in my personal life, i am well known for not being dressed in a way that is weather-appropriate. i hate wearing socks, wear sandals WAY past the first frost, often feel that a long sleeved shirt is fine if it's not below freezing.
but, last year, i discovered that wearing socks meant that i was less distracted by my cold toes all day. if i wore a coat, i could take longer walks before my body got real mad, and hats definitely kept me warmer than i would have thought. i don't LOVE wearing them but i definitely don't hate being more comfortable, and with a little bit of effort, i can go out and enjoy my favorite season just a little bit more.
sometimes, i think about my brain as having weather patterns of its own. in fact, brain weather is my favorite term for everything that happens up there! there are some weather patterns - hurricanes! tornados! - that require our full attention and presence, and my brain can definitely throw up a hurricane or two where it's all i can do to stay safe and supported until the worst of the winds have passed. and then there are moments of absolutely gorgeous weather, where my brain just feels so good that i can't imagine what rain was even like! blue skies baby!
i've always been better at handling extremes than the in between - and my brain is no exception to that. i know what to do when i'm feeling 0% good, and what to do when i feel 100% good - easy! but what about when it's like, 60% good? what if i'm in the middle of brain weather that's cold but not life-threatening so? a steady drizzle of brain weather? a too-hot for comfort but not too hot to stay inside day? that's a lot harder for me to adjust to, just like it's really hard for me to decide whether or not i want to bother with a coat when it's just a little chilly.
weather - brain and earth - is something i can't really fight. i can definitely refuse to modify my behavior (not wear a coat, not get extra sleep, you get it) but if it's cold, the earth truly doesn't care if i'm wearing my coat or not. it keeps doing its weather thing, and i'm left to decide if i want to adjust or not. thinking about my brain as having weather systems, and flowing with them instead of fighting to try and get to a 100% sunny days optimism only pattern that is neither real nor sustainable, has really helped a lot.
if i'm having a high anxiety day, i can either bolt myself to my chair and SIT THERE UNTIL THE ANXIETY SUBSIDES AND THE WORK IS DONE, or i can go for a walk, or move my body a little bit, or swap out a coffee for some water. it doesn't knock out the anxiety, but it does make it more comfortable to exist with it. wearing a coat doesn't make it NOT winter, just makes it more comfortable to live DURING winter. i can spend a lot of energy BEING MAD that i'm anxious, and stop everything until the feeling subsides, or i can know that there are short, medium, and long term things i can do to work with it, all of which will both increase my empowerment and my comfort.
we are conditioned to view ourselves as problems to solve, but accepting our current reality doesn't mean that we won't ever feel differently - in fact, showing ourselves care through the sticky moments usually does the opposite, and helps us move onto what's next more quickly, more completely, more gently, more supported.
and that's what i want for me and all of us - more gentleness, more support, more tools to help meet us where we are, with the weather we have. so maybe you offer yourself a hat or a coat, or a little bit of something that makes it just 1% easier to live with your weather - making it all the more likely that when the weather does change, you're not so burned out that you can't appreciate it.