Braving the Cold

What stories do you tell yourself? What makes you believe they're true?

One story I've lived with most of my life is that I hate the cold. I've told myself I'm a tropical baby, that I can't take the cold because I have no bodily insulation, that winter is a miserable time and I have to wait for spring to enjoy being outside.

A couple months ago I realized I was telling this story, and decided to call bullshit. Maybe it was nothing more than a story, one I could rewrite.

I started telling myself that my body runs hot and I enjoy the cold, that I find it invigorating. I started taking freezing showers first thing every morning, no matter how I felt or how cold it was outside.

Of course, as anyone in the wellness world is tired of hearing by now, cold exposure offers a plethora of physical benefits - reducing cortisol levels, improving circulation, increasing alertness, boosting immune response, and potentially promoting weight loss.

But for me the biggest benefits have been psychological. Getting under frigid water every morning even when I don't feel like it has strengthened my ability to act without hesitation, to follow through on my commitments even when it's hard.

Learning to smile every time I feel the numbing shock of cold water has shown me that I get to choose what story I tell.

We all have the freedom to choose a different story at any moment, the power to determine how we experience whatever life throws at us.

And if we don't consciously choose the stories we live by, we become the puppets of our past, playthings of cultural and personal conditioning.

What stories do you live by? What's a different one you'd like to tell?