“Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces us up, snow is exhilarating; there is really no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.”
-John Ruskin
Just as we experience weather in our biospheric domain, so too we experience ‘weather’ in our psycheshperic domain. Psychespheric weather is experienced as ‘moods.’ We can have sunny moods, cloudy moods, wet and rainy moods, cool breeze moods, etc. Our psychespheric moods can be influenced by our biospheric weather. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is not uncommon in climates where the biospheric weather is gray and gloomy for weeks, if not months, on end. And, yet, not all people in such climates experience SAD or gloomy moods. Some people in gloomy climates, externally, experience a sunny cool breezy mood internally. That is, even when the outer biospheric weather is gloomy, the inner psychespheric mood is bright.
The converse can also be true in that a bright sunny day can find people depressed, anxious, worried and gloomy. Their inner psychespheric weather is excessively cloudy, even though the outer world is shining under a cloudless sky. There are numerous variables that contribute to our biospheric weather few of which, if any, we have control over. If it rains, it rains; if the wind blows, the wind blows. Psychespheric weather is more managable and can be altered regardless of the external weather. It is as simple as what we tell ourselves about weather. We have become somewhat habituated to call a rainy gloomy day as ‘bad weather.’ But, weather is neither good nor bad, but what we ascribe to it within our own cognitive operations will make it good or bad which then influences our psychespheric weather.
“There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so.”
-William Shakespeare
Rainy gloomy stormy weather may be inconvenient and uncomfortable, but it is not permanent and too often immediate weather is seen as such. Inconvenience and discomfort can be tolerated with a modicum of patience. Significant mood disorders such as clinical depression or chronic trauma, can be exacerbated, or soothed, by external biospheric weather which is gloomy and doomy or sunny and funny. To take command of one’s own internal psychespheric weather moods requires an awareness of and a willingness to alter and adjust, cognitive operations. Cognitive operations are like multiple-sized gears in a nation of gears one turning another. The cognitive operation of equating rainy days with gloom is an arbitrary set-up; but, once set up, a rainy day comes and the cogs turn out gloom by internal statements such as ‘it’s a shitty day.’ It’s not difficult to alter that cognitive operation by simply stating ‘it’s a lovely day.’ And, indeed, whether rain or snow or clouds or wind or sunlight, everyday is not devoid of loveliness.
The subjective internal psychesphere of cognitive operations is programmed by cultural norms and most people in a culture adopt cognitive patterns of operation in which natural phenomenon is evaluated as good or bad, but which, objectively, rationally, is neither. Psychespheric weather moods are equally neither good nor bad. Unlike biospheric weather, though, psychespheric weather can shift from rain to sun in the blink of an eye with a turn of a new cog in the nation of gears that is the psychsphere.
One of the fundamental forces that determines local weather is ‘pressure.’ Anybody who has listened to weather reports has heard the terms ‘high pressure and ‘low pressure.’ Pressure is a also a formidable force in psycheshperic weather, in particular, ‘peer pressure.’
Pressure: Latin pressura “action of pressing,” from pressus, past participle of premere “to press, hold fast, cover, crowd, compress.’ From Pre-Indo European (PIE) root per- “to strike.”
Pressure contributes to many psychespheric weather systems such as depression, repression, suppression, oppression, impression and expression. In every instance the gloomy mood is predicated on excessive internal psychespheric pressures. These pressures are not unrelated to relationship with others. That is, peer pressure, the external pressure, internalized, to think, feel, behave and ‘be’ as others expect, or demand, is a pressure system. Opposing that pressure system is itself an added pressure system. Overly pressurized, excessively compressed, the psychespheric weather becomes gloomy and glum, heavy and thick, tight and cramped. A pressure release is necessary and may come about in unintended ways such as physical ailments or destructive behaviors, including violence upon others. Healthier ways such as physical exercises, breathing meditations, ‘the talking cure’ and journaling are available.
Be conscious of the cognitive operations, the evaluations, you place on pressurized experience, and especially pressures to conform, to obey, to fit in, to be right, to be good. The ideal of ‘perfect weather’ all the time is unrealistic. But, the ideal of understanding the impermanence of weather, and moods, is reality based. So, put yourself to an experiment as a test to see whether or not you can well tolerate changes in your psychespheric weather pressure system and also to alter your own psychespheric weather mood system by adjusting the turning cogs in the nation of your own mind. One way of assisting in this process is ‘writing.’ Writing may include typing. Using the letters of your alphabet as hues and shades of colors, paint word pictures of your experience. Creative artistic expression releases psychespheric pressures in wholesome healthy ways. Find your avenue of expression, and express the pressures that move you.
“Never should an unfamiliar word be passed over without elucidation, for, with a little conscientious research, we may each day add to our conquests in the realm of philology and become more and more ready for graceful independent expression.”
– H. P. Lovecraft
