When I travel with my daughter, she’s always fast with her “window seat!!!” (with that who-says-it-first-gets-it style). I never get it.
But when my husband is us as well, she wants the middle seat and I get to press my nose to the oval window and look down. Or look up at the clouds.
I was a teenager when my love for clouds from the plane became a thing. I loved them more than I could express.
The camera my dad bought me helped. It was one of those with aperture lens functions (you know those f/1.4 things), zoom lenses and a space for the roll, which you had to know how to put in (it was not always easy). A real camera.
It was late 80s, digital cameras were not here yet and every time I clicked the shoot button I knew I had a picture less in the roll.
The second desk drawer in what I still call my room, everything is cramped and it’s hard to close it. Much space is taken by yellow photo albums with the FOTORAMA logo on top, soft plastic cover and 24 sheets of transparent plastic in which you fit the pics. A plastic galore!
I found five of them entirely dedicated to clouds. An incredible collection of pictures of clouds. Just clouds. Rolls and rolls of clouds. Around 120 pics of clouds, that all look very much the same.
Why am I writing to you about this obsession for clouds?
Because clouds can be nice in the sky, especially when they’re fluffy and on a blue sky. But when they get in our head, they get stormy, grey and there’s no sight of blue.
Do you ever get a stormy mind? And what do you do when that happens?
When the mind gets stormy, our brain doesn’t receive enough blood to function at its full potential. This is why we can’t find solutions and we just feel everything will turn out badly.
For some blue sky (of hope and clarity!), we just need to get the blood back there.
What helps is stopping. And change direction.
Instead of following the clouds, we can turn back to the present:
- stop what you’re doing, right there
- feel your feet on the floor, notice the soles touching the ground (this is you, standing here, right now).
- notice that your body is breathing, focus on its expansion and retraction in sync with the breath (you can even breath this way, click here to read about it)
- then choose if to dance on the spot, go for a walk, sing or just stick your head outside the window for some fresh air. Do something different, so that you brake the pattern of rumination.
What triggers a stormy mind for you? And how do you react when it that state?
If you hit reply and let me know, I’d be forever grateful. I’m currently recording module 1 of my new course (which is all about stress, overwhelm and how to get out of it), and with your input I can add something that can really help you.
I hope you’ll give the stopping trick a go. It works.
To a life to enjoy,
Laura
PS: I actually got into photography a lot when I was at university! I even set up my own camera obscura (the dark room with the red light bulb, basins filled with acids and pictures drying on the string) in my parent’s attic, and spent hours developing rolls and printing pictures. Luckily I got over clouds, and started with other subjects!
