What's Your Inner Weather Report?

No time? Listen to it instead

A couple of months ago, I found myself at Fuel Human Festival in my hometown, Dehradun. While there is a lot that happened during the festival, there is a part of one workshop that stuck with me. The idea of our inner weather report is something I haven’t been able to shake-off, and with good reason.

The workshop was a break-out session by the Life Circles team. I won’t go deep into the workshop and what it entailed here. Perhaps, in some other post for that one session is a mine of great exercises and ideas.

The session began with sixteen people sitting in a circle, and each one of us introducing ourselves to the group. However, there was a catch. We had to end our introductions with our inner weather reports.

Inner Weather Report

Yes. These, based on my understanding of the concept, were precisely like weather reports just describing what goes on inside you instead of outside you. Here’s what I said,

Clear and sunny with a heavy chance of storm.

It sounded paradoxical, but that was how I felt at the moment. I was delighted by the environment, but I was also conflicted about more than one thing. Some of those were immediate, while some of them were still waiting to show themselves out clearly.

Only recently has the storm begun to brew rather quickly, and so I suddenly remembered that activity in the morning. I remembered it because by the end of the workshop my weather report was,

It feels like a storm is brewing, and maybe let it brew, for it’ll be a sunny day once it’s done.

Much of that shift had to do with the workshop itself. We did an activity where we had to ask our most burning questions in sub-groups of three. The catch, again, was that the other two people won’t give you any answers, just more questions.

I realised that the life I envision for myself, and my core values are in complete disagreement.

That was the first time I realised that the two sides of my being; the creative and the planner were more than just content for my Instagram and blog.

The Takeaway

It was because of that workshop, but mainly, it was because of the first inner weather report. As I uttered those words, almost spontaneously as the token was passed to me, I realised I needed to fix this.

It took me about a month to do something about it. I started therapy, and I’ve only recently started to look at why I do what I do consciously. Now, the inner weather report is something like this,

Severely stormy with a chance of sunshine.

As I wade through very conflicted days for a while, I figured it was important to share the idea of inner weather reports.

It’s important because often, we start living our lives in autopilot. Before we know, we’re moving further and further away from our core values and ideologies until everything is in direct conflict. Our outsides are perfect, even peachy. Yet, our insides are overridden with a storm.

It’s essential to look inward, and if a metaphor helps you visualise or vocalise how you feel inside, then that’s what you do.

The Nudge

It could be the most pleasant day outside, and we still might have a storm brewing inside of us. It’s important to look at the storm, face it head-on, and get through it. It is gut-wrenching and extremely inconvenient, but if there’s anything sure in life, it’s that the storm does come to an end, and the sun does come out; brighter and warmer.