Letting Go of Summer & Leaning Into Fall: How to Flow With Life’s Seasons

Have you ever noticed how our energy changes as the seasons shift? Just like the world outside cycles through spring, summer, fall, and winter, our lives move through seasons too. And when we resist those natural rhythms, that’s when we feel stuck, drained, or out of alignment. This episode is going to help you learn how to recognize what season you’re in and move with it instead of against it. Let’s go.

This show is for women who’ve been labeled, misdiagnosed, or misunderstood. Whether you have a diagnosis or just know deep down that you experience life differently, this is your space to stop fixing yourself and start trusting who you already are. My name is Amanda Hess. Let’s go.

Hey, my friend. Welcome to the podcast. Today, we’re going to talk about seasons, and I thought it was a great time to do this episode and record this because all of us are moving into September. And September, at least here in Canada, always makes me think of fall. I will laugh and say when I lived in Calgary, September was fall. Lots of times it snowed in fall. That was just the beauty of living in a city that was farther north that also has a higher elevation. So I really did experience when I lived there that September was fall. Now that I live in Kamloops, it’s a lot warmer. It’s a lot more temperate. In fact, right now, it is wildfire season. It’s started. It really didn’t start at all this year because the weather has been so beautiful. But unfortunately, we have a very large forest fire burning on the Coquihalla Highway, and therefore it is dark and orange here currently. So we’re back in that season. But that’s not what this episode is about.

I wanted to talk about why seasons matter. When you look at our external seasons, right? When you look at spring, summer, fall, winter, there are changes that happen. Now, some of you listening won’t have seasons like this because you’ll live in places that are close to the equator, and so you won’t have the same sort of shifts and swings. But for many of us, we experience seasons. And even if you don’t experience them in your own culture or your own country, I think that you’re aware of them. So ultimately, we have summer, which is beautiful, right? It’s sunny, it’s warm, it’s when we can get outside, it’s when we can go and do all of the fun summer things. We’re going on vacation, our kids are typically off of school. Summer is really sort of equated with fun.

And then we have fall where it starts to get cooler, where the days start to get shorter. There is a coziness to it. Thanksgiving falls in this month. We have pumpkin spice lattes and plaid jackets and those types of things that are happening in fall. And then in winter, the days are quite short, it’s colder, it might be snowing. It is just a cold inside kind of season if you live in a climate where you experience all of the seasons. And then spring is when new beginnings happen where the grass starts to grow again and the trees leaf out and flowers start to come and we have this promise of summer coming. So that is our physical seasons that we go through. But we also have internal seasons. We have internal seasons.

We have life stages that we’re in wherein we might be in university or college and then there might be the marriage season where you get married or you move in with somebody and you live with somebody. That could be a stage. Having children, then becoming an empty nester, retirement, all of these different life stages that we can go through where we are just hitting these sort of milestones through life. And then we also have emotional cycles. We have times when we feel really happy and light and carefree and amazing. And then we have times when we feel sad and down and dark. We have times when we feel angry and irritated and frustrated. And a lot of times, those seasons, those emotional seasons are driven by circumstantial things that are going on in our life where it might be the stage of marriage or children or, you know, happiness and the exciting parts of life. But also, we can move into the winter of our life where we are experiencing loss. We may have lost a job or lost a person that we care about, right? All of these things play a role.

We even have personal growth seasons. We have times in our lives when we are just loving the way that we are in the world. And there are times in our life where we are having to grow, and we are having to change, and we are having to evolve. We just have a lot of different seasons that we go through.

One thing that I’ve really noticed for people is that there is this propensity, this belief that we should always be in summer and that we should be in the summer of our life in summer mode always. And if you think about the seasons, right? Like if you think about summer, it’s a mode where we think we should be having constant productivity, constant enjoyment, just that life should always feel amazing and great and perfect and in alignment. And what happens when we try to push ourselves into a summer mode is that burnout comes when we don’t allow for things like reflection and rest and renewal.

So what we’re going to cover today is a framework, a framework of identifying the season of life that you are in, and I’m going to help you navigate that based on where you are because the reality is, is just like nature, in your life, each season has a gift if and only if we allow it.

