The Weather of our Lives

If you think about it we treat life a lot like a blizzard warning,
spending time preparing and fearing the worst when so often all we get
is rain or a light dusting. Yet time after time the fearful voice
inside our minds convinces us that the worst possible outcome is the
only outcome. So we prepare. We devise a plan, stock up, complain, and
find all the reasons why this storm in particular is really going to
trap us. Like the forecasters (bless them), we so often create
scenarios in our minds that rarely, if ever, happen in reality. Yet our
fear of the anticipated blizzard can leave us paralyzed for days.

Sound familiar? Spending days, weeks, or months dreading something
that you have no control over is a total waste of time. Not to mention
that we are not even sure it will happen. Yet we seem to have already
decided that the storm will be the worst of the week, month, year and
end in the worst scenario possible. Living with these thoughts is
simply a waste of time and energy.

The stories we tell ourselves can become quite dramatic and more times
than not, they never pan out nearly as awful as the way we envision.
Yet these stories, can bring us to a place where we feel angry,
resentful, and scared, without the first flake even falling.

Sometimes blizzards do take our lives by storm. No matter if we can
prepare for them or not, ultimately the weather of our lives will not
always be sunny and warm. There will be cold, rainy, snowy days and
yes, possibly disastrous storms. However, it’s not just the storms we
wait for that deserve our attention but the days and hours in the
meantime that we call life.

So we can spend our time worrying about the “weather” or we can deal
with predicted blizzards by affirming a desired positive outcome. Then
we surrender that which is out of our control. This does not mean we
don’t prepare, but the preparation is so much less fear driven and in
that way much more enjoyable. So if the blizzard does come perhaps we
are able to more clearly see the size of the obstacle and maybe even
enjoy the beauty of the snow.