2) Weather

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This is a lovely way to establishing an open, kind space for young people to share from their heart. 

For this practice, we talk about how we’re feeling as it if was weather.

Sometimes, it’s very easy to be me. I wake up, and I feel like a sunshiney day, warm with a great blue sky, and not too windy or hot.  

And sometimes it is more difficult to be me. I might feel a bit cloudy, or rainy. Sometimes I feel a bit foggy or misty – quite confused. There are also times when I’m really stormy!

And from time to time, the sky is so full of dark clouds, that I think I might never see the blue sky again. I have the thought, “This is it now, forever. This is my weather for the rest of my life. No more blue sky for me!”

And that is a dangerous thought to believe.  

So, practicing with my weather really helps me to notice how I’m feeling. And I see that it moves, all the time. Because the one thing we know about weather is that it never stays the same! It is always changing. 

And what is behind any weather? If there are lots of clouds, what is behind them? The blue sky. It’s always there.

There is part of me that is like the blue sky – stretching out, vast, and so kind and loving and caring. And that blue sky is always there, at the very innermost part of me. All the rest – all of my feelings, all my thinking, all my moods – is just weather.

So I practice to touch the blue sky inside me. Even if I’m stormy or foggy, or if it’s an easy sunshiney day, I know that the blue sky is in me – wide and vast. It’s bigger than any weather. 

Weather helps us to notice how we’re feeling, and helps us to remember our blue sky nature.

The practice

Take a moment to sit Solid as a Mountain.

We’ll go around the circle and we can say our name, and then check what our weather’s like. (There’s no point preparing our weather in advance – it changes too quickly!)

So take your time, and we can listen to all the names and all the weathers passing through in this moment.

Weather on the move

We can practice Weather at any time: it’s a great way to start a meal together, or when we get up in the morning. If you know your friend is feeling foggy or stormy, it helps us understand them more, and we can take care of them.

Just add art

You can draw pictures of your weather and make a gallery of all the different scenes.