Autumn Ease: Preparing For Stillness

The energy of the fall season is productive and active – a time of harvesting your abundance and celebrating your bounty. It’s a time of preparation, gathering in the last of everything from outside, and finishing up projects you started earlier in the year. This season is also celebratory and vibrant while gently transitioning you out of the fiery energy of summer into a more crisp, airy energy. It’s a gorgeous time of year for practicing alignment and ease.

Enjoyment, activity, and preparation for the stillness to come in winter is what autumn is all about. Learn to be mindful of your pace during the fall. There’s a lot of newness and change this time of year. You might feel a burst of energy with the cool, refreshing weather. Instead of becoming overwhelmed with everything you think you need to do during this invigorating time, remember there’s no rush. Allow yourself to maintain an easy, enjoyable pace. Trust everything will get done in its own time.

Fall weather can be quite dry, with fluctuating temperatures and inconsistent weather patterns. This offers you a chance to come into alignment with the stillness deep inside you while practicing flexibility and surrendering to change. With cooler days and darker nights, nature is being tucked in for its long winter’s nap to come, and you are invited to do the same.

Your internal landscape during this transitional season is ripe for becoming more grounded, seeking clarity, and setting intentions. Because it’s a season of productivity, as well as preparation for stillness, it’s important to slow down in the midst of doing and allow yourself to BE. This is a chance to find out everything is okay and nothing is going to fall apart if you take time to rest.

Autumn is full of activity – going back to school, getting back to your regular work schedule, starting up hobbies, engaging new interests. As you listen to your heart, follow your joy, seek clarity, and practice living with ease, you can use this seasonal shift to your advantage by implementing changes that are in greater alignment with your desires while also eliminating what’s no longer working. What better time to make changes in your life than when everything is already changing?

The bountiful fruits and vegetables of autumn make this a genuinely wonderful time of year for feeding your body. As a transitional season, this is also a great time for cleansing your diet by eliminating certain foods and/ or introducing new foods that support your physical well-being. With autumn also comes cold and flu season, which highlights how important it is to mindfully support your body by consuming foods that are fresh, rich in vitamins, and nourishing to your system. May you feel well by eating well.

As an invigorating and enlivening season, fall is a great time to practice joyful, celebratory movement. Any sort of free-flowing movement that allows you to follow your own rhythm, while connecting with the needs of your body will bring you into greater alignment with your inner self. Also, getting outside and connecting with yourself and nature, with a slow walking or breathing practice will clear your mind and heart, as well as open you up to the beauty and enoughness of the present moment.

This short guided practice for connecting with the air element associated with autumn encourages you to breathe in change. Make yourself comfortable as you are guided through this invigorating, air-focused practice to help you come into alignment with your heart, mind, and body.

Today you’ll look at nature’s example for how you can come into alignment with yourself and the natural rhythms of the world around you. During the fall season, nature is dropping dead leaves, turning under, and closing down production as it prepares for winter’s deep rest. It’s time to focus on what needs to be worked on and released. Go outside and observe what nature has to teach you about this season.

A big part of coming into alignment with the autumn season is accepting the ever-changing nature of life and living. Allowing yourself to be productive, make changes, and complete projects without taking on more, is a practice in self-care and mindful choice. When you learn to look to nature as your example and follow its rhythms, you get to discover the deepest, most peaceful part of yourself. Allow yourself to let go of earning your worth through busyness and doing. Instead, let yourself and the present moment, be enough. Because it is.