What Is An Autumn Season Of Life? (And Why This Is The time To Quiet All The Noise)

Inside: Understand different types of autumn seasons, common characteristics of autumn seasons, and learn to thrive in the autumn seasons of life.

A practice of Seasonal Living teaches us that the natural world, biology, and human experience are patterned around cycles and seasons and change is constant. As one revolution comes to an end we begin again.

There is a time for turning inward and engaging outward, for building and creating and for receiving and resting, for planting, watering, and harvest. For death and (re)birth.

Tuning into the seasons we’re in helps us live gentler, calmer, joyful lives. We become more attuned to and less fearful or resentful of the ebb and flow of life. We put down deeper, healthy roots of self-awareness and self-compassion that allow us to tilt and flex and not break when the storms come.

And we push back against cultural conditioning and societal norms and learn to work with instead of against our wiring. And in doing so, we begin to walk in greater freedom, wholeness, and joy.

DIFFERENT CYCLES AND SEASONS AND FOUR autumn SEASONS OF LIFE

As women (and humans) across continents, geography, climate, culture, and history, we have a lot in common.

In addition, archetypal psychology, mythology, working with women from different corners of the world, my own life experiences (including grief, trauma, healing, self-awareness and self-compassion work, for example), and gleaning from the wisdom of other writers and teachers across the past 20 years, have influenced my practice of seasonal living.

But this is not a rigid model. Instead, I think of it as a flexible map.

At the core, it is simply an invitation to attune inward. To listen to the wisdom of your body and life and learn to trust and honour what you hear. (The free Quiet the Noise Challenge will help you with this.)

My Seasonal Mindfulness Journals are another gentle way to lean into both the outer and inner seasons of life you’re in.

Learn more about the 52 Mondays series of Seasonal Mindfulness Journals – learn more about the journals here.

I WORK WITH 6 CYCLES OR SEASONS – HERE ARE FOUR:

Month/Menstrual Cycle: Waning moon: disseminating moon (gratefully receive the fruits of your labor) and third quarter moon (I give back from abundance). Premenstrual: Day 20- 26 of your cycle or perimenopausal.

Natural World/Year: At the equinox, day and night are equal in length and then there is a tipping toward dark. Respecting the seasonal transitions though is not only about ritual and paying attention to the calendar. Above all, it’s about attuning inward to your body and experience. For me, where I live, at end of August there’s a shift in light that turns a switch in my brain and spirit. This happens 3-4 weeks before the equinox. And for mind-emotion-body health I must honour what I feel and need in the moment rather than waiting for the calendar to tell me its time.

Life Cycle: You might be in your 40s, a time of significant transition for women, or early/mid 70s to your mid 80s (second autumn). The transition into our 40s is what I call the Midlife Crossroad. It’s the entry point to a season of radical transformation for women who say yes to the work. The dominant questions of Autumn are “Who am I really? What do I truly believe? What do I need to face or tell the truth about?”

Emotional, mental, spiritual seasons of life: Non-linear, inner seasons. Autumn seasons are characterized by slowing downward, turning inward, more truth-telling, and stripping away old stories and patterns that no longer serve us. Your inner critic might be a little loud right now. This might signal a need for more spaciousness, turning toward what needs attention in you, and processing what you hear. This can also be a time of reigniting your creativity, putting down deep roots of self-awareness, self-compassion, and imperfect action like never before. The Wild Woman archetype is at play.

I could finally feel my messy in-between place as a place in its own right – as a place that is necessary. I could see that the task of becoming requires you to rest and stay where you are: that growth requires both rest and stillness. And growth requires awkward flapping. Flapping to feel yourself grow, to feel where your edges are, to feel the power and possibility of what you have created. Flapping that brings all the work of healing into the power of your wings -draws all that painful work you did to heal into your cells – so that you come to inhabit yourself differently – and inhabit your world differently.

Gretchen Schmelzer

CHARACTERISTICS OF autumn SEASONS OF LIFE

If you’re in an “autumn season” you are likely experiencing a strong call to return home to yourself or navigating a significant life transition, not entirely unlike spring, but without the innocence and simplicity.

You are in an awakening of sorts – learning to listen inward, to tell the truth like never before, rejecting and starting to stretch beyond the old binaries and boxes you once hid inside of. In this post about meeting and befriending our True Self, I name autumn the season of integration, attunement, and befriending all our parts.

It’s common in Autumn at some point to feel weary and/or anxious about what’s to come and honestly, it’s often for good reason. You’ve been carrying a lot of baggage, trying to jump through hoops and meet other people’s needs for many years, though hopefully in summer you started learning to rest and setting brave boundaries.

But mixed with the weariness is a new tingle of excitement that grows stronger as you learn to quiet all the noise and strip away, or prune, what no longer serves. Although difficult, this includes letting go of relationships and staying in places in which you must hide parts of yourself for ‘belonging’ or in which you don’t feel safe, or heard, or loved as you are. It feels like freedom.

Autumn seasons are a time of rewilding

Though you’re not yet in the raw beauty of winter, the Wild Woman archetype means you’re not so neat and tidy anymore. You can’t quite mask or fit or pretend or people-please the way you once could or at least tried some of the time. And you don’t want to.

You’re not fully there yet, but this is a time of incredible growth – downward – as you deepen your roots of self-awareness and self-compassion. You want to be real and show up as you really are, take you or leave you. This can be a time of fierce rewilding. Autumn seasons, then, invite you to befriend all of your parts, including befriending your inner critic.

Your inner senses are heightened, you’re learning how to hear your own inner voice and wisdom and how to trust it. While spring and summer are often marked by acquisition of knowledge or logos, autumn and winter seasons are a ripe time of growing in gnosis, our deep, intuitive, knowing and wisdom.

You’re growing in emotional intelligence (and giving yourself permission to feel!), hopefully also becoming more attuned to the wisdom of your body. Along with this, you are confronted by your shadow side. The way to True self is through.

This is the time to pivot or come back into alignment where needed. You are in flux, in transition, liminal space, no longer but not yet. You are less guarded, the veil is thinner, and you have a voice to use and work yet to bring into the world. What if you don’t have to fight so hard anymore?

Krista xo