How Do You React When You Are Cold?

Have you ever noticed that when people are cold, they don’t look relaxed? They pull in and cross their arms. I was very thin most of my adult life and had a strange relationship with the cold. The cold seemed to stop me in my tracks.

In the mid-eighties I went to Lenard Orr’s hot springs retreat center in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The snow was deep. It was an incredible sight to this southerner. I spent 9 hours in the snow, alone on the side of a mountain, hosted by a roaring fire. The fire was my friend and savior; it seemed to talk to me – not in words, but it offered a deep comforting wordless solitude. Snow fell and the white covered world with its profound stillness was magic. I had never considered staying outside in a snow storm for nine hours. This was a fire initiation, but for me, it was an initiation into the cold. 

Later during my stay I attended a traditional sweat lodge. We entered the lodge naked (no shoes either) and perched on towel covered frozen ground. It was warm in the lodge but between rounds we went out in the cold. Rather than go into my normal dialogue about the cold, I decided to see what I had avoided all these years – the direct experience of cold. In the past, I let my aversion to the cold run me. Now I wanted to face it. It was amazing that when I experienced the feel of the ice on my feet, and the cold on my skin, I was okay. It was not even unpleasant. It was a mystical experience to be fully present in the cold, directly experiencing it without out my mind dominating the experience. What freedom.

Even though it is wise to dress appropriately for cold weather, and the cold signals a time for more of an inner experience, it also offers a training. If you live in a cold climate, you may have to take the coldness training every day. My suggestion is that that you determine and define your relationship to the cold. We’ve all trained to complain about the cold and to avoid the cold, but if you find yourself in the cold  - just try the direct experience of it. You can go into the warmth of your home, I’m not suggesting you hang around in the cold for fun, but you will be in the cold. For once, face it without your mind working on how to fix it – even for a few seconds. Everyone will find something different, but if you directly experience this physical discomfort, you will find something that you didn’t know you had. And when you face the cold, rather than running from it, you will find that your life can be easier and easier.