Last Friday night was ‘interesting’ here and most of Saturday as well, when we were visited by Storm Arwen. I didn’t get much sleep on Friday night. It was quite reminiscent of the so called hurricane of 1987 in Southeast England- although I did manage to sleep through that! I didn’t leave the house all day Saturday as it seemed that keeping your feet on the ground might be quite difficult.
I know that quite a lot of people here in the Northeast lost power and even water and had it out for several days. It was serious for some people, particularly out in the countryside.
There was a little bit of damage here to the roof tiles and the fence. My bin went flying away, despite the fact that I thought I had put it somewhere quite sheltered, because it was forecast that this was coming. I had gone out and bought groceries and secured things that I thought needed securing. The wind was much, much stronger than I had expected.
Meditation keeps you grounded in a storm
The weather prompted the following Monday’s meditation. Sometimes we have metaphorical storms in our lives, not just actual storms, and they can knock us down, blow us away. We use all kinds of similar phrases to describe our reactions to things going wrong in our lives. These all have clear similarities to the way we talk about storms.
If you can remain centred and grounded when it’s like being in Kansas in a tornado, you are going to be able to get through these things

Photo by Nikolas Noonan on Unsplash
much better than if you allow yourself to be blown away. Now, there is something to be said for going with the flow and bending in the wind. Bending in the wind is much better than breaking or being completely transported somewhere else. So, you can stay centred and grounded and still be buffeted a little bit.
If you are too rigid, like some of the trees that fell in the storm, then you can’t bend with the wind and you will snap. So, it’s important to have strong roots that will keep you in the ground, keep you grounded, but also have a certain amount of flexibility above the ground that allows you to almost absorb the energy of the storm, but not be broken by it.
Outside of my office window there are lots of trees, the storm took off the last of the leaves. There’s a really lovely Silver Birch tree, tall and slender, and a couple of other trees. And a lot of those were bending quite dramatically during the storm, but they have stayed up because they are able to still have that flexibility to move with the wind, but they are well- rooted into the ground.
Try some meditation
Practicing meditation makes it possible for you to tap into these things when you really need them. The more you practice them, the easier it becomes to put them into action when you need them. I broadcast daily meditations of all kinds over in a private group. Find out more at louisecardon.com/halcyon-daily-meditations