There’s Always Blue Sky Above the Clouds
How do you feel when you walk outside into a bright day under a clear blue sky? Does it feel good?
It does to me.
What if the day is dark, with rain clouds hanging low? Different feeling, right? I like it sometimes if we need rain or a break from the heat. But too many days in a row like that drain me.
The world doesn’t have the same sparkle to it.
What about the blue sky in our heads? You’ve felt it before, a time when you woke up feeling great, excited about the day.
Sometimes we feel so good we can barely grasp the concept of feeling bad. We float. We feel energized and bright.
At some point, no matter who we are, clouds roll into our heads. Sometimes they’re the dull blah of rain clouds, muting our days, our personalities, our lives.
Other times, they're the dark storm clouds of turmoil, fear, and stress. Some won’t admit it, but we all get them. I do.
On days like this, it’s hard to remember what it’s like to feel great.
In the real world on these somber, overcast days, some people can get into a plane, push the throttle forward, and in a short while pop out of that dark layer to blinding white cloud tops and intense blue as far as they can see.
Pilots are reminded often that there’s always bright blue above the clouds during the day.
It never goes away.
If you can get high enough, you can bask in the sun while the storms below have no effect.
What some on the ground don’t get reminded often enough is we can do the same. No matter what stress and turmoil fill our lives, we can reach a higher place within our minds where the sky is always blue. There, life’s storm clouds have little effect on us.
How do you do this?
The more experience I gain in life, the more I’m convinced meditation is the answer.
Wait…
Before you stop reading because it has never worked for you, or because you think meditation only works if you learn to sit still for hours, let me explain another way.
To rise above the clouds in your life, spend time every day on something you can get lost in—journaling, a walk in the woods, combing the beach—any activity that pulls your mind out of the storm and quiets it.
Many activities have meditative qualities, even if sitting still and clearing your mind isn’t something you can or want to do. Do them often enough, and you may find your life improves greatly.
So what are they? Here are a few:
Painting
Drawing
Assembling a model
Walking through an art gallery and focusing on the pieces that draw you in
Mowing a lawn (if you enjoy that sort of thing. I don’t.)
Combing the beach for shells or shark teeth
Running and other exercises
Something else you love to do and get lost in it
That last one is key: getting lost in it. If you enjoy an activity that doesn’t involve electronics, and you lose track of time without thinking about the past or the future, do it more.
Do it because we all can use more blue skies in our lives.
I’ve spent enough daylight hours above the clouds to know the blue never goes away, and enough days under them to forget it. It makes me wonder what we’d do differently if we trusted that the blue was still up there.
That question and others like it are at the heart of my novel, Flying Colors. John Freeman has spent years building the life he thought he wanted—until a strange encounter leads him to Air Haven, a grass airfield forgotten by the modern world. There, an old flight instructor named Kent draws John back to his childhood love of flying and challenges what he believes about success, choice, and the everyday magic he stopped noticing somewhere along the way.
If you’d like to see where John’s story begins, enter your email in the footer below. I’ll send you the prologue and first two chapters for free.
