Landscaping Your Life

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0:44 Denzel Washington, welcome to Inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you to do the same. Allison, welcome to the show. How are you. I'm good, Thank you, thanks for inviting me. It's great to have you here. So let the audience know where you're living. I live in Scotland. As I look out of my window now I'm looking across the Firth of Fourth to Edinburgh on the skyline. So a lot of people I suspect we'll have heard of Edinburgh, perhaps not where I live. I will bet that is beautiful. It is today as we're recording this, we have lovely blue sky and sun, which obviously is not what Scotland is well known for.

1:30 So how much son do you get usually in the year. I think it's more of a heat so I don't know how to translate it, but I suspect. I mean last year we got a few days where it was sort of mid twenties, but yeah, generally speaking it will be around twenty or under twenty. I mean we do get sun, it's just that we get quite a bit of rain as well. Oh wow, oh well, doesn't sound too bad anyway. Hey, I would love for you to share with the audience who you are and really talk about your story, what brought you to this point, writing your book and those type of things. I think what got me to where I am now is my own being stuck. I think things did happen in my childhood around wanting to write and inspire people, but I think I went into a bit of a trough or a rut really, and then my husband left the marriage and then I suddenly went, well what am I going to do? And I'm not very good at being told what to do, so, you know, like all these people but with great advice, and it might be good advice as well, but they're they're well meaningly telling me.

2:46 But I will resist any advice being you know, I want to come up with my own ideas, and which is a bit difficult when you're a bit low and don't know what direction to go in. And so what happened was was that I went on a neural linguistic programming course and then sort of dived into all sorts of self development tools and techniques, and the ones that I resonate with are the ones that don't require access to my logic, because logic is what will defend my story. So I know that there are no solutions, that that person is to blame, etc. And that's where logic will defend that. And what I discovered starting the neural linguistic program but also other trainings was he the power of our inner wisdom to talk to us through metaphor and so and therefore it was just became so much easier for me to hear what my inner wisdom had to say because I wasn't having to bypass logic because we're sort of sending logic on a coffee break. We're sending the story everything on a coffee break while I explore, well, what you know, I am stuck? What could I do in this situation? But instead of it being oh, well you need to go and talk to this person, it's much more likely to be oh, there's a path, or oh, don't give up, there's another tide coming, or oh, look

4:18 at that little oak you know, that oak tree sapling. You know, it's really there's lots of dead wood around here in this wood. Little sapling is just a reminder that there's always new growth coming through. So I think I just found metaphor really easy to relate to because my logic was sort of turned down really so it wasn't defending the story, It wasn't saying I was stuck. It was much more open to seeing the situation from a different perspective. I see it as when we're stuck, we quite often look into a corner and think the corner in a room. If we imagine in a room and you're looking into the corner of the room, and when we're stuck, all we're seeing is the two sides of the corner and a lot of the tools that I use just help people turn around and go there's a whole room here, or there's a whole load of perspectives that I wasn't looking at.

5:17 Okay, so let me ask you the question. You talk about neural linguistic and you know, you talk about how you found yourself stuck and you found that as you started searching ways to overcome that, that this seemed to be one area that really was interesting to you. Could you explain to the audience what neural linguistic is. A neural linguistic program is just really another metaphor if you want, that says we run on programs. So we all have habits, So we'll get out of bed in the morning and we'll do things, and we'll do things quite habitually and in particular ways, and certain things will motivate us, certain things won't make it motivators. So in some respects, we're a bit like a computer. But we all have our own little software. And sometimes, just like a computer, our software can have unhelpful programs in it, or it can get distorted and it just needs I suppose, reprogramming.

6:23 So it could be that I'm fearful of spiders, or I went on holiday last week and the fear of heights came back. So it might be about that, because we can teach ourselves to be scared of things, but we can also teach ourselves not to be scared of them. But I think most of the NLP that I did was more about just being more self aware. That we go around life unconscious because we couldn't possibly be conscious about every decision we make because we wouldn't have time. We won't even be able to get out of bed if everything we did was conscious, because then it would be I've got to move this leg, I've got to do this, I've got to do that. Why am I doing that?

