I can remember the times when I used to blame everything on anybody or everything that felt fit to be standing in my way of success: I blamed my job and the injustice inflicted to me by others, so I had a reason to drink. I blamed my bad mood on my wife and kids, my peers, you name it. So why not blame everything that is not happening according to schedule on winter?

Well, that would be, obviously, too easy. In October, however, I sincerely considered postponing quitting because of the bad weather and cold and darkness and you-name-it what not. And, yes, I could have easier times to quit drinking. I recently stumbled over a quote from a podcaster: “Why are we challenging ourselves with not drinking in one of the most depressing and darkest months of the year (i.e. Dry January). Wouldn’t ‘Dry July’ be more suitable?”

It’s interesting. I could think of many reasonable answers why Dry July would be better than Dry January. But in the end, we always find excuses not to do something in order to have an excuse to procrastinate or postpone. Maybe I chose winter and the people do Dry January for a good reason? I don’t know about others, but my choice surely had something to do with challenging myself a bit more, with the reasoning in the back of my mind going like “If I can make it through winter sober, then I will surely stay sober the rest of the time, either.” And then came December…

No, seriously. December had quite a few very remarkable challenges, due to the festival season, but I stayed sober, and that is justifying enough for me.

However, there are some things that pop up into my mind that well contribute to my enhanced sensitivity to anxiety and depression, and that is not only diving into the juicy topic of how to deal with alcoholism and other psychically challenging deep dives.

It has to do with the weather. Aside from stepping out of the Pink Cloud, the darkness and the challenges posed by dealing with my Core.

The point is, I underestimated the bad, and I mean REALLY bad weather we had around here for (at least felt like) two straight months of dark grey sky, no sun, rain and – of course – early darkness.

The problem that I see here is the significant lack of sunlight contributing severely to the feeling of happiness and giving me energy.

I just realized that in recent days (at least I realized it consciously for the first time), that the rays of the sun, and my dawning sense of hope and happiness correlated pretty strongly. It was odd when I realized I had a happy feeling nearly out of the blue. That was yesterday. Today it rained. Bam. Back to business.

No, I’m not brooding and I am not depressive, but the underlying feeling of happiness or anxiety/depression is some sort of underlying background color on which to paint your mood of the day.

What is the point here? The point is, that being mindful of yourself AND your environment, systems you name it, has a significant impact on the way you can deal with your reality. And that your personality is not a fixed set of emotions, thoughts and so on, but heavily dependent on your current mindset, mood and your current condition.

Be mindful!

Until next time, take one step at a time and keep up the faith in yourself, whatever the weather is like!