002 - Mother Nature On Her Governing Rule

The Governing Rule of health and wellbeing is playful curiosity, which can be applied to all aspects of life. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by the five guidelines for health, approach them with curiosity and experimentation. Don't strive for perfection, but rather have fun and learn from the process. Apply this rule to manage stress by exploring ways to slow down and make small changes without expectations. There is no right or wrong way to achieve health, so embrace curiosity and playfulness. Mother Nature herself fills every niche in the universe through playful exploration. Stop putting pressure on yourself and enjoy the journey to better health. Welcome back to Conversations with Mother Nature. I wanted to add this little bonus episode in here for you today, to give you a principle of health that we haven't yet mentioned. This has got to be one of my absolute favourite rules for Mother Nature, because it takes all the pressure off knowing exactly how to find health and wellbeing. In fact, this principle alone can unlock physical and mental wellbeing in every part of your life. It's so important that we've called it the Governing Rule, and you'll find we keep coming back to this again and again in our conversations. So, what rule would be so important that we would dedicate an entire episode to it? Let's find out, shall we? Welcome back to the show, Mother Nature. It's a pleasure to be here, Chris. So in the last episode, you shared with us your five rules for health and wellbeing. Live slowly and sleep deeply, eat from nature's plate, exercise as if living in nature, socialise naturally and be kind to yourself. I planned to go through these today, but I'm not sure where to start. Even though they seem simple enough, I feel kind of overwhelmed by them in some way. How can something so simple feel so overwhelming to me? Well, maybe that's because I didn't share with you the Governing Rule. The Governing Rule? Can you tell me about it? Well, it's the single rule that you should try to apply to everything you do in your life. By the way, this rule is not just about health, which is why we didn't mention it last week. This rule applies to work, education, relationships, travel, and anything else you can imagine. Even arguments or politics. Wow, okay. That sounds like it's going to be a complex rule. Okay, I'm ready. What is it? Playful curiosity. Did you just say playful curiosity? Yes. Okay, you've got me hooked. Whirl me in. I'm not sure how playful curiosity deals with anything. Okay, answer me this. When you see my five simple rules for health, are you expecting to live by them perfectly all the time and right away? Yeah, I'm a bit of a perfectious, you know. Really, I just don't want to get it wrong and butcher your rules. Exactly. Humans are the only organism that thinks in right or wrong. Try to think of my five rules as guidelines more than anything. Guidelines you should have fun with. How so? Say you want to improve your health and you think of guideline one, live slowly and sleep deeply. As you think of it, you quickly realize that life is far from slow. Maybe you can't even think of the last time you slept deeply. Rather than beat yourself up or feel overwhelmed with trying to change your life immediately, apply the governing rule instead. Bring a sense of playful curiosity to how fast your life is or how lightly you sleep. So you're saying that we take getting our health right too seriously? Yes. Let me ask you this, Chris. Do you think I know how to create the perfect universe? Well, of course I do. You're Mother Nature after all. The answer is no, Chris. I just see a niche that needs to be filled and I try to fill it. I take hundreds, even thousands of attempts at it, each one failing until one finally succeeds. I'm not overwhelmed by the task. I just bring a sense of curiosity, experimenting as I go. And I play with lots of options until I find what works. So you bring a sense of playful curiosity to your work, making lots of mistakes as you go. It just doesn't seem that way from where I stand. Well, you only see the end result. It's the same as looking at someone with the health and well-being you desire. You see their end result, not their struggles and experiments, or even that they are still in the midst of their failures. Yeah, I guess that makes sense to me. So how specifically could I bring playful curiosity to the five rules, sorry, guidelines you gave us last week, so I can apply them in my life? That's a great question, Chris. Start by picking a part of your health you wish to improve. Let's say it's stress you want to manage better. Look through the five guidelines and pick one you're curious about. For example, you might be curious about the first guideline again. Live slowly and sleep deeply. This guideline alone can profoundly change stress. Now simply become curious. Ask yourself questions like, how fast-paced is your life? Where might you be able to slow down? Is there a moment you can just take a deep breath? There are all sorts of questions you could ask to spark your curiosity about your stress. After that, the job is to go play with some changes with absolutely no expectations of the outcome, just more playful curiosity. Again, you can ask yourself, what happened when you made the change? What does that tell you about yourself? Is there another experiment you could do? Just keep playing. Eventually, you'll learn the unique combination that allows you to slow down enough to ease your stress. That's beautifully simple, Mother Nature. You could apply that governing rule of playful curiosity to anything in your life, couldn't you? If we could just stop trying to control the outcome and just be curious about the process of getting to the outcome, stress releases its grip on you, right? It does, Chris. OK. Let me summarise this quickly. Change can feel overwhelming. Even having five simple guidelines that guarantee health can feel overwhelming. But the reason it's so overwhelming is that we put so much pressure on ourselves by thinking in terms of rights and wrongs, but there is no right or wrong way to go about health. The five guidelines are just there to help you get there easier. So simply get curious about that aspect of health that you wish to change and then play with lots of solutions. Eventually, you'll find one that works for you. You see, that's how Mother Nature filled every niche imaginable in an infinitely complex universe by playfully exploring her curiosities and stumbling across the solution. Excellent work, Chris. I couldn't have said it better myself. Thank you so much, Mother Nature. This has been such a simple solution to what I thought was such an overwhelming and complicated issue. I feel ready to dive in and explore the five guidelines now. You're welcome, Chris, but we'll have to save that for next time. I have an overwhelmingly large universe to tinker with after all. So you do. I look forward to it already. So I hope you enjoyed the show today. I realise much of what we talk about in this podcast will feel overwhelming at times. There's an irony in it somehow. We're overwhelmed and confused about health, yet in simplifying it, we can end up feeling overwhelmed and confused in a whole new way. That's why I wanted to put this governing rule into the mix as early as possible, encouraging you to have a sense of playful curiosity about your health journey. Let's make a pact. Let's all stop beating ourselves up. Let's not worry about doing health right or wrong. Everything, and I really mean everything in nature, was created in a process of iteration. Or, more simply, a process of playful curiosity by the universe, tweaking and adapting to mistake after mistake until perfection arises. So from now on, listen to our conversations with a sense of curiosity and go play with what you learn. Thanks for listening, and remember, great health emerges naturally when you allow Mother Nature to guide you.