Weathering the storm

What do we do when things get tough?

Sometimes it feels like the weight of the world is weighing heavily on our shoulders, the sky has darkened, the clouds are circling and the air is unsettlingly still. The eye of the storm, a feeling of persistent unease and the inability to see outside the turmoil towards the brighter skies.

In the past few weeks I have become curious about weathering the storms. We are in storm season in the UK, wind and rain has battered every corner of this country in recent weeks. Storms Dudley and Eunice, whilst their names suggest they should have wrapped us in a warm blanket and made us tea, rained down their full fury instead. The country braced against their unrelenting force with sandbags to stem the flood waters, tying down trampolines and other potentially hazardous objects, securing everything we could think of in preparation. Then during the storm we hunkered down hoping our defences would stay in place, nothing left to do but hope for the best. But how do we prepare and weather those stormy moments in life? I’ve been asking the question a lot lately and have wished for the answers so I’ve explored it for this week's newsletter.

The word resilience gets bandied around a lot, I’ve come across it most aggressively in the work context used to place the responsibility of handling stress solely on the shoulders of a poor overworked employee rather than the unrealistic expectations of a business. I have also found resilience is rather like a bucket with holes, as you top it up it drains slowly from the bottom. The things we put in like sleep, rest and joy being used up as we deal with life’s stresses, for that bucket to have resilience for you to draw on as and when you need it, you need to keep filling it up. 

In Beth Kemptons book Freedom Seeker she gives some great advice for weathering the storms. The first thing to do when you find yourself in a storm is to breathe, establish the facts, determine what is out of your control, gain some perspective on the situation, and try to remain an observer of the storm rather than getting beaten up by it. The next thing to do is what she calls a wing tuck, birds do this in flight as a response to turbulence in order to stay on course. For us humans this means retreating, regrouping, scaling back and simplifying. Creating those moments of rest and healing, ‘Be kind and gentle to yourself’ she says. The final thing to do is huddle, much like the starlings under Brighton Pier huddling together from the cold Autumn winds, we must turn towards our flock for warmth and support. 

Storms have a special significance in the life I share with my husband. A few months before we got married we had booked a pre wedding photoshoot, it was an opportunity to get comfortable with having our photo taken, but most of all an excuse for us to get some photos with our lovely dog who wouldn’t be joining us on the day. The location was a beautiful country park, trees as far as the eye could reach and nobody else around for miles. We were able to wear our usual dog walking attire which helped ease us into the strangeness of being the centre of attention. As we began to arrange ourselves in various poses the wind started, storm Callum had begun to hit the UK with great gusto. We took shelter among the pines and continued as the wind raged on. In some pictures we look slightly weather beaten but mostly when I look at these photos I just see the 3 of us doing what we enjoy most together, finding the small pockets of joy in the storm. By contrast our wedding day brought blue skies and beautiful sunshine, not what you would expect from a mid November day. But I think there is something in it, the weathering of the storm and the blue skies that followed. We have to believe the storm will pass and there will be brighter days ahead.

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Things I’m curious about this week…

I’ve been listening to the audiobook for Fearne Cotton’s book Speak Your Truth. About how to find your voice and speak out with confidence. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/56075757

I’ve finished reading Freedom Seeker by Beth Kempton. How to live more and worry less it’s a practical guide on how to free yourself when you feel trapped in life.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30315923

I would love to hear what you’ve been curious about this week, feel free to leave a comment below