THE WEATHER

When you start to see your life like the weather—meaning it’s there for you to experience but you don’t have a hand in creating it—you shift into a mindset that is highly beneficial because you start to turn your focus to what you can control.

And the single biggest variable in your life that you can control is your mind.

In fact, I see the point of spirituality as letting life show you where you could change your mind and succeed.

Once you see life as something that swirls around you, you get to decide. Are you going to hide inside because it is raining? Are you going to bemoan the cloudy sky and have a miserable day? Are you going to complain about the heat and wish it away?

Of course not. You learn to accept the weather for what it is, and when it is not to your liking, you find other ways to spend your time outside of the elements.

Such is the course that best suits us all for life. I know there is a whole lot of lessons in new age spirituality about each of us creating our own reality. I don’t dispute that. I just think that the area where I can affect my life is limited to my body and about 18 inches all around me. Everything outside of that? That’s life that I can’t control.

Yet I can influence it.

If I make a point of valuing myself and my ideas, others around me pick up on that and begin to do the same. For themselves.

If I make it a point to spend time caring for myself, others I live with have implicit permission to do the same. For themselves.

And if I make it a point to change my thinking when it runs aground, others around me will see that I am taking responsibility for how I think. For my betterment.

I wouldn’t blame myself if the weather turned bad. In much the same way, I don’t blame myself when life takes a downward turn. Instead, I get busy making the most of where I am and looking for ways to weather the storm until blue skies arrive once again.

Where are you seeking to control life? Where can you use the metaphor of the weather to help you see that you only control you? Where can you turn your attention onto your own thinking to change your experience?