I am the Sky

SHEILA DARLING

You are the sky, everything else is the weather. -Pema

My favorite quote came to life last week. As I was driving to Cape Cod, along the Massachusetts Turnpike, I came upon a wall of dense fog. It was late, dark and drizzly. I was scared. There was nowhere to turn off.

There were lights in my rearview mirror but nothing ahead of me. I longed for a car to pass me, I was going 40 mph and thought for sure someone would pass and I could then follow their taillights. No one did. I could not depend on someone else to save me from this nightmare.

Visibility was only about a foot in front of me. Then I saw a sign for a rest stop. 20 miles -- I could do it. I practiced my deep breathing and my mantra, the quote above. I could be steady, take it moment by moment, be afraid, and still move forward.

The rest stop came and went, as the fog was so dense I couldn’t see the turn off until I was on top of it with no time or space to turn.

On I went, repeating in my head all the things I know. Life happens moment by moment. There is no future and no past. I remembered that everything in the future is a fantasy and if I fantasized about a crash or going off the road that wasn’t my actual reality but a story going on in my head which was not serving me.

So again, I took a few breaths, becoming aware of the tension in my body, purposefully relaxing myself so that I could take this drive one mile at a time.

Like the fog crashing down on me, the truth of my favorite quote hit me. I am the sky, always constant, always there. The fog and the fear and the tension were just the weather. The weather comes and goes and is never constant.

Like every other thing in life, I am the constant. I get to decide how I will show up. I get to decide whether I get caught up in the tornado of everyday life or if I can be an intentional observer of my own body and how it responds to the everyday weather that is called life.

I shared this story with a client whose frail, 88 year old mother is in the ICU after surgery. The metaphor of the fog and taking things moment by moment, or mile by mile, helped her to see that trying to control things around us is not the goal. Managing our own nervous systems, while in the weather of life, is the only thing we really have any control over.

And that can be ok.

There was a sense of peace that came over me as I continued on my drive over the Berkshire Mountains, in that curtain of fog. The peace of knowing myself, knowing that I don’t need to always know what’s coming. Knowing with certainty, that in each moment that I continued to drive and breathe, that I was well. I was alive and that the part of my life I was living was just a few of those moments strung together, like all of the other terrifying and challenging and joyful and funny parts of my life.

Driving on, the fog started to lift, and the beauty of the mountains could be seen, with the backdrop of the stars. The rain stopped and the moon was out, and I was there, driving mile by mile, breathing in and out.

As I remember the fear and the calm, I know I decided to stay present and that is what kept me safe and sane in those terrifying moments. I also know I can choose to do those same things at any time the weather in my life seems insurmountable.

And as I reflected on all the times that used these tools, I realized that I have embodied being the sky and that I can handle anything that comes my way. With grace and ease, I have managed much pain in my 61 years on this earth. Death and illness and parenting are the big ones that come to mind, but the smaller disappointments as well, like losing a job, a vacation snafu, a disagreement with my husband.

Throughout it all, I am the sky. Everything else is the weather.

Sheila Darling is a Life Coach. The above article is the basis for all that she teaches in her Life Coaching Program, Presence-PowerBelief. First the focus is on being present in our lives, in our bodies and fully experiencing all of the weather, sunny skies to hurricanes.

Second, focusing on our power, learning how our brains work together with our bodies to process all that we have lived through and all that we will be experiencing in the future so that we can live our lives with intention.

Thirdly there is belief, which is the practice of blending presence and power together, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, to create intentional, purpose driven lives.

To find out more about her and her coaching program, visit http://www.sheiladarling. com/