Eyes Of A Sunrise ✨Soothing Story

How does your "internal weather" change the way you see the world? Grab a coffee and join Lynz for a slow, gentle reflection on a rainy Sunday morning, the majestic beauty of sunrises, and how our emotions act like sunglasses shifting the reality around us.

If you are feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or just need a moment to put life down for a while, this episode offers a soft space to breathe, slow down, and come back to your body.

In this episode, we wander through:

• A Slow Sunday Morning: Moving past the disappointment of a rainy walk with the dogs to find comfort under the duvet.
• The Artist’s Lens: How writers like Ocean Vuong, Mary Oliver, and Picasso see the exact same sun in completely different ways.
• Our Internal Weather: How anxiety, loneliness, contentment, and joy act as blackout blinds or flashlights on our daily experiences.
• A Moment of Presence: A guided grounding practice to help you soften your jaw, relax your mind, and arrive in the present moment.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Dear lovely human, if you don't know me, my name is Linz. I write letters about life. I'm a curious soul, and I spend my time wandering around this revolving rock we call home, wondering what makes a life well lived. You can listen to my letters anytime, anywhere, whether you're driving, walking the dog, hunkered down on the sofa or easing yourself into sleep after a long day. They're written to help you slow and put life down for a while. If you enjoy wandering with me today, there's an invitation to step a little closer in the description just for you. Before we continue, let's take a moment of space of coming back to your body. Begin by noticing which parts of your body are making contact with the ground or the surface beneath you. Can you allow your body to feel heavier? Heavier and held. You don't need to hold yourself together here. Soften the space between your eyebrows. Soften your jaw. Allow a gap between the teeth. Relax the root of your tongue into the back of the mouth. Take a deep breath in. And only when you're ready, let it go with a sigh. Now we've arrived. Today I've been wondering about how each of us has our own individual way of seeing the world. Yesterday was one of those rare, special, super slow Sunday mooch about mornings. When the dogs woke me at five AM, I took them for a walk, hoping to reach the open fields and let them off the lead. Seeing them run free somehow connects heart strings to the corners of my lips and softens the creases between my eyebrows. Like nature's Botox. I was also hoping to catch the sunrise. I adore a good sunrise. Over the years I don't think I've ever seen the exact same one twice, and having witnessed them from so many different angles across Leicestershire, there's something genuinely majestic about it all to watch the sun peek out, put its hat on, and have a slow morning stretch as it lifts above the horizon, charges the spirits, like nature's power point, except when I stepped out of the door, to my utter disappointment, it was raining. It hadn't rained in weeks, but here it was, seemingly determined to dampen my mood. Instead of the fields, I opted for a quick uninspired trudge around the block. I didn't feel like bathing soggy, muddy, dirty dogs today. Head down, hoodie pulled up, hauling mister and Missy away from dripping wet hedges, heading home before we'd even really started. I didn't even bother to engage my brain enough to look above the hedge rows, let alone check if the sun was bothering to get up. Maybe after the recent heat wave, the sun just wanted to stay in its PJs and enjoy a lazy, so sunday too. After towing off the dogs, I bundled myself back into bed, coffee in hand, togs band until they dried off properly, curtains clamped firmly closed, and the bedside lamp held more comfort than the half baked effort of the sun. Perhaps it's conditioning or a uniquely British thing. We so easily let the rain dictate our miserable day, or perhaps I just wanted an excuse to keep the world at bay for an extra hour. I don't usually write on a Sunday. I tend to use the time to discover and learn and get curious. So propped up against the pillows, I spent a while reading, while Mr and Missy scratching and snaffling at the door made it quite clear they weren't happy with the current bedroom ban. To drown out their protests, I flicked open my laptop. I love a good coincidence. The first video on my feed was an interview with Ocean Vuang, a fine specimen of a poet and writer, and an equally fine human being. He spoke of individualizing our experiencing writing, creating metaphors and words that the world had never witnessed before, and he mentioned a war writer who described the sun not as a beacon or a light, but as a beheaded head rolling through the sky. Can you imagine that lovely human seeing something so universally nourishing as a head