Observing Self

I had a difficult day recently, where I was feeling quite overwhelmed and tired. This translated to feeling grumpy and short with those I care about. I had a moment to reflect on my experience and what came into my mind was that I had not changed from yesterday or the day before and nothing significant was different in my life, but I was feeling and thinking differently then I have been.  Because I have garnered a bit of awareness over the years, I was able to notice my experience and found myself remembering a metaphor that I have learned.  It goes something like this: the observing self is like the sky. Thoughts, sensations, feelings and images are like the weather. Sometimes the weather is sunny and bright and sometimes cloudy with a bit of sun and sometimes it is stormy and dark. The weather is always changing. There are even times that there are quite serious tornadoes or cyclones.  When weather comes into the sky, it can be comforting to know that there will always be new weather around the corner, it never stays the same and whatever weather is there cannot damage the sky.   Knowing that my thoughts/ feelings were all that had changed about me on this particular day, I was able to not get caught up in this bad feeling.  I knew that tomorrow or even in a few hours, I would have a different feeling and different thoughts.