What is the weather inside you?
You wake up one morning and something feels heavy and gloomy inside you. The sun is shining, you have a lovely day ahead, and yet something doesn’t feel quite right.
“She must have got out of the wrong side of the bed,” they say.
But have I? I always get out of the same side of the bed! Day in, day out. 😉
I know, it’s just an expression. But I do have days, and I imagine I’m not the only one, when the weather inside me doesn’t match the weather outside. And sometimes I have absolutely no idea why.
Do you notice the weather inside you? Do you pay attention to it?
I think it’s important that we do.
If I snap at my children, if I’m less inclined to hold the door open for a stranger, or if I thank the bus driver only half-heartedly, does that make me a worse person than I was yesterday?
Perhaps I was kinder, more patient, more generous yesterday. So what’s different today?
If I take a moment to look inside myself, I might begin to understand.
Perhaps there’s a little worry lingering from the night before. My partner seemed a bit off. The children were particularly challenging. Or maybe there’s something about the day ahead that’s making me uneasy.
Sometimes it’s something really small, like having to meet a new colleague.
And my logical mind tells me, Oh, come on! That’s hardly something to worry about. Surely that can’t be why you’re feeling like this?
But perhaps it can.
Our rational minds are very good at dismissing what they consider to be insignificant worries. We tell ourselves that something isn’t a big deal, that we shouldn’t be bothered by it, that there are far more important things to worry about.
But our feelings don’t always listen to reason.
Something can seem small to our logical mind and still stir something in us. Perhaps uncertainty, a fear of being judged, a feeling of not being good enough, or something we can’t quite put our finger on.
And when we dismiss these feelings, they don’t necessarily disappear.
They might simply find another way of making themselves known.
Through our impatience. Our irritability. Our lack of generosity towards others. Through those little moments when we react more sharply than we normally would.
And then, to make matters worse, we start judging ourselves.
Why was I so unkind today? Why am I being so impatient? What’s wrong with me?
We can be surprisingly harsh with ourselves, particularly when we don’t understand why we’re feeling or behaving a certain way.
But what if, instead of judging ourselves, we became a little curious?
What is the weather inside me today?
Is there a little cloud of worry hanging around? A storm brewing somewhere? Something unsettled that I haven’t quite noticed?
We don’t always need to find an explanation. Sometimes we simply feel a little gloomy, and that’s okay too.
But noticing gives us a chance to understand ourselves better. To recognise that perhaps we’re carrying something today that we weren’t carrying yesterday.
And maybe that changes the way we respond to ourselves.
Instead of What’s wrong with me?, we might ask, What’s going on for me?
Instead of criticising ourselves for being impatient, we might recognise that we’re feeling anxious, tired or unsettled.
And I think something rather lovely can happen when we do that.
When we become a little more understanding and compassionate towards ourselves, we often find it easier to extend that same understanding and compassion to others.
So perhaps paying attention to our inner weather isn’t just about feeling better ourselves. It might also help us become a little kinder to the people around us.
After all, we never really know what the weather is like inside someone else.
And sometimes, even on the sunniest of days, someone might be carrying a little storm.