I am investigating all the things that I have been told growing up, by adults and society, and things that I am still being told, one thing at a time. Releasing one pattern or belief at a time, if it doesn’t serve me anymore. 

It’s all about the cold at the moment for me, I will tell you why.

I hate wearing shoes, I love my flip flops, and I don’t feel the cold on my feet because I am used to this. I also love my pretend leather jacket and how it makes me feel (it doesn’t keep me very warm!) more than my big warm fluffy coat. So on shorter outings at the moment, when I don’t have to stand in the cold, I go out in my flip flops, my jacket or maybe just a wrap. I feel cold for a few moments, I deepen my breath and I really feel it, then it passes and my body adjusts, we are designed to be okay in different temperatures, our body is very clever.

This mindfulness, this feeling reminds me of Yin yoga, that I love teaching, we explore how to really feel emotions, how to sit with them and to just be, to not add any extra thought or attention, or drama to them.

I decide to consciously sit with the temperature of the day, I connect to the environment around me. I connect to this beautiful World with the amazing seasons, that I feel so much gratitude to have and experience. 

I have been taught by various adults, don’t go out like that you will catch a cold, wrap up warm and so on… This one is a cracker, to do with the heat, I was once told by a great aunty not to sit with my back against the radiator (which I loved doing) because it would melt my hair and my spine! She scared the life out of me! And this is the sad thing, I stopped doing it, even though I loved it so much. (Yes - I have started doing this again.)

It’s a very mild example of how we get programmed from an early age. It is winter in the UK here and it is cold outside. I have just sat in my pyjamas, no socks, with a blanket around me outside to eat my breakfast. I breathed in the fresh air, I listened to the birds and watched them soar freely over me, I felt connected to the World around me, the Sun was in the East and the Moon in the West. My soul and body took a big sigh and that pause, that reconnection, reduced stress in my body and helped me feel alive. I felt joy and lightness. 

My son has gone to school today in just a hoody without his coat, he says it keeps him warm, I was just about to say the usual… wrap up warm, don’t get cold, I stopped myself before I said anything, as I was about to do my breakfast outside. So that would have been hypocritical, and it is his body, if he feels cold on the way back from school, thats okay, he will learn and he will be perfectly OK.

It feels like we have demonised the cold in the UK, afraid to feel it, keep warm at all costs. You know if you let yourself feel it, it’s not as bad as you think. You body is very clever, the circulatory system knows what to do to keep you warm. I have started doing the Wim Hoff method, he does 3 short videos and I have added that to my day to rekindle my relationship with the cold. I love it, it was tough for the first week, now I welcome it and it amazes me how the cold shower can go from feeling so cold to mild in seconds. 

I see the cold like life. I see so many people as I did myself for a long time, get a little lost and stop feeling, fear feeling.

"This life is for living and feeling."

Life is amazing and yes, it can get really heavy. I want to feel it all. I want to learn to feel the cold and acclimatise, I love to feel the heat, inside my house I love being warm, I love the feeling of the sun on my skin, and warm air around my body, I love sitting in front of a fire, or my back to the radiator, as much as I love breathing in crisp frosty air that makes your nose hairs crisp up, it’s all a delight. I appreciate it all, I am grateful for it. I want to feel all my range of emotions which are natural, fear, anger, happiness, joy. But I learn not to get attached to them, they all pass, they are all visitors and they are life.

For so long, I created strategies to keep them muted, chocolate for when I feel anger, sad or alone, busy-ness when I want to avoid something or someone. Now I feel in depth, I find out where my truth is and honour that in the way I live. 

Each day I am trying to re-wild myself a little more. Electric lights have sent our natural body clocks into chaos, we should have a gentle light after sunset to prepare our bodies for sleep (there is a whole intricate set of relations that happen in the body), we should have a cooler bedroom to tell our bodies it’s evening as its cooler than it was in the day. I am relearning how to listen and honour the bodies natural circadian rhythms. 

I just wanted to finish by saying, I am also very aware of how privileged I am. I have a home, the means to heat my home and put clothes and blankets and shoes on my body. For those who don’t have that luxury, I know that cold must be a bitter element to live in and make life so hard and unbearable. But for those of us who are privileged like myself, who have our own struggles and suffering, I wrote my thoughts down this morning, in the hopes that it might bring a bit more depth and feeling, maybe some healing into your life.

This life is full of so many temperatures and feelings, I want to feel it all, I just don’t want to get too attached or linger in any one temperature or feeling. The cold makes me feel the warmth more, the dark makes me love and appreciate the light moments more. I love it all.

Wishing you lots of different temperatures, emotions and joy today

Karen 

xxx