I’ve always struggled with Fall, this season of death. Mid-August I begin to feel agitated and unsettled, that familiar sense of dread emerging as the light of summer begins to fade.
I realize that part of my resistance to Fall is because it’s the season of surrender. To me, surrender means giving up, admitting defeat, throwing in the towel. The stubborn, fiery side of me is used to pushing through versus conceding. Instead of surrender, I was raised to work harder, get smarter, and establish a firmer grip on the problem. Yes, I admit to being a bit of a control freak.
And yet this fall feels different to me. I haven’t hit the anxiety wall and that unsettled feeling in my body hasn’t surfaced. Sure, I’ve been doing lots of Ayurvedic practices to counteract the uprising of anxiety: oil massage, drinking warm water instead of cold, eating cooked vegetables instead of raw, and plenty of sleep.
But, I’m pretty certain the big shift for me has been acceptance and surrender. For months now, I’ve been working with acceptance of many things in my life. I’ve come to see that acceptance is not passivity, rather it is an active willingness to be with the reality of my life. To me acceptance has been letting go of my tendency to change, fix, or improve upon.
The result of this surrender experiment? I’ve softened. I’m definitely suffering less. I actually feel more in control, not less. And, I’m enjoying life more…even these shorter days of Fall.
Since surrender is the energy of Fall, can you commit to embracing the natural order of things to just let go? What in your life are you clinging to, fighting for, or resisting that might be better approached through surrender? Would letting go open the space for a better situation to occur? May the energy of today, the Autumnal Equinox, help you surrender all that is no longer serving you with faith that letting go brings freedom.
In addition to surrender, check out my video below for a breath technique to help manage anxiety in the Fall (15 bellows breath followed by 5 diaphragmatic breaths using a mudra).