I want to talk to you first just about the different seasons of life so that you get an understanding of what they are. So let’s start with spring. Spring is a season of growth. Spring is a season of renewal. If you think about it from nature, you have fresh starts. You have leaves coming out on trees. You have seeds that you’ve planted that are beginning to sprout. It is really symbolized by newness, adventure, growth. And so in your life, in your day-to-day life, it looks like trying new things.

Examples of being in the spring of your life would be things like beginning a new job, beginning a new relationship or a personal habit. But it also can be coming out of winter. So for some of you, you’ll be entering spring because you will have gone through something difficult. And sometimes it will be circumstantially difficult. Sometimes it will be a divorce or a death, or your health may have been really in distress. It can look like losing your job, right? And then starting to learn how to be okay with yourself and recognizing that there’s hope ahead.

When I think about spring, what I really think about is we have gone through the hard parts, and now the hope is there. And we can see that there is this tenuous thread that is going to potentially pull us into summer. I was coaching a client on this today, and I was talking about how she currently is just moving into spring after winter. And we were just talking about her beliefs about herself and growing her confidence and her self-esteem. And what we talked about was how when we start to look at our life and we start to see that we are now okay, that we are able to start reintegrating back into the other pieces of our life, it can be very tempting when we’re moving into spring to be mad at ourselves for winter and to be fearful that winter is coming again. This is a very common experience. And what I will say to you is that we want to look at this like we would be looking at planting seeds. So we want to plant the seed, and then we water it, and then there’s these sweet little seedlings that pop up.

These seedlings still need to come in to be protected from the frost, right? We haven’t even planted them yet, and we nurture them and care for them and make sure they’re getting light and warmth and all the things that they need, nutrients and vitamins, right? And so when you are looking at yourself and you start really starting to see that there’s newness coming that there’s hope happening, we want to be nurturing and watering and taking care of that. When it comes to your thoughts about yourself, we want to ensure that we’re being caring of ourselves, that we are framing that through the lens of self-love, and that is how we’re gentle and nurturing of those seedlings.

The seedlings are the beginnings of what you’re going to use to grow into summer, and so we want to take care of them. We want to nourish them. We need to in this stage of life, allow ourselves to be a beginner and sometimes allow ourselves to be a beginner again. So you may find yourself in a situation like I think about the business experience of maybe you’ve had a rough couple months in your business, and so now you are going to restart into the spring and you’re going to start really working on the habits that are going to grow your business. And being a beginner again means that you’re willing to take action and test and see what’s going to work for you while ensuring that your thought processes are ones of approval and love and caring for yourself as you move through that.

Beginning to be a beginner again in your marriage could look like forming new connections with your partner, really deciding that you are going to go on dates, that you’re going to approach this like a new relationship, that you are going to allow this to be new and allow yourself to see it as a seedling. When we’re doing this, we want to focus on curiosity and possibility over perfection. So a lot of times what gets in the way of a spring is perfectionism, the belief that there should be a way that you get there and that we should know exactly the way. And when we’re in spring, actually, what we want to do is as be less attached to the perfection and be more mindful of thoughts that are going to foster your ability to take more action because that’s what we want to be doing in spring.

Now, in summer is when we are experiencing enjoyment, a season of summer for yourself is abundance, right? We’re experiencing so much abundance. There is celebration. There is a soaking in of what you’ve built. So you have arrived at a place in your life where you get to just enjoy it. This looks like when your routines are flowing. This looks like when your energy is high. This looks like when your relationships just feel easier. Things are just clicking. When we’re in the season of summer of our lives, the things that we want to be working on and practicing are things like presence, letting yourself experience joy without guilt, not overanalyzing every experience. When we’re in summer, what we tend to do is rush it versus slowing down and experiencing it. It is such a beautiful experience to be able to slow down and enjoy the summer periods of your life. Let yourself experience it.

When we move into the fall of our lives, this is when we’re in a time of our life where we have, we have reflection and we’re gearing down. So fall looks like harvesting, right? Fall looks like slowing down. Fall looks like preparing for change. We will find ourselves in fall when potentially we’re having a career shift, either we are maybe being promoted, or we’re changing companies, or we’re making a very mindful decision to do something else with our career. It can look like kids moving into a new section of their lives. So our children moving grades, our children moving into university, our children moving away from home, our children getting married. These can be experiences that would be in the fall season of life. Fall can also look like evaluating the goals that you have and looking to see what has been done so far and where you want to go next. These are examples of being in the fall season of your life.

