How do you react when it rains?
Do you moan? Do you run for cover? Let’s face it, we’re not having the best summer.
When it rains during a workshop (and we’re inside nicely warm and cosy) I hear myself telling people how cleansing the rain is. And how I believe the element of water, washes all the sh*t away and transforms the negative energy surrounding us, which in spiritual terms is very true. I’ll wax on about how I L O V E the rain, and I don’t mind when Mother Earth decides to have a good ol’ cleanse. You’ve probably heard me say it, and I genuinely mean it.
Yet despite all this inspiring rain-talk, which I readily give out to my groups, I realised I’m not exactly practicing what I preach. I was walking in the park last week, getting some fresh air and hugging some trees, when it started spitting (lightly raining, not literally). My joyful mood instantly changed and I became grumpy, my thoughts shifted gear, and I heard myself having an internal moan about the rain. I immediately wanted to run inside and get cover, while simultaneously feeling cheated out of this so-called summer we’re having.
I realised after about 10 mins of silently moaning, how much of a walking contradiction I was. So I decided to nip my negative rain-talk in the bud, and fast….
And a week later, as I walked home after my group session, it was bucketing down. I put up my umbrella and something had shifted. I felt great, I wanted to dance in the rain, preferably naked, and I didn’t care how wet I got. I L O V E D it <3
We do this all-the-time, and we don’t even realise it. We have so many good intentions, and really want to be or act a certain way, but our little ‘judging’ voice inside our head is constantly talking us down, and trying to keep us small and negative. We have a party-pooper right inside our own mind who is constantly trying to ruin our good vibes.
Luckily I’m pretty good at practicing what I preach most of the time, mainly because I’ve caught my negative Nigella-at-work enough times, and I’ve cleared out much of the negativity from my brain, and made peace with my good self. But being human, I still have many negative thoughts.
It just becomes much easier to notice them, and shift back up a gear.
Here’s how to quickly turn that frown upside down…hehe:
- Honour your negative thoughts. What?? Yep you heard me, be OK with whatever you’re thinking. Believe it or not, you’re only thinking negative thoughts because you are trying to protect yourself from something. The quicker you learn to honour the negativity, the faster it will shift into something different.
- Tap it away. Bunch one of your hands into a fist, and gently start tapping your fist onto your collarbone. This tapping action will snap you out of the negativity, and distract your mind away from the negative thought, and give it something else to focus on.
- Find the gift. This takes a little practice, but you can find a gift in everything. What is the gift in your negative thought? If you’re silently moaning about the rain, what is the gift in the rain? Well, it waters the world, it feeds the grass, the trees and the flowers. I bet you can figure out the benefit or gift of the very thing you are finding issue with?! Flip it onto something positive and you’ll win.
Enjoy x
