The beauty in grey days

I’m in love with these soft, grey days. They make you work a little. Their beauty is not picture perfect. No turquoise water or bright white sand. You have to be willing to get wet, and maybe a bit cold. As I step onto another deserted beach, the shrubs show me their most luminous smile. Bright green popping against the velvet sky.

Is there any greater joy than swimming in the rain? Surrounded by water, made of water, covered in sweet rain as an unexpected shard of sunlight turns the mountains silver. 

This particular morning I woke up early, then stayed in bed. The familiar guilt crept in, but for once I didn’t listen. I wrapped myself up in silky, bamboo sheets to doze and dream. I allowed the day to unfurl as naturally as the hibiscus flowers opening on my deck. Phone off. Linear time forgotten. Senses on.

The sea reflects the sky. We reflect each other. We are either emitting frequencies of love, gratitude and joy, or judgement, resentment & anger. This doesn’t mean we should pretend we’re happy all the time. That doesn’t work. The energy of the emotion is still there. It doesn’t mean we should beat ourselves up for feeling a certain way and impacting others. This does mean we have a choice to see the innate goodness within ourselves and everyone else. That choice is empowering.

I’m re-reading ‘Changing the Habit of Being Yourself’. Joe Dispenza gives the analogy of driving a car. When we first start driving, we have to really think about what we’re doing. It’s a struggle to learn how to change gears, check mirrors, adjust the seat, use all the pedals. It takes all of our concentration. Then we get to the second stage. We’ve been driving for a little while, we still have to concentrate but its becoming more natural. The third stage is knowing. You don’t have to think about driving at all. You jump in the car and your body intrinsically knows what to do. You’ve em-bodied the process. It’s like the unlock code on your phone, your mind might not be able to remember it, but your fingers will remember the pattern. 

It’s the same with re-wiring our brains to a natural state of gratitude, love and kindness.

The way out of conditioned emotional responses isn’t simply trying to ‘think our way out of them’. That’s why ‘think positive thoughts’ doesn’t work. We need to fully surrender the emotion itself by first feeling it completely.

For example, if I’m feeling annoyed by someone in my life, instead of avoiding them, or being dismissive with them, I can look at the root of the emotion. I can feel the annoyance in my body. Where does it live? What taste does it have? What does it feel like? Then I’ve made that first step, it’s no longer about the other person, now it’s about me taking responsibility for my own feelings. Once I’ve really felt the annoyance and allowed it to be there, without trying to push it away or think it’s ‘bad’ I can then see it for what it is. Energy in motion. E-motion. I can make a choice. ‘Is this a frequency I want to send out into the world? Do I want this person to feel my annoyance?’ OR ‘am I willing to let go of the annoyance and see the situation differently? Do I want to offer love and kindness to this person?’ 

Now I’m no longer stuck in my conditioned response. I’m not using my brain (which got me into this mess in the first place) to analyse WHY I’m annoyed. I’m not saying ‘oh it must be because they remind me of someone who bullied me at school’. I’m not creating a story around it. I’m simply making the choice to feel the emotion and then either keep feeding it, or let it go.

It’s actually so simple. Not necessarily easy. But simple.

A teacher once said to me ‘what would you rather be? Right or happy?’. If we’re judging others for their behaviour, even if we’re ‘right’ we’re still wrong. It’s up to us to let go of the judgement, for our own happiness and freedom to naturally come through.

If someone is behaving in a harmful way, the last thing they need is judgement and reprimand. That’s not to say we condone harmful behaviour, and of course we may need to distance ourselves from that person who is hurting us, but they are hurting us or others because they need love. All emotions, thoughts and actions are either coming from fear or love. And everything that is coming from fear is a cry for love. 

We have a choice. We can choose to hold onto resentment, or we can let it go and return to love. 

Change is hard, and luckily we don’t need to do it alone. In fact we can’t do it alone. We have thousands of years worth of yoga philosophy to guide us. We have yoga classes, meditation groups, podcast, audiobooks and yoga teacher trainings. We have the practice, which is the most important thing of all. Without practice, all of this is simply ‘interesting dinner conversation’ as Joe Dispenza puts it. That’s why we’re here. To guide you. To teach you different practices to change your brain, come out of your conditioned responses and into a more joyful, authentic way of being, your natural state. I’ll see you there.