I have always dreaded fall.
Maybe it’s the end of summer, my favorite season, or the inevitable threat of my least favorite season. Winter looms: imminent, threatening, cold.
Maybe it’s the waning of another year, reaching the last pages of a calendar.
It might be the return to rigid routines and hectic schedules after a season of rest, relaxation, and recreation.
It might even be the drier, dustier air, with the smell of decay and detritus.
It is definitely the shorter daylight hours and the chill in the autumn air.
I have always dreaded fall…digging my flip-flop-clad heels into the yellowing grass but to no avail. It cannot be stopped.
I feel a little pang of sadness as falling leaves reveal barren branches. The same feeling fills me as I pull the dry, brittle plants from my garden and flowerbeds—these once lush, vibrant, living things that had brought color and flavor to my life.
All this somehow makes me feel faded, tired.
I was recently bemoaning this mopey mood that I experience every fall, when a point was made that stalled me. I paused, planted my flip-flops firmly on the frosty foliage and really thought about this enlightened perspective of autumn: Fall is a time of letting go.
Here is a lesson to appreciate and learn. Leaving behind what no longer serves us. An opportunity to move on unburdened. To take some time to rest and refresh, to rejuvenate and prepare for a new season.
There was a key lesson here, in this insightful concept, that I had somehow missed recognizing every year. As hard as I have been working to let go of so much in my life, I was still holding onto the negative habit of grooming gloom over an impending winter.
I have always gotten hung up on this sadness during the fall season. Maybe this year will be different.
The changing landscape is an embodiment of a physical letting go that is happening right before my eyes. Instead of viewing this transition as a disappointment, I am choosing now to watch the earth model the gentle letting go that nature knows is necessary and inevitable for regeneration.
What a difference this is already making in my outlook, my mindset. Instead of bracing, I am embracing. Positive versus negative. I won’t be packing my flip-flops away anytime soon, but I will make a conscious effort to admire the signs of letting go that are all around me and thank the universe for sending those examples my way.
Daily reminders that it is ok to let go.
That something even better is up ahead.
Something that now I will have more room for.
So come celebrate fall with me!
Pull on your favorite cozy sweater, wrap your fingers around a cup of something warm to sip and let’s walk through the leaves (flip flops optional!). Letting go and being filled with curiosity and excited anticipation of what we’re making room for.
Anything you can imagine is possible. That’s where it all starts!
