How to Heat

“Do you like the heat?”

I shot him an angry look unknowingly, as I was changing into my bathing suit at the beach. He was renting me a standup paddleboard at the beach and it was a blistering hot day already, despite it being only ten in the morning.

“Yes…but not this much,” I responded and the conversation didn’t continue very far. The heat was getting to me, and I was already starting to lose some of my cool.

This now being my third summer in Portugal, I should be used to the drill, but I’m not. Every summer there seems to be one week where the temperature turns particularly unbearable. It’s the kind of relentless, unforgiving sticky heat that turns daily life into a low-key endurance test.

I tried everything I could to stay cool, inside and out.

First, I thought being on the water might do the trick. It didn’t. The bright white paddleboard was reflecting back the Portuguese sun back onto my body, making it feel even hotter.

Next, I thought being in the water must be the solution. A normally frigid Atlantic ocean dip did not feel cold enough that day for me. And seconds after stepping out of the ocean onto the beach, the contrast from cold to heat felt brutal.

Once I got home, I took a long cold shower to wash off the sand and to attempt to cool down. Again, despite the shower tap being turned all the way to the left on cold, the water felt warm.

Then I had the brilliant idea to use my new infrared red light panels. They are about five feet tall and mounted on the wall in one of my guest bedrooms. Putting on my noise canceling headphones and red light goggles, I stood bare in front of them, trying to heat my body on the inside to feel cool on the outside. 

Within seconds I began to sweat more than normal, and after a fifteen minute session, I noticed my body excessively warm for the next hour. That was a failed experiment.

I started to feel hungry. I first tried a cold smoothie with ice and a fresh salad with avocado, cucumber, tomatoes, and other cooling ingredients. That didn’t work.

Then I reversed the experiment and had warm foods. Some leftover tomato soup. A herbal tea. Similar to the red light, I felt worse. 

All the while, the air conditioner in my apartment was cranked up to the max. And at that exact moment, there was a power outage. All of the lights, electronics and appliances were off in the blink of an eye. It’s at that moment I realized I did not have even a fan in my place.

It was at that moment I hit a wall.

I sat down quietly on my couch. With the feeling of defeat energetically throughout my body. I had no choice but to throw in the towel. ‘I give up’, I said silently to myself.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. And another. And another.

In an unexpected moment of silence, inside and out, I felt a shift in my energy. I had surrendered. I had stopped resisting. I had ended my crusade to control. I had finally accepted my reality as it was and was no longer trying to change it.

For the first time that day, I felt cool. An innocent smile appeared on my face. I no longer felt like I was going to die from the heat. 

I realized the idea of the heat was more bothersome for me than the heat itself. And then I started to reflect on how many areas of my life I react to the idea of something versus the thing itself. In relationship. In business. In health. 

The mind is such a powerful tool and it has the ability to generate ideas. Beautiful, creative and expansive ideas. And at the same time, fearful, destructive and unpleasant ideas. 

My entire day I had been reacting to the idea of suffering in my mind versus any sensation of suffering in my body. The struggle I had been feeling is what made things worse. There was a peace in letting go, in not trying to bend everything to my perceived liking and desire.

So often in my daily life I get caught up in trying to fix, control or resist what I perceive as uncomfortable or unwanted. It turns out that what is feared is not that bad and that I am a whole lot more resilient and capable than I realize.

‘Rain or shine, I’ll be fine’ is a mantra I wrote to myself in my journal later that day, as a way to remind myself that regardless of what happens in my environment, figurative or literal, I will be fine. That confidence, inner knowing and self belief is the real power of the mind that I’m curious to continue to unlock in my daily life.

There I was, sipping warm tea, sitting on my balcony in the sun, embracing the sweat rolling down my face with a smile, and letting the sun do its thing while I did mine. Sometimes the secret isn’t trying to change the world around me—it’s changing how I see it.

And that is how I learned to heat.