It's not the weather

Integrity is the essence of everything successful.
Richard Buckminster Fuller

It is Saturday morning and I have a presentation to give to a men's service group about the homeless shelter where I work at 8:30 so I must run soon.

It is Saturday morning and it is not snowing! It did that yesterday. Snow. Yeah. I know. It's the end of April and snow and almost May do not equate in the northern hemisphere.

That's what I think but the weather really doesn't care what I think. It always does whatever it wants.

Darn. I'd like to direct the weather.

I'd like to direct people too.

And that's where I learn lessons from the weather about living and loving and being me.

I can't control the weather.

I can only control how I respond. I can dress according to its dictates. Adjust my attitude to let its adversities not impact my state of mind. Keep myself safe when its particularly inhospitable by not venturing out into its hostilities.

And yes, I can complain and moan and grumble about it -- but it doesn't change what the weather does. Nor does the weather care what I say about it. It just does what it does because that is what it must do to be weather.

Just like people.

I can complain and moan and grumble about them -- but it doesn't change them.

It does, however, change me.

When I complain and moan and grumble about people, I am undermining me. I am acting without integrity. Undermining my peace of mind and my well-being.

I am being the problem.

They are being who they are -- and in my complaining, moaning and grumbling, I am being who I am.

And if I don't want to be a complainer, moaner or grumbler, then I'd best find ways to be that honour my essence, not destroy my integrity.

And yes, there is a point to this story but, it's Saturday morning and I gave myself the gift of sleeping in until almost 7 so now, I'm on the run. Must get ready to go.

And I'm pretty sure you get the point of this story -- because when it comes to weather, we all do it even though, truth is, I can't control the weather.

I can control what I do and say and how I am in the world.

I learned that lesson last night as I struggled to write an email to someone who had verbally attacked me. I felt betrayed. Hurt. Angry.

How I feel about it will shift and evolve -- regardelss of my feelings, I am always accountable for how I respond.

And so, I struggled to move through the anger to a place where I could express myself without blaming the other for how I feel, without attacking them for what they did.

What they did hurt. It was also an expression of their pain and struggle. Doesn't make it right. It does make it human.

And we have an opportunity to grow through it, or dig into it and get grounded in the muck of 'you hurt me now I'm going to hurt you by not playing with you anymore. By telling you what I 'really' think about you. So there.' (and that is followed by with a stomp of my right foot and a defiant toss of my hair).

No matter how someone else behaves, it never gives me the right to be cruel. It never gives me the right to retaliate, or get even by blasting them with my two cents.

Just like the weather, I am measured by what I do. And when I let the weather determine the quality of my day, when I let it pull me down to griping about something I can't change, then I am not measuring up to being my most amazing self.

I am not living my enough!

Gotta run. Weather or not, here I come. Leaping into my day. Embracing Love in all kinds of weather. Knowing, I am okay, no matter what the world is doing around me when I surrender fear and fall, In Love.

Nameste.