have that common sense when you need it for something that you've never dealt with before. That's faith. And but uh what we have uniquely at this age, Liz, is we have evidence for faith. That's the beauty of the mature older woman. She knows, she's tried and tested, and she, if she looks over her history, if we look over our past, we'll see how that's seen us through every time. Whether we've called it that or known it at the time, but with with with the hinds wisdom of hindsight, we can see it's always been there, that capacity, and it's served us well.

Liz Scott 16:38

And yeah, absolutely. And and I'm I'm just about to start um a session with a new client, and I and I I tend to ask new clients a couple of questions. One is what would have been the challenges you've been through over the last um five years, and you know, what would have been um the high points? And I really love the question on challenges because I'm not really interested in their challenges. I'm I'm looking, I'm on an evidence gathering mission because when they tell me what their challenges are, they're also telling me how they got through them. And I want to use that to say to them in future conversations, you know that bit when you, you know, you got very poorly and and and yet you you still managed to get up and got the kids to that is what we're talking about. That is your resilience. That's not something you had to work out or read in a book, you got that anyway, and so I love what you're saying is that sometimes I think we look for this as an esoteric kind of thing, but it's not, it's every day. And actually, just just looking back in your own world and seeing, like, oh yeah, when that happened, when my car broke down, I I got home when my child was poorly and I didn't know what to do. I took them to AE. Like I knew what to do in the moment. It's just pinpointing those moments and seeing that, oh yes, it does, it comes for me too, that wisdom.

Elizabeth Lovius 18:03

It's there and present for me too. I really think we need to have another session on everyday wisdom and how it might look. I think that's a juicy topic uh for another time. It's I love this topic. It's my favorite, I could talk about all day long. I've loved today, Liz. Thank you so much. Thank you. You've been listening to the Wild Wise Feminine Podcast with Elizabeth Lovius and Liz Scott.

Liz Scott 18:35

If you want to get in touch, take a look at the show notes. We'd love to hear from you.