On the Road to Happiness… Learning to Dance in the Rain
What is your perspective on rain? Does it make you feel happy or sad? Energetic or lazy? Calm or annoyed?
How much of life do we miss waiting to see the rainbow before thanking God for the rain. — Dieter Uchtdorf
Experience:
Yesterday I completely mapped out my afternoon because I just knew that I could count on the continuation of great weather. Needless to say, I woke up this morning and saw the rain and immediately I was annoyed (yes I know, I could have looked at the forecast, I didn’t). All my plans were going to have to be postponed, including me going for a morning run, not to mention that rain has the ability to impact my general disposition. This was not my morning.
However, because of my commitment to this project, I had a decision to make 1) be completely annoyed and let that continue through my day or 2) try to find a learning in rain that I could channel into to help me be more appreciative.
I chose 2.
It made me think of this conversation I had with my sister last year, on another occasion where I was expressing my annoyance for rain. She looked at me and said:
Rain is the earth’s way of caring for itself, of watering itself. Without rain there is no growth.
She had just come back from a 3 month yoga journey so I basically dismissed her comment as some tree-hugger haiku and rolled my eyes 🙄. That was until this morning, when I reflected on it more and used it to guide my learnings today.
Reflection:
As I reflected on why I was annoyed, it all came back to how today’s rain was impacting my plans and in that I sat for a moment and then said, those were MY plans for the day… but were they GOD’S plans?
Today’s weather also made me realize that since I’ve been doing this project it’s been sunny and nice outside. In reality it’s easier to be appreciative during times like those.
Today I had to challenge myself on whether I could find happiness amidst the rain (literally). It was tough because at first I didn’t even want to write a happiness musing.
Nonetheless, I listened to my medication music and decided to go deeper into my sister’s comments and realized that there is no life without rain.
Meditation:
It made me think about the concept of what it could mean to someone to never lose. Literally living the ultimate high season. There is no concept of the fact that they are winning. It actually becomes the baseline and in that grows a distorted reality and all of the personal characteristics that can come from that: entitlement, lack of humility, inflated ego, lack of compassion. While winning their person becomes famished because there has been no rain, no loss, no learnings. I realized I didn’t want to be that person.
In my meditation today I said:
Thank you God for the clarity that comes from rain.
Thank you God for the cleansing that comes from rain.
Thank you God for the growth that comes from rain.
I realized that I want and need to experience all of those, yet to experience them, I must embrace rain and change my perspective of it.
Have you or are you going through a raining period in life? Wondering when it will ever end? Maybe instead of seeing it as a time of misfortune we can view these as a time of strategy and growth.
This may be the perfect time to reflect on what we can control about how we can move forward (clarity), to wash away things that didn’t need to stay with us (cleanse) and to plant seeds for what we want for tomorrow (growth) .
