Back to ... School?

The excitement of fresh notebooks and sharpened pencils. A sense of possibility. The promise of fall colors and cooling crisp breezes. Not this year! 

This year especially, we need reminders from the natural world. 

We are moving into a season of shedding.

Clients, friends, and family are amazing me with their resilience and adaptability. I witness friends taking major detours in their lives and detaching themselves from the securities of familiar jobs and homes in order to re-prioritize how they live and teach their children their values. I watch family members letting go of control over outcomes in order to practice authentic and intuitive communication with each other. I listen to clients sort through what fears they are willing to loosen their grasp on in order to turn towards trust in themselves. 

Whether by internal choice or external necessity, we are evolving. We are shedding jobs with employers who do not value our gifts or who display an attachment to oppressive systems. We are dropping the importance of "climbing the corporate ladder" in order to prioritize personal and family wellness. We are being forced to problem solve in ways that lend us to asking our community for help, dropping our rugged independence and inflated egos. 

Letting go is not easy. Shedding is vulnerable. Letting the leaves fall to the Earth is an act of baring our branches.... and yet, through the waves of emotion that come with this wild time, there is the possibility of deep relief, of authentic living, of discovering that in fact we are capable of living more fully and truly than we ever imagined. Dropping the foliage that served us for a time in order to come back to our heartwood, our center, listening deeply and letting that listening inform our next stage of growth.

At this closing of summer, what goodbyes do you need to begin in order to shed what no longer serves you or our collective wellbeing?