Cloudy (with a Chance of Sun + Rain)

Emotional Climates. That's what we are discussing at my church and in my small group. The promo video for the series made me feel like this series was probably made for me. Probably not in a warm-fuzzy feeling, but in a you need to take action kind of way. Oh goody. My favorite.

So basically the video (which you can see here under Climate Change: Forecast) starts with people conducting daily activities. Walking down the sidewalk, cleaning the kitchen, playing golf, etc. Above their heads spins a wheel of emotions represented by weather icons. Happy = sunshine, angry = thunderstorm, etc. You get the picture. While watching the video, I couldn't help but think that my weather icon would be cloudy. Permanently.

Emotions have always been complex and difficult for me. I respond, interact, and make decisions often solely based on how I feel. As you can imagine, this has gotten me into lots of trouble in my life. And all too often, I don't even try to combat it. I allow my period to make me moody, and I just expect those around me to deal with it, because "hey, I've got an excuse." Over the last year, I've allowed infertility to become the ultimate excuse for a down right dismal emotional climate.

Don't get me wrong. Us infertiles, our lives are tough, and somedays, we deserve to have an off day. We deserve to be a hormonal mess, we deserve to be raging mad, we deserve aloofness from the rest of the world. But not everyday. Even if it is our right to behave this way, it does us and our family a disservice.

Is it all cloudy in my world? No, of course not. There are moments, days even when the sun comes out, and I'm happy. It might not be the happiest I've ever been, because everything feels a little different under the infertile filter. But I am happy sometimes. Then, there are moments and days where the forecast is a whole lot worse than cloudy; it's thunderstorms, it's monsoon style rain, it's practically a tornado warning. I'm certainly guilty of this. The last time there was a monsoon around here: negative test day #2.

Anyway, the series at church is on climate change: how you can change your emotional climate. Convicted. I probably have a little work to do. Boo. I kind of like rainy days. But most people don't, and my husband didn't choose to live in Forks, Washington, so I've got to find a way to pursue a baby without allowing my emotions about failures and setbacks to set my emotional climate for me.

But you get the picture: if something goes right, it's all "sunshiny" and "rose-colored glasses". On the other hand, if something goes wrong, it's "greener grass is on the other side" and "woe is me". And this is how I've always been. How do I change? No good ideas over here. I'm thinking the best philosophy for starting out is maybe "fake it till you make it". Add in some like minded people who radiate happiness and keep a thankful attitude, and I'll probably become little miss sunshine. We shall see.

Step one in changing your emotional climate is apparently to find out what your climate is (I'm pretty clear on mine). The "take-home" item for the week was a dare to ask people a simple question: "what's it like to be, on the other side of me." I despise the wording of this question as it requires a full explanation and cannot stand alone, but the answers from it can be really valuable. I won't even get into the giant can of worms that was opened when asking my husband this question. That is for another day. The remainder of the series goes on to discuss how things like conflict and insecurities can affect your emotional climate. Good thing there are three more weeks of this and a great group of people I can work through this with, because obviously, this is just for me.

How about you? Do you need to work on your emotional climate? Do you even know the climate you project and carry with you wherever you go?