When we’re in the fall, it can be very dysregulating because we can believe that because there is this change of pace from summer to fall, that something has gone wrong because it’s different. But different doesn’t mean bad. So we want to be allowing the experience of the emotion that is going on. But then at the same time, we want to be looking at that fall season as a gift, a time when you can look and decide and find out what’s working? What do I want to keep doing? And what do I need to let go of? What am I going to stop doing? It can be tempting when slowing down is happening, when things are changing, that we feel as if there has been a failure. And I really do believe it’s that down gearing of emotion that creates that. So what we want to start doing is embracing the slowing down of our lives in those moments as a wisdom. We want to look at it as wisdom, not failure. And what I mean by that is using the experience of your life for yourself and not against yourself.

Too often, what we do is we tell the story of our lives of the things that have happened, of the things that we have done. And we tell it in such a way that we are the villain, right? We are the villain of the story. And what I would like to encourage you to do in the fall season of your life is to tell the story as if you were the protagonist. You’re the person we’re gunning for. You’re the person we see the good in. You’re the person who is doing her best.

The final season, of course, is winter. And I view winter as a time for rest and restoration. Winter can be challenging because when we are in winter, there are frequently things going on that are difficult. But I also think that winter can bring stillness, winter can bring deep rest, winter can bring integrating lessons that you have learned. Examples of when you would be in a winter season of your life would be when you are experiencing grief, when you might be in the process of recognizing and understanding that you’re in burnout and now you’re in recovery. Sometimes winter can be intentional sabbaticals. A lot of times we’re looking at things in winter like divorce, like breakups, like loss. But sometimes winter can be intentional and that we take it because we want to do a hard reset. I want to normalize the winter season as a time for rest, which is a productive season. To be able to move into spring, we must be able to experience winter.

Too often, what happens is we’re so fearful of winter that we are not intentionally moving through it, understanding that this season has value. Now, I’m not going to tell you that this season always feels good or that we want it to happen. I can tell you right now, living in Kamloops, I don’t want it to become winter. It’s dark. It’s cold. It’s not very nice. You can’t see the sun. Now, you can’t see it today either because of the smoke. But, you know, that’s, that could be its own analogy. Like even in the summer, you don’t always see the sun because the fires can come. But ultimately, winter is essential for the next spring.

What I want you to know is that these seasons, we can cycle through them in days, weeks, months, and years. They are not set in stone as far as how long they last. So unlike the physical seasons that we experience, the actual life seasons that we experience don’t have a timeline. So we don’t need to rush them along, but we don’t need to worry if we move through them quicker than we think we should be. All right? It’s just normal for it to have different timelines.

While you’re listening to this podcast, what I’d like you to do is identify which season you are in right now. Now, not just outside your window, you know, as far as like what season it is while you’re listening to this episode. But instead, what season is it that I am experiencing in my own life right now? And once you’ve done that, I’d love for you to potentially journal on it or simply name the season out loud. I am in X season.

What I will tell you for myself is that I personally am in a fall season. I see that. And I think that because I’m in a fall season, the experience of transitioning into fall has become even more poignant because I am experiencing both at the same time. My one son is beginning university and although he is living at home, the change is happening. My mother-in-law just passed away. And so now we do not have grandmothers in our family on either side. So we are moving into life with those two women no longer being present. There’s fall here that I’m experiencing.

And what I will say to you is name the season out loud as a way of self-acceptance, of accepting the fact that this is the season you’re in, and then journaling on how it’s true that you’re in this season, looking at the pieces of what’s going on and really listing them out for yourself specifically, here’s what I am experiencing in this season of my life.