7:10 So of course we have to have programs, which is this is my breakfast program, this is my going to the car, this is my driving program that allows me to get from A to B, but also listen to a podcast or something. So we have all these programs, but they're running unconsciously, and sometimes, especially when we get out of sort, we forget that those programs can be unhelpful. So, for instance, bizarrely, when I'm really out of sort that I go to watch TV programs that are all about death. And destruction and the end of the world and lots of murder in them and killing, sometimes quite graphically. And is it any wonder that I then start to feel worse?

8:01 But I do it unconsciously. It's like I have to catch myself doing that pattern to go. No, if you watch, you can put I can persuade myself till the cows come home, which is a phrase they have in the UK about Oh, I want to watch this program, but I absolutely can guarantee that I will not sleep very well and I'll be quite agitated as a result. And so often that is happening unconscious that we spend time with people and we don't even we're not even aware that those people are agitating us, or you know, we might be the fact that why is it that's when I'm feeling down, I always ring X person. You know I always ring Sally when I'm up. Well, that's because she makes you feel better. Well, when you're feeling down, perhaps you ring somebody else. So for me, neural linguistic program just brought it out into sort of visible so I could see the patterns. Because then I've got more choice friends for doing this. That's not helpful or it is helpful. You know, I can find things that, oh, when I'm feeling out of sorts, going for a walk will always happen. So let's put that on the prescription and make it conscious. Oh, I've noticed I'm feeling out of sorts. I'm going to go for a walk.

9:18 Okay. So withinn LP, I had a very interesting experience with that. I was working with a client who came to me and said, Doug, I'm just really making bad decisions and I keep doing it even though I know I shouldn't. And so we went through a neuro linguistic session with him, and as I did that, we got back to that early childhood and discovered some things that had occurred to him while I was in grade school. And as we identified that reframed it so that rather than him thinking that he was stupid or he wasn't good enough, it was really, you know what we're really talking about the teacher here and their ability to communicate how they should. And once he got that and then we came forward into the present time, it was fascinating, as he told me months later, what a difference that made in his life, that changes he made, the decisions he made so for folks that are wondering what NLP neuro linguistic program NLP is, it's not necessarily at least I don't understand it to be something that you can do on yourself. I really think that it's something that you need someone to help you with and to guide you, because that makes it so much easier and oftentimes helps you get to the right place where you don't necessarily find that place if you're doing it on your own.

10:45 Do you disagree with that? Did you do it on your own or did you have someone guide you through the NLP process? Well? Absolutely, I mean I did a practitioner master practitioner train the training of an LP, so absolutely, I've had people around me. I think there are some tools that are easier to do on our own, and I think perhaps that's where a lot of the metaphors come in, because it's about any process where you're just doing it in your head for yourself. You've got half of you going giving yourself the instructions and the other half answering, and that's very difficult, Whereas if you can get the process out in front of you and you're drawing it, it's much more easily to go to the instructions and go, oh, right, I'm going to draw this now. And the other thing is, for some of the metaphors stuff is you can't talk yourself out of it because the benefit of having you there to help that person was if they then started to go, oh, but that isn't true, it was much easier for you to go, really, how might how might this be true? How might it be more about the teacher than it was you? And sometimes it's harder to do that sort of conversation for ourselves. So I think it depends on the the technique they're using as to whether it's better with somebody else. I think it's about how easy you find it to not get caught up in your own thinking and believe it to be true, because, as the example you've given, it requires us to change

12:17 our mind and beliefs. You know you mentioned beliefs. Beliefs and values are much harder to change than our behaviors, and yet a lot of our behaviors are linked to beliefs and values. So yeah, if we're looking at values and beliefs such as the example you gave, then it's going to be easier for somebody else to be asking the questions because they can stop you going off on tangents and getting lost in the detail. Really okay, And so without getting into the content of your book, what is the name of your book in what motivated you to write it? I can't see the wood for the trees? Is the name of the book? Landscaping life? To get back on track?

