Cold Hands, Warm Heart?

In wintertime, my hands are oftentimes ice cold, but the problem seems to be at its worst when I prepare for bed. I am reminded of the old Indian fable, “The Scorpion and the Frog.”

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A frog was peacefully meditating alongside a gently-rippling, blue-green river, when she was approached by a large, menacing black scorpion. The scorpion said, “I need to cross the water, and I was hoping you would carry me to the other side on your back.”

The frightened frog edged backward and stammered, “But – you might – sting me – and I would – drown.”

The scorpion sighed. “Think about what you’ve just said. If I sting and kill you, I would also drown. Why would I do that?”

The frog pondered those words for a few moments and said, “You’re right; I understand now. Hop on my back, and I’ll carry you across the river.”

About halfway to the other shore, the frog felt a sharp sting in the middle of her back, and just before she submerged, she gasped out, “Why?”

The scorpion answered, “I couldn’t help myself. It’s my nature.”

Like the ancient fable, whatever the time of day, it’s my nature to have cold hands.

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Back to the problem at hand, after crawling under the covers, for years I decided the best solution was to put my bitterly-cold hands in my toasty-warm armpits. That said, the shock of what felt like jagged icicles imported from a winter storm in Antarctica was nearly unbearable, but after some time, my hands and armpits would warm up and all would be kosher again.

Recently, though, I began to wonder if I was approaching the problem in the wrong way. I realized that instead of focusing on the misery of the cold, I should have been thinking of how comforting my body heat was to my frigid hands. It was time for a shift of perspective, so from that point on, I directed my mind to just pay attention to the nurturing warmth.

In my way of thinking, the results of this simple experiment were quite remarkable. As the old saying goes, rather than seeing my cup as half empty, I now saw it as half full. I realized how happy I was to have the ability to warm my hands, putting aside and compartmentalizing the disagreeable sensation of the nearly-unbearable cold. Miraculously enough, the visualization worked far better than I could have imagined, and now, when I go the bed, my cold hands are barely noticeable as compared to the warmth which encompasses them.

While this is only a miniscule example, the implications of how we view challenging events in our lives and how we react to them can be powerful. While certainly not true all the time, dark, taxing situations nearly always have some kind of associated blessing, a proverbial silver lining, and in this case, pleasantly warm hands.

So, the obvious next question is: “If I have cold hands, does that mean I also have a warm heart?” Your guess is as good as mine, but one thing I’m certain of, and that is if I focus on the positivity of warmth – whether represented by joy, goodness, love, kindness, peace, etc., as opposed to the negativity of cold – such as sadness, suffering, despair, and so on – by necessity, the discomfort of the cold must fade, eventually losing its power over me.

And what a blessing that is.