Warmth~Scott's Thoughts

Well it's February and it feels like last month went by in a blink. It's as if somebody stepped on the gas and has laid out a master plan for the year and I'm just going with the flow of it. That's cool, “I can dig it man”. That said... I've been encouraged to talk about warmth this month.

Last year at this time, I talked about the intrinsic value and warmth of wool. Today, I would like to talk about a more metaphysical/physical form of warmth that is always around us.

First the physical. If you hold a rubber band in your hand it will be in a cold state. Did you know if you were to take a rubber band and stretch it out to it's full length a few times and hold it in a tensed position you could feel heat that has build up in the rubber. Try it... give it a couple good stretches and put the rubber band to your top lip and feel it. It gets really hot. The stretching has created heat through the introduction of potential energy. You apply your energy to the rubber and converted it to heat. Cool, huh? ...Err hot. You get the point. The great tension has created heat.

Now, apply this to our lives. I will have people come into our office wanting to make huge changes. Sometimes it's a new health kick or fad of the week and they start out by really hitting it hard. They swing themselves so far to one way of being, that this incredible tension is set up -- like a rubber band being stretched. Motivated, they increase the distance from their old normal to a new potential. This change can be very positive, however, we are talking about the extreme cases. Now, being extreme... sometimes they crack and that rubber band comes crashing back to the other polar opposite. For instance: An average person starts out with two weeks of Zen, super shakes and hot yoga, followed up by a meltdown of nothing but drinking, pizza and late nights. The rubber band snaps back painfully to a worse off state and goes flying off in a new (destructive) direction. The same could be said for the person heading to Vegas for a 3 day bender then comes home and lives like an embarrassed monk for a month. Then they're found in the pub every night... then the gym... then the pub... then the gym. The tension is too great... the heat generated in this metaphorical rubber band is too hot. Not warm... too hot. It takes great willpower to sustain the tension for changes to be permanent. Some people can pull it off. I'm not saying great change is a bad thing, it's just that for some it can be uncomfortable or potentially destructive. Again.. I'm talking about the extreme.

What if someone took the balanced approach -- seeking a little of each, striving to warm the rubber band -- and didn't stretch to the point of super heating and being in danger of a painful bounce back? Maybe just stretch your habits a bit to get a new perspective or a view of a contrast of what life could be like. Then as you relax into the new normal you'll be stretched a little more and a little more. (I'm talking about positive things here now... not learning to drink and then trying out for the Scottish drinking team) What would that look like? A little yang in your yin and vice versa. Balance. The middle path: A place to be warm and safe but make changes and upgrades slowly ... But peppered with some fun and contrast now and again. Wink wink.

We can see this tension warming or super heating in nearly every aspect of our lives. Sometimes we can hang on and make the big changes. Sometimes those changes hurt us. Sometimes they are positive. But maybe for some the simpler, slower and more gradual, change is what we need to do. If we are at the bottom of a well... in pain... perhaps just climbing to level earth is enough of a tension (warmth) to make a lasting change. Possibly forget about flying for the time being.... as that would put the rubber band into a hot situation and maybe setting a person up for failure, and a big splash. Remember though, a cold rubber band is not doing anything. There has to be some energy expressed to have a result... how warm or hot is up to you and your comfort level.