Why Spring Mind?

“Everywhere you go / You always take the weather with you” sang Crowded House in 1992, and you might be familiar with the song even if 1992 is ancient history to you, because it’s also on the soundtrack of the movie Everest, which only came out in 2015 (remember the party, the night before they start climbing? It’s that song. Oh, and since you’re googling old music anyway, you might want to check out “Don’t Dream It’s Over”, by the same band too – fantastic, isn’t it?).

The Internet doesn’t seem quite sure about the meaning of “taking the weather with you”: Wikipedia says the song is about “the effect a person has on their surroundings by the type of person they are, whether it be good or bad”. (To which I can only say “I think I know what you mean, but…Huh?”)

To me, “Weather with You” talks about our emotional weather, our internal environment, and how that colours all our experiences and affects all our actions. It explains to me why, over the course of my own life, I have changed cities, jobs, careers, had kids, even got divorced, and constantly expected these major events to have much more of an impact on me than they actually did. Wherever I go and whatever happens to me, I’m always stuck with myself, for better and for worse.

Which brings me to my big question – if we always take the weather with us, can we make our own weather? And if we can, then why not make it beautiful, bountiful, bouncing, blossoming spring?

I first started exporing these questions for myself, and then realised that what I would really love to do is have a wider conversation, maybe even create a community of people who were interested in making their own weather. I started the Spring Mind blog, and then became more and more intrigued by coaching as a way to help people figure out what kind of life they wanted to live, and how to get there. So I got a coaching certification (more on that here), and found that things are really starting to click.

But back to the question in the title – why spring? Well, spring is lovely because it’s unpredictable, tempestuous and doesn’t take itself too seriously, but it’s full of potential and always (ok, in most cases) has a happy ending. Also, spring is more than just a season – here’s an excerpt from what my trusty friend Google had to say:

spring

/sprɪŋ/

verb

move or jump suddenly or rapidly upwards or forwards.

synonyms: leap, jump, bound, vault, hop

originate or arise from.

“madness and creativity could spring from the same source”

noun

the season after winter and before summer, in which vegetation begins to appear.

the ability to spring back strongly.

synonyms: bounciness, bounce, resilience, elasticity, flexibility

a sudden jump upwards or forwards.

synonyms: leap, jump, bound, vault, hop;

a place where water or oil wells up from an underground source, or the basin or flow formed in such a way; the origin or a source of something.

These are all great things, right? I don’t know about you, but I totally want my internal weather to be all springy and bouncy and resilient, and a source of wonderful things! So I’m in for this adventure, hope you are too – here’s to Spring-Minded people everywhere.