13:02 And I'd always wanted to write a book, and I suppose I'd tried various different I also knew it was going to be around using nature as a metaphor for our lives, and I just kept trying, it's that whole this is the book. Oh no, that's not the ruok. So I'd sort of write, you know, a few chapters or even the whole book. Really so, I'd gone through about three or four iterations. But certainly in an age before social media as it is now then using metaphors quite difficult. These days Instagram, you know, TikTok, Facebook, it's much easier to be able to use metaphor and people to grasp it. But that isn't where I was at when I was writing those books. But I think what so I kept wanting to write a book, but the book that got published was when I realized that I'd found one that would resonate with more readers, because I think the books I've written previously were very, very niche, and you might have only had had a handful of readers, whereas the book I've written is much more. Oh, here's how I can use metaphor and apply it to things that people are doing anyway, So people are already saying they're stuck in a rut, or they're going around in circles, or they're like a fish out of water, or here in the UK we'd say can't see the wood for the trees, or in other areas of the world it

14:33 might be can't see the woods for the trees, or can't see the forest for the trees. So I think it was just keeping on knowing I wanted to write a book, and keeping on writing the book until such time I found one that I thought would resonate more. Okay, and you talk about metaphors, and you just listened a few, but would you explain to the audience what you mean by metaphor, and then how does metaphor How can an individual use me their life consciously to literally be able to make a change in their lives. Well, I think. I think the first thing is is we're using them all the time. So some of it is again going back to conscious awareness that said, oh, I've just used a metaphor because I've just said something is like something. So I've just said I can't see the wood for the trees. So that's not a logical thing.

15:27 It is a metaphor that we are using to depict four other people so that they understand what's happening. And we quite often use metaphor because it's richer. It's like, if I was to tell you about my problem, I might be here for thirty minutes, still giving you all the detail. But if I say I can't see the woods for the trees, or I'm going round in circles, you get a real sense of what I mean with only that one sentence. And we do it. It's like I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place. It's an uphill struggle. We can play so much because of that, but it's a metaphor because we're not stuck between a rock and a hard place. Really. But the metaphor with suggesting is it is like that, and so we're doing that all the time and So therefore, my suggestion is we use the metaphor in our language to get back on track, because if it is like we can't see the wood for the trees, then my suggestion is what would you do in a real wood. But in terms of sort of going back to your first question about a metaphor, is if we go back to when I first used it in earnest in business was when and this is why metaphors are really useful because we might not know anything or know how to solve a particular problem, but we might know something about loads about something else.

16:55 So my sense would be, if you know a lot about cars, then and you've got a problem, and how is your problem like an engine? How is your car about? How is your problem about driving? Because you know more about driving that you'll then be able to go, oh, I just need to change gear. Oh I just need to change the tires. So when I used it was we were in business and procurement professional purchasing, and we were trying to convince these managers in the organization that they needed to pay attention to supplier management, and you know, they were bored. It's like we're talking about supplier management and they're going yeah, yeah, we're already doing it. Go away.

17:37 But as soon as I start, and they weren't. I mean, we've got a lot of supplier problems. But they believed they were because they didn't know anything about supplier management, and they believed they knew all of it until I said, what do you know about gardening? Oh, well, gardening, we need to think about where we put the plants. The plants need mow, you know, the lawns need mowing, plants need pruning, watering, feeding time. In the greenhouse. We might even have a compost bin. And when I said, so all of what you know? So you're telling me, you know, we've got problems with suppliers, and yet and you're telling me know all of this about all of this about gardening.

18:17 If I tell you that looking after suppliers is exactly the same as looking after a garden, they just when it was a bit like going from beginner supplier management to you know, going for a degree in supplier management because they suddenly knew so much more about Oh, suppliers need Oh you mean, I know, I shouldn't just plunk a supplier in the corner of the garden and leave them to it. Oh, that's why we have problems with suppliers, because we need to give them some attention. So I think metaphors are great because we know something. So if somebody's really into some sport, they can use that sport as a metaphor for their problem. How is, how can they apply tennis to that problem? How can they apply going back to the earlier example, you know, a car engine to their problem. Because we know more about we have areas of expertise, and we'll always be able to go.

