05/09/2026
🪁 Can you spot our kite? Meet Henry the Octopus! 🐙
There’s an international kite festival happening in town, and Henry is hoping for a little bit of wind. Because without the wind, well… Henry isn’t going anywhere! 😄
And it got me thinking about something.
We spend a lot of time complaining about the weather.
Too windy.
Not windy enough.
Too hot.
Too cold.
Too wet.
Not enough sunshine.
But here's the thing…
We can't control the weather.
We can complain about the wind all day, but the wind isn't going to change because we're frustrated with it.
And sometimes anxiety and stress work in exactly the same way.
We can spend enormous amounts of energy fighting things that are outside our control — what someone thinks of us, what happened yesterday, what might happen tomorrow, someone else's behaviour, an unexpected change of plan…
And the more we fight what we can't control, the more exhausted we can become.
🌬️ So what if, instead of fighting the wind, we learned how to work with it?
Next time you notice stress or anxiety building, try this:
🪁 1. Ask: “Is this within my control?”
If it is, decide what small action you can take.
If it isn't, see if you can loosen your grip on it.
🌿 2. Come back to your breathing
Take a slow breath in… and a longer, slower breath out.
Do this for a minute or two, paying attention to the sensation of the breath rather than trying to make your thoughts disappear.
👣 3. Ground yourself
Look around and notice five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two thing you can smell and one things you can taste.
Bring your attention back from “what if?” to “what is.”
And perhaps that's one of the most useful things we can practise when life feels stressful:
We can't always control what happens around us.
But we can practise how we respond to it.
🪁 Can you spot Henry? 🐙💨
