An Overview Of Seasonal Living + How To Explore

Inside: Seasonal living is empowering. This post walks you through an overview of seasonal living as I practice. It includes a variety of resources to support you including a joyful cycle pdf and an audio recording. It may contain referral links.

Seasonal living is empowering. It helps us befriend ourselves, practice a soul-honouring way of being in our body and life, and show up fully to life in every season – even the hardest of them.

I weave Seasonal living into my work and writing. In some ways it’s overt – as with my Seasonal Mindfulness Journals – but mostly it lives in the background, serving as a form of scaffolding or way of understanding the world that works for my brain and self. There are many layers I touch on and I understand that it can feel confusing and even overwhelming at the start. To be honest, I’m not sure that this post will make things clearer or muddier … but I’m trying;)

Approach your seasonal living practice with curiosity – this will take you far. Allow yourself to test, play, and experiment a bit. Try on other people’s methods and then make them your own over time. The goal is not to fit yourself into a box or someone else’s formula or framework, but to deepen your relationship with your own body and life.

Krista xo

6 CYCLES AND SEASONS and a variety of resources to explore

The graphic below briefly outlines 6 cycles or seasons that influence how we live, whether we’re conscious of it or not.

In the rest of this blog post, I’ll share some of the resources you can use to explore different layers of seasonal living and indicate which cycle or season I’m referring to by indicating the number from the graphic below. For example, if I’m talking about lunar tracking I’ll share “(no.3).”

1 + 2. DAILY AND WEEKLY RHYTHMS + yearly Life Visioning

When I’m Life Visioning personally, and in the life visioning resources I offer, I consider each of the 6 cycles or seasons (no.1-6). They help me intentionally build a brave and beautiful, values-aligned life that feels sustainable and soul-honouring .

My Purposeful Printable Pack includes a variety of worksheets that relate to the day, week, month, and year (no.1-4). For instance, it includes a Weekly Rhythm Worksheet and Sunday Intention Setting Worksheet (no.2), Goal-Setting worksheets for the year (no.4), and more.

2-6. Weekly check points, seasonal journals, and attuning to THE NATURAL, OUTER SEASONS of the year + our iNNER SEASONS as we go

The 52 Mondays series is an invitation to live seasonally and mindfully and is best suited for women in the middle season of life (no.5). It is a set of four seasonal mindfulness journals that invite you to primarily attune to your inner landscape or the emotional season (no.6) you’re in as you also lean into what’s happening in the natural world throughout the year (no. 4).

If you’re looking for a journal that only speaks to the outer four seasons as we cycle through the year, weather, seasonal celebrations, etc., these journals are not the best fit.

Instead they are more about noticing our emotional experience in difference seasons, common life challenges and growth points that women in the middle season of life might experience. They’re meant to point us inward – to encourage us to slow downward as poet Michael Meade writes – and build a trusting and respectful friendship with ourselves as we navigate the ebb and flow of life.

If you practice lunar tracking or menstrual tracking (no.3), the 52 Mondays series will be a helpful accompaniment. Each week (no.2), orient yourself by naming the moon phase or season of your menstrual cycle that you’re in. Next read the weekly reflection and prompts, journal your response, and also take note of your current level of energy (inward/outward), creativity, mood, how your body feels overall, and any emotions or stories that are loud right now in your body and mind.

At the end of each season and journal, before moving on to the next, pause and reflect on any themes or patterns that you want to take into account in the year to come. For instance, do you notice that in autumn you need more rest time built into your life? Or maybe next summer you want to be more careful about maintaining good boundaries rather than burning the candle at both ends. This is a way of tracking your patterns, or deepening self-awareness, and then harnessing what you learn for a sustainable and soul-honouring life in every season – even the hardest of them.

3. menstrual or lunar tracking: support for a joyful cycle

I started a practice of seasonal living, though I didn’t call it this back then, by tracking my menstrual cycle in my early 30s. My practice deepened and become richer over the years and spilled over into every area of my life and work.

If you’re new to Seasonal Living just choose one place to start. I recommend either menstrual tracking or lunar tracking if you don’t menstruate (no.3). As an alternative, you could begin by focusing on the outer/natural seasons and your flow of energy, mood, creativity, etc., as you move through the year (no. 4). In both cases, my Seasonal Mindfulness Journals can serve as a helpful resource.

