Feeling hot, hot,..or not?
Hooray!..for our 'interesting' weather here in the UK.. never boring is it? This is why we're all obsessed with talking about it after all.
And I guess factually a temperature might be determined as officially 'hot' or 'cold' but really I believe it's another chance to be reminded of perception and opinion.
I genuinely felt really low the other day when the temperature dropped back down to early 20s from the, in my opinion, blissful 29 degrees the previous two days. Finally - at the very end of JUNE - two consecutive days when I could leave home without gloves!
And yet for (many) others, it was a relief; the hotter temperatures were stifling for them, even preventing them from going about their desired plans.
Is the sunshine 'gorgeous' or 'sweltering'? Or both? Neither is wrong or right. The sunshine just 'is'. What we label it is purely down to our individual genetics, blood circulation, and opinion - which may even differ dependent on what we need to do in said sunshine.
And this is a lesson yoga teaches, and which can relate to pretty much everything. Is a situation annoying, problematic, fantastic.. Or is a situation just a..situation? The adjectives, emotions, labels we give are exactly that - given by us.
You probably know someone who's naturally really calm and unbothered if a train is late/there's a traffic jam/they get annoying news.. Well, we can ALL choose to be like that if we want! Of course there are some life situations that are serious, tragic, and understandably anxiety-causing. Buddhist tradition calls this the first 'arrow' of suffering. But the second arrow - we fire at ourselves..! The perhaps 24 hour worrying, ruminating, wallowing - it's tricky to 'step out of ourselves' and realise this at first, but we are deciding to do that. Or rather we can make the decision, if not to stop completely, at least to notice and lessen the unnecessary reacting.
Maybe it seems I'm writing all this breezily as though this is easy for me. It's not! I could list 4 or 5 things I'm overthinking about at the moment ((-; But my yoga practice (and by this, I'm referring to the 'mind stuff') means that I'm much better than I used to be at catching myself, laughing at the mind's activity, and refocusing on what is a situation, and not a problem unless I call it that. (This is wisdom taken from The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle btw).
I hope this day or week brings you an opportunity to notice and practise this. Undoubtedly, situations will present themselves which could be seized on by the 'monkey mind' as a chance to fret, worry, feel one way or another. Good luck with choosing NOT to do that; it could be the start of a life-changing journey!
There’s nothing like warmth to make me smile..!