19:15 Nobody is a bit like that. So as you were talking, you know, you obviously were talking about your business experience. So what came to my mind is I was thinking, how often as parents do we talk to our children as they're facing challenges and try to help them, usually by giving them our opinion, which is not helpful and I'm guilty of that my kids. But just imagine for a moment if as a parent, we could literally learn to use metaphors in helping our children either when they come to us, which sometimes they do, oftentimes they don't, or when we're observing that something's happening, and if we can sit down and get into kem munication with them and then use a metaphor. It seems to me that that does a couple of things. And I love your opinion on this number one. As you say, it allows them in a metaphor that they would understand.

20:14 It allows them to focus on a third entity rather than themselves number one and number two, rather than feeling like they're being criticized because an opinion is being given. All of a sudden, you have this external metaphor that you're talking about, and then seeing whether they can then understand what you're saying and how it might apply to the challenge that they're facing. What are your thoughts on that and have you ever talked? Definitely? Definitely. And I think the other thing is is that when we're giving people advice, we're forcing something on them. So even if we're metaphor, it's really interesting that we can think somebody needs a path out, you need to find a path, or you need a map. And what they notice, because I quite often go for what I call landscaping your life walks and will take the problem on a walk and I'll invite them to see things in the landscape that reflects their problem. And I might be there thinking, oh, yeah, I know where this is going, and it never does because it's their unconscious that noticing patterns that make sense to them. So I can ask questions about what do you notice and what happens if we go this way and what happens if we go that way? But I've just learned to be very careful about imposing. If I go in a group, then quite often what happens is that one person's busy telling this other person, oh, well, it's quite clear it's this, and it's like, well, yeah, that's not where that person's going

21:44 to be looking. So you can't you can't impose it. But they're in a wisdom will help because you're basically saying that landscape, in my instance, is similar to your problem? How is it similar? And they'll come up with them what the brain will do it. It's like, you know, in what way is this problem similar to your favorite sport? And you'll absolutely be able to do it. If you're into cooking, how is how is your problem similar to your favorite meal that you're cooking, or when you're cooking a new meal and people are able to see it see it. I mean it is interesting though, because I tend to not want to go down the routes of sporting ones because I don't know anything about it, so it does restrict my ability to ask questions. Whereas because I use nature as a metaphor, then I'm much more aware of you know, day following night, the seasons, tides, how things grow, you know, harvesting, et cetera. So it's much easier for me to be able to ask questions.

22:47 But it should apply to any you know. Quite often people use fair ground you know for someone named reason, so it could be you know, how is the problems? You know what ride in the fair ground? And is your problem similar to oh, it's a helter skelter, Oh it's the you know. Okay, so let me ask you a question. I let's say I really am facing the challenge right now in my life. I'm just frustrated. I find myself get angry and I can't really relate to why it is and what type of nature metaphor would you take me through in order to help me to understand the fact that anger and frustration literally is not a healthy way to be.

23:35 Okay, I don't know that i'd ever tell you that anger and frustration isn't the way, but the common theme of doing of using a metaphor is that anger and frustration disappears because because the anger and frustration is normally because we can only see ten percent of the solution. You know, it's ten percent of the situation, and therefore we're focusing on that ten percent, and therefore meta enables you to see the bigger picture. And more commonly, it's like, oh, that's better right now, I can now I know what to do, But the way I do it depends on how where we are. So quite often I'll be out in nature with somebody, or they're out in nature at the other end of the phone, and I'll just be saying, so walk, I don't I don't want to talk about the current situation. So I don't ask for details of the current situation because that will just get them more angyo, that will enable them to access anger and frustration. So it's like, I do not want to access the state of stuckness. We've been in that for long enough. We know how the anger feels, we know how the frustration feels.

24:42 Let's let's park that and then let's let's look at it metaphorically. So if we are outside, I might just be asking you know dependent if we go back to that person who've got decision to make, it might be that I ask at every crossroads and the paths we're on about them to make a decision, which decision, which direction do you want to go? So it might be about the patterns there somebody wants. Was every junction we came to, they chose the path that wasn't signposted where we didn't know where they were going. But that was huge insight for them because they their work was much more about new product development and they hadn't realized that that was there what motivated them. Sometimes it might just be the fact that somebody noticed a tree, they might notice a path, and we have a conversation about how that helps them give them some insight about the situation.

