Autumn is my favourite season by far. Where I live, the days are warm and the nights start to become cooler. Coming off the back of summer holidays, most people have a lot of energy and life is busy but there is an invitation somewhere in the air to start to slow down. I find myself being very reflective. The earth starts to have that pungent earthy smell and there is a feeling of letting go. Often there is a bit of sadness in the air; grief for the ending of what has happened and also what didn’t come to fruition.
Midlife is the autumn season of our life and I find that all these feelings are mirrored in people’s experience at this time. Yet many of us struggle to deal with the Autumn season of our life.
Nature does not cling to what has completed its season. Yet humans often do. We hold onto identities, roles, relationships, beliefs, coping strategies, and versions of ourselves long after they have fulfilled their purpose. Much of the suffering of midlife comes not from change itself, but from our resistance to the natural ending of things.
One thing that strikes me is how many humans see decay and loss as personal failure rather than a natural cycle of life. Autumn's leaves falling isn't a failure of the leaf or a punishment for anything, it's the design working correctly. Often I find with clients in midlife transitions, whether they are dealing with divorce, career endings or kids leaving home; they often carry a private sense that the loss means they did something wrong, or that they should have been able to prevent it. There is a natural intelligence in our body, we have these things called emotions that are superb at helping us process life and our experience of being human. It is just that modern culture doesn’t really like them, so many of us repress them so we can keep functioning. You know the leaves fall so the tree can bud again. Grief and sadness are regenerative, they help us let go of what we have loved that we have lost. Sometimes what we are losing is that is part of ourselves that we can let go of because it was an adaptive survival strategy that we created as a child and we don’t need it any more. It is not serving us in our adult relationships.
Digital Art- Kellie Stirling
“If I was tucked inside a clock, then Autumn would be the magic hour.”
Autumn doesn't ask, bargain, or explain itself to the leaves, it simply arrives, and the season changes regardless of whether the leaves are ready. There's no negotiation, no guilt, no over-explaining. One thing I find about the midlife season of life is that for many people it highlights where they have been abandoning themselves and their own needs. This often shows up as Anger. Anger tells us where our body is saying No. It helps us set up our boundaries. No doesn’t have to be coming from a fight or flight response. A clean no doesn’t need force behind it for it to be true. This is one of the gifts of midlife, when we pay attention to the anger we find places where we have really porous boundaries and our body is exhausted and finally had enough. When we explore our inner world and find where our Yes and No live inside of us, we get clearer on our desires, what we really want in life. A no that comes when we feel safe, comes from a place of internal certainty that is so settled it doesn’t need defending. That is a no coming from someone who has arrived in a place in their life, where they know down to their bones, who they are.
Many people talk about letting go as a mindset shift, a decision to stop holding on. I don’t agree with this, it is physiological first and the mind follows. Autumn doesn’t decide anything. The leaves release when the tree stops sending resources to it. There is that wisdom again; its time. This reminds me of the somatic process in the body. When the body starts to feel safe, the body starts to let go of old trauma and stress it has been holding onto for a long time. There is a loosening or a letting go that happens before the story and belief systems catch up. There is a natural wisdom and intelligence in our body that moves with our life transitions. Insight alone doesn't create change, for someone to truly let go of an identity, relationship, or role, the body has to be able to feel safe enough to let go of the protective strategy it has been holding onto. In midlife, many clients experience emotional distress or pain and it is the bodies way of saying, it is time. We are in the autumn season of life, come home to the truth of who you really are.
Autumn doesn't ask the leaves to stay. It doesn't judge them for changing colour or rush their falling. Nature trusts the wisdom of the cycle. Perhaps there are parts of us that are ready to be released too; not because they were wrong, but because their season is complete. Perhaps what feels like an ending is also making space for something deeper to emerge. Not a new self, but a truer one.