Fall
anthony bruni
Ready or not summer over and autumn is here.
Today is the first full day of fall. Typing this as the sky greys I'm thinking about what can we learn from this season. Fall as the name implies is the time of year when deciduous trees shed all their photoreceptor cells. They cease being beneficial so they are released. So what do we need to do to prepare for the colder months? What should we shed?
Well, that's a personal question that will have many answers. We all carry some extra weight. That said I would like to direct this thought of shedding to any lingering pain, discomfort, or avoidance we are carrying. Do these reactions still serve a purpose? Because they may have been valuable in past phases of our lives does not mean they are still needed. There is a time to embrace pain, to learn what we need to do to restore health. There a time for discomfort, as sometimes better health is beyond the bounds of our comfort zone. Their times for avoidance as sometimes we need to abstain from activities to gain strength.
Like the seasons these phases are temporary. They are not meant to last. Unlike the seasons we are in charge of moving them along once we are ready for change. We don’t have to of course. We have a choice. We can choose to make our moments of trauma our de(fin)ing moment. We can internalize aspects of ourselves that are the results of certain circumstances. We can arrange our lives to accommodate those self-limiting aspects.
Or we can choose to let life grow from our wounds. We can cultivate the strength and flexibility our bodies need to heal. Whatever choice we make though will be the choice we have to live with.
Anthony Bruni