25:40 But the quickest way, I suppose, if we were on the other end of the phone and we didn't have access to nature, would be for me to say, and people listening can do this is if your current problem was a mountain, draw the mountain, so they could put us on hold, go and get a piece of paper, pen and then back and then draw it. And I'm not suggesting they spend the next half hour drawing the mountain. It's just now the reason I use mountain, you could use any any landscape. And this comes back to the difference between the example I'm giving you is easy to do on your own. Yeah, yeah, So the example I'm giving is much easier for somebody to do. When I'm not I can't see what they're doing, which is it draw the mountain, and it's going to take you one or two minutes. So you're either done it now as I've been rabbiting on, or you can just pause us for another thirty seconds until you've finished drawing it and just draw the mountain. Just notice how big it is, what the sides are, how at all it is. Did you have to use colored pens? What's the top light, what's the bottom like? Just to notice what you notice.

26:52 So that's the mountain that we're saying depicts the current situation. And the chances are if somebody looks at that mountain they understand why they can't see solutions because it will be barren quite often, and it might not be so I mean, these are stereotypes rather than specifics, so it might be very very slopey slides, sides, very steep sides. So what now would ask those of you that are following following on is to so either make changes to that mounting or start with a new mountain. What would the mountain that had the solution within it look like?

27:33 So depend it all depends on what the solution is as to whether you have to start with a new mounting or you can make changes to the current one. So that might be changing the color of your pen. It might be about adding paths. Quite often it is about adding paths. Sometimes it's about adding in signposts. One person had a real r har when they went, oh my god, I'm not in the picture now I don't. I don't have to know, and nor does anybody listening need to know. Well, why on earth we're adding the pert themselves into the picture make a difference? Doesn't matter? It did for that person they were able to by adding themselves into the picture of the with the mountain.

28:19 It because all using another metaphor metaphors just open doors in your brain to the solutions. Because if you're stuck, I absolutely believe you have the solutions, but currently the doors to those solutions in your brain are closed for whatever reason, the anger, frustration, whatever the reason is that we're keeping our access to the solutions the doors closed. So using metaphor, just by adding that person in adding a path to your mountain, changing the color of it, making it less steep. I'd somebody adding in like tents. Somebody else added a gid to help them up the mountain.

29:02 Somebody else realized, oh, I'm trying to climb the mountain with the wrong shoes. I haven't got walking shoes on. So and we could jump to what we think that means, but it doesn't really matter as long as the person doing the drawing has gone. I felt frustrated and not knowing what to do when I drew the first picture, and as a result, oddly enough of changing that picture somehow I feel different, and I now have access to solutions that I didn't have before I started thinking about my problem. As a mountain. Do you find that drawing, because I know that's one of your main focuss do you find that drawing a picture like he just suggested is one of the best ways for an individual who finds themselves stuck to be able to draw a mountain or draw whatever in a way that all of a sudden they can start to understand how to get unstuck. Is drawing one of the main solutions.

30:05 I think some people have got a belief. So this again comes back to whether or not they're doing it on their own or not, because if they've got a belief that they're not a great drawer, they're going to be trying to draw it with a belief that's going I'm not a great drawer. This isn't going to work. So I think it depends on people's relationship with drawing. If it gets you into a more playful Oh, I'm just there. I'm like a child. There is no right or wrong. Nobody's going to judge this, matt In, then it's more likely. To be. It's my quickest one, certainly if I'm not there, because it's easier for people to do and not necessarily go off at tangents and start doing things wrong. My preference would be to get people out into nature, but that is harder to do on your own. There are instructions on my website about how to do it, but it is and the podcast that I do is exactly that.

31:01 It's if you feel like you're stuck between a rock and a hard place, I go out into nature and get stuck between a rock and a hard place, and encourage you to do the same in order for us both to get insight about what's really going on. But it's a bit harder to do, which is why I do it in the in the podcast episodes really well. And does your book help to explain that? So, for instance, I get up, I practically get up every morning and I go out walking, you know, yeah, for you know, three four or five kilometers. And during that time, it's you know interesting I walk around because I'm in Thailand right now. There's trees, there's you know a number of rice rice fields and so forth. There's even a Buddhist temple that I walk by. How how would I use that?