detached from a body bleeding across the heavens? What must that writer have lived through to witness life in such a way? It shook me out of my rainy day soak. It also made me hungry for contrast. I pressed pause, needing to see how other artists handled the light. I found entirely different human experiences. The French novelist Colette didn't treat the sun as art or tragedy, but as pure physical comfort, writing that the whole sun belongs to the naked lizard who basks in it. She saw it with her body, not just her head, the simple grounding joy of baked earth and warm skin. Then there was Mary Oliver, who asks if there was anywhere a word billowing enough for the pleasure that fills you as the sun reaches out, as it warms you as you stand there empty handed. To her, the sunrise was a daily unearned gift, a red flower streaming upwards on heavenly oils. Pablo Picasso famously flipped the painter's roll on its head, saying some painters transform the sun into a yellow spot, while others transform a yellow spot into the sun. For him, the sun wasn't just something to look at, it was a spark of agency, a refusal to see the world as flat. And Jack Karaouac saw it with restless, bruised sensuality on his travels, describing a sun, the colour of pressed grapes, stashed with burgundy red. Creative juices got the better of me. I wanted to write as Ocean suggested. How do I, as a human, see a sunrise? I sometimes question the way I write, the working class human I am. I can never find words that feel poetic enough. I could learn, I guess, but that then changes the fundamental reason for my writing in the first place. I write like we're having a coffee and a chat together. If I went all Shakespeare on you, you'd be pulling the police over for their drugs testing kits. I imagined as many sunrises as I could, trying to put into one sentence the entirety of my experience with each and every sunrise, and hoping to be philosophically clever at the same time. I realized the internal weather of our life shapes our external view, like choosing a different pair of sunglasses on any given day. This grump I had about the drizzle this morning acted more like sunglasses shaped blackout blinds. On an anxious day, the sun can look like a flashlight, clicking madly on and off at great speed. It feels intrusive, a glaring reminder of time ticking away while your chest tightens. On a lonely morning, it can feel distant, cold, like it's turned its back and decided to shine its light on the happy families out walking their dry dogs, or the groups of friends laughing and joking together, and the sickening couples that like to snog and hold hands in public while you stare from a dark window. On a content morning, it can feel like a steady, grounding warmth that starts at the tip of your toes, easing out every knot of tension in every muscle. It lands like a soft sigh right from your solar plexus. On a hurried morning, it can feel like your coach blowing a whistle and pointing you in the right and productive direction of the day. It doesn't let you linger, motivating and demanding you pick up your keys, gulp your coffee, and move. On a happy day, it can feel like posting a postcard to a loved one signed off with I wish you were here. And what if you stood next to me, lovely human, while we watched the sunrise? You could see it like a frisbee, an energy source, a top jacket button, the horizontal view of a pint of cider, a bright orange yoke daring to split and run down over the crown of your head into your ears, or a cheeky child playing hide and seek with the clouds, daring you to take yourself too seriously while you hide under the duvet. It left me feeling a sudden shunt of frustration at myself. Here I was, tucked under the duvet, with the curtains tightly drawn, brooding over a bit of rain. I say I've never seen the exact same sunrise twice, while this morning I didn't even bother to look. A distinct case of post sundance party FOMO, annoyed I'd missed this morning's RSVP. In conclusion, I could never capture that sun in just one sentence. I see the world differently every time I slow down enough to take it in. I'd have to go out tomorrow and the next day and the next to capture something so blindingly indescribable. I knew from that moment onwards that I would never lock my front door without looking up first. That's far more illuminating than any words I can write pen to paper. So lovely human, how did you see the sun today? And what lens were you viewing the world through this morning? Yours warmly Linz PS Thank you for spending the time with me. If a friend came to mind while you were listening, please do share this episode with them. It really helps more humans feel connected. If you'd like to step a little closer into my world and receive my soul hugging letters, the link to join our community is right there in the description. For now, take care of yourself, and I'll catch up with you next week.