See the Sun Through the Clouds

Last year, before we had our baby, my wife and I hopped on a flight out of JFK.

The weather that day in New York had been grey and gloomy. Dense clouds hovered over the city casting an inescapable shadow over its inhabitants.

But, as our plane took off and approached cruising altitude, I noticed a change outside my window. To my surprise, the sun was shining.

We had emerged out of the dense cloud cover and into a limitless blue sky.

Looking out my window, I couldn't help but relate the experience to my own mind which I found, almost daily, experiencing "cloud cover."

The clouds of my mind usually take the form of negative thoughts and emotions, which can sometimes be triggered by real life events but other times triggered by nothing at all.

But this experience on the plane showed me something I couldn't quite grasp before.

I realized that the sun is always shining above the clouds. No matter what I'm going through and how dense the clouds appear, the sun and the limitless blue sky is there if I just choose to recognize it.

In the weeks since this experience, I've begun to view my negative thoughts and emotions a little differently.

Rather than viewing them as an endless grey cloud that hovers over me the whole day, I try to break each thought and emotion up into their own little clouds that are just floating on by.

I even label them to give them more definition. Here's how it literally works in my head:

"Hmm, there goes an anxious cloud."

"Oh, I see a nervous cloud passing by."

"I see you sad cloud."

It may sound funny, but this subtle change has helped me to stay aware of the sun's presence even as the little clouds pass.

I hope this post helps you navigate your own cloudy days. Remember, the sun is always shining above the clouds .

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