31:51 You know? How would I use that ability to walk like I can and going through those different locations. If I if I wake up frustrated about a certain situation and I want to resolve it, and I'm going, okay, I'm going to go for a walk, what do I do on that walk? What do I observe? How do I observe in a way to start to remove that frustration and find the greater sense of peace, which I believe once I find that the solutions will come a little bit easier. The the biggest challenge, I suppose is the fact that the first thing I would do is that invite you to park the problem. So it's like, if you're worrying about a particular situation, it's okay, we'll leave. And this is this is where our logical mind needs telling that.

32:40 This is what we're going to do, is dearest logical brain, we are going to go for a walk and we're going to apply more metaphoricals. You know, look at it metaphorically. So I'm not like, I like you, logical brain not to keep playing the story. So we are sending you, logical brain and the story on a coffee break. Now. I know I'm emphasizing it a lot, but it is really important and it's something I say in the book, and it's something I have to do repeatedly if I'm walking with somebody, because what happens is we see a path, we see a signpost, and we start trying to translate it immediately. Oh oh, I need to put you know all, Okay, I need a I need a signpost. I'm not looking for the you know, the site. I don't know where I want to go or whatever, and we automatically jump into thinking that's the solution. So the biggest thing is we're going to park the story and actually ask invite our brain not to regurgitate the story for the for the whole walk, and then if we need to, we might need to write what we notice down so that we can retell it later so we see it and sometimes it just it could become obvious. But the idea is to just go for a walk and notice what you notice. So it might be that it's a walk sounds like at the moment, it's a walk you may

34:11 have done frequently. So what is it that you noticed differently? Oh, I noticed that tree. I've never noticed that tree before. What is it about? What is it about that tree? So somebody at the weekend suddenly realized there was this oak tree, and they were talking about this oak tree, and there were lots of saplings that she was noticing because she's got very frustrated about nothing was happening. And so these saplings to her afterwards were a reminder that, oh, we don't always see growth. I mean, the acorns fall to the ground, they go down, they then sprout. It might be while before they become trees. But what she also noticed it, and this was about twenty minutes in and we've just been talking about the oak trees and everything, was she noticed that the oak trees were in a circle with five other oak trees. So you'd sort of notice, you'd like you'd notice the sapling. So if you've not got a great memory like mine, you might write it down.

35:12 So it's like, I've noticed the saplings, I've noticed the oak tree. I've noticed that the oak tree is in a circle. It might be that you notice paths, but it's to try and immerse yourself in the in the landscape. Now, what you could do is go what part of this landscape represents my challenge? And you might go, oh it's that, Yeah, yeah, it's that, And then it's just about going, well, what would the solution look like? What would I need to do to eradicate that landscape? So it's a bit difficult because everybody will do something different, but the chances are that the patterns you notice, when you then get back, you can go, oh, I got lost, So how did I get unlost? So it's sort of about telling the story of the walk through the patterns. Oh well, I got so far and then I got and then I got lost. Why did you get lost? I got lost because I didn't intuition said I should go right, and I decided I was going to go left because I wanted to go the difficult route or something. So it's just about replaying it, but replaying it with the patterns.

36:25 So what decisions did you make? What did you notice? What are the patterns that you notice? And it's in that exploration that our brain convert because it is our inner wisdom talking to us. It is our inner wisdom allowing that person at the weekend to notice that those trees were in a circle and that actually what they were missing was a collaborative you know, they were feeling quite alone, and actually they weren't alone, and they needed to ask for help of this little mini community. Well, and do you do you find it? I mean, as you talk about that, I'm thinking, Wow, that really takes a mindful approach to that walk. When I get up tomorrow morning, it's got to be just a really mindful approach to this walk. How do you help people, you know, and because they can't be with you all of the time, obviously, and how do you help people to be able to become mindful enough and focus enough to be able to use this process that you're talking about in a way that really does help them to work their way through these problems and in many cases work their way through these limiting beliefs that have been affecting their lives for so long.