The value of looking at that and owning that is that you can then take everything that I’ve said to you about that season and apply it. So for myself, being in the fall season, if I think about harvesting, slowing down, preparing for change, slowing down speaks to me deeply because slowing down doesn’t have to be scary. Slowing down can be beautiful just as the fall season can be beautiful here with the leaves changing colors, with the smell of pumpkin pie, with the coolness of the evenings. There are beautiful things that happen in fall. I don’t need to panic and worry about what’s going to come in winter or what’s going to come in spring. Instead, I can just accept that this is fall. What’s working for me here? What needs to be let go of? What am I going to focus on? What am I not going to focus on? How am I going to regulate my nervous system in fall? What’s that going to look like? Because it’s not going to look like the same way that it looked in summer.

In summer, I was water skiing and hiking and just loving the outdoors. In summer, my kids were home from school, and we were spending time with family, and it was very wonderful and beautiful and summer like. And now we’re in fall. And so fall is allowing the slow to happen and using it for myself and not against myself.

So often, what I see people doing is using the seasons against themselves. And there is a propensity to do that, I think, mostly because we are resistant to change. So one of the things that we really do experience is that when we move into a new season of our life, we have resistance because our brain doesn’t like anything that’s new. But what I will say to you is that just because your brain doesn’t like the experience of change doesn’t mean that change is bad, because change is for you if you decide that it is.

Now, don’t use this against yourself. Don’t listen to this message and then have something deeply horrible happening to you and think that what I’m saying to you is you should use it for yourself and not against yourself, and you can find the beauty in it. I will say that with time, we can generally do that, and it can be a healing practice. But when you’re in the middle of it, like if you’re in the middle of winter right now, you don’t have to think it’s beautiful. Okay? You don’t have to think it’s wonderful. It’s all right. I don’t really like winter either. Once in a while, I like a warm fire with a blanket and some, you know, hot drink that tastes amazing. But a lot of the time I’m like, it’s dark, it’s cold, I don’t love it. Instead, what we can do though is we can honor it. We can honor the season that we’re in. So depending on which season you’re in, honoring that season and trusting that it’s preparing you for what’s next.

When we can allow and trust, we can stop resisting. And when we stop resisting, the actual experience can roll through at the pace that it needs to be. The season will change. I think that one thing that you want to keep in the back of your mind is that no matter what season you’re in, the next one is coming. I will say as well that I’m not a true believer in that our own personal life seasons have to go through cyclically in that after winter is always spring. Sometimes after winter is fall. Sometimes we go through winter, and then we slow down, and we prepare for change, and we reflect, what’s working, what do I need to let go of?

What needs to be important here and what doesn’t need to be important and what am I going to put down and no longer do? Sometimes we’re going to move from fall into summer. We’re going to go through all of that, and then we are going to find abundance, and we’re going to find celebration, and we’re going to find this beautiful thing again. These don’t move through necessarily in order, like our regular seasons, as far as like nature goes. But what I will always hold true is that the seasons of our lives are always evolving. And if we can honor the season that we’re in, a, we get to feel a hell of a lot better in that season, okay? And that’s important. Us feeling good in our life is important. But also b, it allows us to take action and create the experience that we want to be experiencing.

And so both of these things are important. Both of these things matter. We want to feel better because let’s face it, life is short, and we want to be feeling better. But also, we want to feel better because when we feel better, we can take better, more aligned, more purposeful action, which is going to create experiences of your life that are going to be more of what you want, more in alignment of what you need.

As we wrap up, what I want you to remember is that there’s no such thing as a bad season. Each one has a purpose. And if this is something you want to talk about, if this is something that you want to discuss, you should come to my free monthly coaching call. I have a free call that I am starting once a month. On this call, I can help coach you through whatever season you’re in, and I can help you reframe this and put it into a place where it feels doable for you, where you start to understand how to navigate this for yourself and your specific situation. If you would like to join that call, you can go to the show notes and sign up.

Ease and strength don’t come from fighting the season that you’re in. Ease and strength don’t come from having a perfect life or doing things perfectly. Ease and strength come from flowing with whatever season you’re in and ensuring that you’re using your life for your benefit instead of against yourself.

My friend, that is what I’ve got for you today. I hope you have a beautiful week, and I will see you here next time. Bye for now.

Thanks so much for listening today. If this podcast is helping you, please follow wherever you listen and consider leaving a review. It truly helps this community grow and allows me to support more women like you. I’m excited to see you back here next week with a brand new episode. Until then, take care, friend.