While I encourage menstrual or lunar tracking (no.3), I don’t actively teach it anymore. Instead, if clients and community members are interested, I direct them to the following resources: Lunar Abundance (lunar tracking) and/or an app for menstrual tracking.

I made the graphic below many, many moons ago. This version is from 2018 and hasn’t been updated (I’m not sure if anything in particular ‘needs’ updating but that’s my disclaimer). You’re welcome to enjoy it.

3-4. HARNESSING THE WISDOM OF EACH SEASON FOR your CREATIVE PROJECTS AND Meaningful work

I map out my big creative projects and work (like writing a manuscript) for the year taking into consideration the ‘energy’ of each of the 4 seasons of the year (no.4). Not every work situation allows as much wiggle room as I have, but sometimes people are surprised at where they do have opportunity to better align with their natural energy flow throughout the year or the month (no.3). You can access my worksheets and an audio for free here; they can be used to map out projects monthly or yearly (no.3-4).

In my Show Up Afraid Workshop (among others) I explain different strengths and challenges of each season and how to work with these for our good as we engage with our deep work and creative projects (no.4).

In this post I share a list of books that can support you in delving into seasonal living including the creative application. And inside my Brave + Beautiful Community, I offer an optional (bonus) Seasonal Projects Circle in which we do live New Moon Calls each month (no.3). The calls start with a cycle check-in and then we share our intention for the month and how we’re practicing/showing up.

5. meeting and befriending our true self through the life cycle

The graphic below is offered in a post (which includes an audio version) I wrote about the process of meeting and befriending True Self. It focuses on the Life Cycle (no. 5) and overlays the journey of personal development from birth to death with the seasonal living framework I use.

My graphic and the way I perceive and speak about these seasons and layers that we navigate in the process of meeting and befriending True Self is my own. This is what makes sense to me and I hope it will feel valuable to you as well. My thoughts will surely evolve as I continue learning and living.

I gratefully draw from years of reading and learning, gleaning from the wisdom of others, and personal experience around women’s life cycles, mythology (in particular the work of Jean Shinoda Bolen and Michael Meade), religion, psychology, and even trauma therapy, in addition to my work with women from different corners of the world. I definitely do not aim or claim to adequately or accurately represent anyone else’s belief system or any particular body of knowledge.

4-6. THE HOPE MAP GRAPHIC: how to Befriend Your True Self and Show up Fully to Life in every season – even the hardest of them

When I work with clients and the women inside the Brave + Beautiful Community, It is very helpful to know their stage of life or where they’re at in their Life Cycle (no.4), and any strong emotional or psycho-spiritual season they might be experiencing (no.6). For example, are you in a season of deep grief aka winter? A season of excitement and new beginnings aka spring?). The way we approach our work, or our starting point, might vary depending on the season(s) you’re in.

It’s totally ok, though, if the women I work with aren’t interested in seasonal living – this is NOT a requirement. As I shared at the start of this post, it’s more running in the background of my life and mind – a framework or scaffolding that helps me gather understanding / information and make sense of it. I work with each woman as THEY are, and according to their interests and needs, not mine.

My mansucript in progress shares story from the autumn, winter, and early second spring seasons of my life cycle (no.5 and 6).

This Hope Map graphic below represents a few things:

1) The 8 core themes of my work inside the Brave + Beautiful Community and A Life in Progress; to go a layer deeper into my core content take the Hope Map Assessment or read more about the 8 themes. My work will help you befriend yourself and show up fully to life in every season – even the hardest of them.

2) How each theme corresponds to one of the 4 seasons. Also, the words circling the graphic share some of “the invitations” of each season (but ignore those if they feel confusing or distracting). For example, in autumn seasons we ‘reorient’ inward – less focus on outward engagement and more listening inward, and we ‘remember’ who we are as we quiet the external noise and strip away anything that no longer serves us.

3) The ages that correspond to each season as women move through our life cycle according to the framework I use. We’re using seasonal metaphors and archetypes to make sense of our experience as women and to choose joy, hope, purpose, and freedom in our lives.

I’ve included an audio explanation (below) of the Hope Map Graphic.

Krista xo