37:46 My experience is the way I describe is a lot of people that come to me or stock in a root or you know, they're stock, and I help them out of it, and once they're once they're out of it, they have the skills needed to then use this process. And so therefore that's what happened is so I had an email from somebody and at the time, she's saying to me, all right, right, let's let's let's arrange another session in three months time. And I'm thinking, you don't need it, but she really will put it in the diary. And I'm thinking, all right, we'll put it in the diary. But I sort of penciled it in the diary with her unlikely and absolutely the week before, oh, I don't need it because this has happened. And literally the story she's telling me was of how many things have changed, how she was able to look at things differently. So I think I see what I do as opening people up to hear they're inner wisdom. And once they've heard the whispers of their inner wisdom, they're not going to forget how to do that. And so somebody might come back once a year to say, oh, can we have a bit of a refresh, or because they'd like me to be asking questions off them rather than themselves. But I think it's that's the hard bit to convey that once you've heard the whispers of your inner wisdom, you're just going to be really excited about, Oh my God, the part within me that does know what to do.

39:08 And I've now got an you know, I just need to go for a walk and hear it. Or if it's not going for walk, I need to draw it or do a collage or yeah. And yes, the book does give you for every phrase that you might utter, four or five different ways of exploring it if you're out in nature, if you're not out in nature, drawing, imagining it in your head. So there's lots of different techniques to do it. But the sense I have is once you've experienced it once, you're not going to forget. That okay, so how do people find your book number one? And how do people find you can't see? The wood for the trees is available worldwide. The tagline is Landscaping your Life. To get back on track, Landscaping your Life sometimes is the easier mechanism if you're doing a search, because forever reason with the apostrophe can't then some search engines just fall down, So Landscaping your Life would find it. The website is Alisonsmith dot Co with nothing else after it. But the easiest way is just searching Landscaping your Life. Because Landscaping a Life is the podcast.

40:19 It's the tagline in the book. It's the hashtag I use on all social media LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. So, yeah, Landscaping your Life. And if you added in Alison or Alison Smith to that, you'd find where all different places that I'm available. But I think if somebody's gone, oh yeah, I'd like to try that, I think the book does it. And I'm not trying to persuade somebody not to buy the book. But if they go to the web to the podcast, they could then there's sixty sixty four currently podcast episodes and they can go and choose the one that resonates with hout They're feeling Oh yeah, yeah, I'm feeling like I'm going around in circle. Yeah, I'm feeling like I'm stuck between a rocker in the hard place.

41:00 And then and then I talk them through the process and yeah. Oh wonderful. So your podcasts actually focus on those different challenges. Oh, that's wonderful to hear. That's wonderful to hear. Well, as we close today, what would be what would be a message that you really want to share with the audience that as they finish up, that this is something that will stay with them and they'll think about I think. The fact nature doesn't have must sorts and shuds, so you can't tell a daisy look you should face that way that you know the days is going to face this way because that's what allows it to flourish. And nature has patients. It's like we expect immediate returns these days, and yet plants you know, you plan to seed and you don't keep poking it. It's not going to grow.

41:51 You just got to give it the right conditions allow it to grow, and you know, and then it will grow. But sometimes we sort of think it's going to grow with outright conditions and all going to happen immediately. So I think it's look to nature's patience and the order of things that if we let go of some of the most and shoulds in our lives, then we might find ourselves going off at different directions, but they're directions that would give us more joy and passion in life. Oh, I'd love it. Well, thanks so much for me. This is fascinating. I'd love to take a look at that book because I think that you know, being able to figure out and I love your concept of metaphors.

42:32 I think that whole process of being able to use metaphors and as we said, for yourself and then also as you're in communication with your family, with your loved ones, or in business or wherever it happens to be recognizing that using metaphors takes away some of the resistance from the other individual that you're really honestly trying to help, and it allows you to help them to start to think for themselves and to come up with a solution, which is you and I both know is really the way that you can be helpful has allowed them to come up with the solution. So anyway, Alison, thanks so much. I really appreciate you being on the show and that and folks, thanks for listening. I hope you got something out of this, and please go to the website and see what makes see what gives you some moneys and thoughts about your own life. Appreciate it anyway. This is doctor Doug saying, have a wonderful week and no mistay