How do you feel about snow?
A few weeks ago I woke up to a brightness coming through my bedroom curtains that only comes from sun reflected off snow. I felt cozy and excited. The snow was still coming down and when I looked outside things were fresh and new.
Someone might say that my coziness and excitement came from the fact that I work remotely and had no need travel that day. Except, that doesn’t account for the people who also didn’t leave their homes who felt dread and disappointment when they saw snow outside.
If it’s possible for two people staying in their houses with everything they need for the day to feel so differently about the weather, then what’s the difference?
I can be heading to work with a head full of thoughts about all the things that make it possible for me to get there safely, like busses running, my snow boots, the people taking extra care driving. Or I can be heading to work thinking of all the things that could go wrong. Planning and precaution are helpful to a degree. When they no longer make a difference to our decisions and only create suffering, dread and disappointment, they are no longer serving us.
I can be safely inside my house thinking how nice it is that I can shovel the snow off my sidewalks later during my lunch break instead of first thing before work. Or I can be safely inside my house annoyed that I have to shovel at all.
We don’t have feelings about snow. We have thoughts about snow and then our thoughts create our experience of snow.
Good to know.