Trusting The Cycles of Your Own BEing (edited version)

Trusting the Cycles of Your Own BEing

(Edited Version)

Not every season of your life is meant to bloom. Some are meant to bring you back to your roots.

There is a tree outside your window.

In spring, it awakens.

In summer, it flourishes.

In autumn, it releases what it can no longer sustain.

And in winter...

it stands bare.

Quiet.

Still.

To someone who doesn't understand the seasons, that tree may appear to be dying.

But beneath the surface, life continues.

The tree has not failed.

It has not forgotten how to grow.

It is simply living in accordance with its season.

And perhaps this is something we humans have forgotten.

We expect ourselves to bloom continuously.

To remain productive.

To remain youthful.

To remain strong.

To keep becoming more, even when life is asking us to become still.

We celebrate our seasons of growth but often question our seasons of quiet.

We call them setbacks.

We call them stagnation.

We wonder what has gone wrong.

But what if nothing has gone wrong?

What if you are simply experiencing another cycle of your own BEing?

The Suffering of Trying to Remain in a Season That Has Ended

There is a particular kind of suffering that comes from trying to remain who we once were.

The woman who could do everything.

The mother whose children needed her every day.

The partner who once felt certain about love.

The professional whose identity was wrapped around accomplishment.

The body that moved without hesitation.

The younger Self who believed there would always be more time.

Then life changes.

Children grow.

Relationships evolve.

Bodies age.

Careers end.

Loved ones transition.

And suddenly, we are standing in a season we did not prepare to enter.

The mind begins negotiating.

I want things the way they were.

I don't want to get older.

I should still be able to do what I used to do.

Who am I if I am no longer needed in the same way?

And the nervous system may respond to these changes with uncertainty, vigilance, sadness, or fear.

Not necessarily because the new season is dangerous.

But because the familiar has changed.

And the brain often finds comfort in what it can predict.

Your Nervous System Has Seasons, Too

Consider how nature moves.

There are periods of activity.

Periods of recovery.

Periods of preparation.

Periods of rest.

Your nervous system also moves through changing states of activation, connection, and restoration.

It was never designed to remain in one state continuously.

You cannot remain endlessly productive without requiring recovery.

You cannot remain endlessly alert without experiencing fatigue.

And you cannot demand that your body feel peaceful simply because your mind has decided it should.

Regulation is not the absence of movement between states. It is developing the flexibility to move through them and recover.

Sometimes the most supportive thing you can offer your nervous system is not another technique.

It is permission.

Permission to rest.

Permission to grieve.

Permission to change your mind.

Permission to need something different.

Permission to become someone you have never been before.

Because the body is not asking you to remain who you were.

It is continually responding to who you are now.

The Wisdom of the Bare Tree

Return to the tree.

Imagine if, in autumn, it refused to release its leaves.

Imagine it gripping every branch, insisting:

These leaves are who I am.

Without them, I am nothing.

I must remain beautiful in the way I have always known beauty.

How exhausting that would be.

And yet, we do this with our lives.

We hold on to identities that no longer fit.

Relationships that have changed.

Expectations that no longer nourish us.

Old stories about what aging should look like.

Desires that create more suffering than fulfillment.

Sometimes the difficulty is not the changing season itself.

It is our demand that the season remain unchanged.

Surrender does not mean abandoning what matters.

It means recognizing what is real.

Allowing means making space to experience what is here.

Trust means understanding that uncertainty does not erase your capacity to meet life.

Surrender. Allow. Trust.

SAT.

Perhaps these are the three movements that help us travel through the cycles of our own BEing.

You Are Not Required to Bloom in Every Season

There may be a season when you are meant to create.

Another when you are meant to nurture.

Another when you are meant to receive.

Another when you are meant to sit quietly and question everything you once believed.

And perhaps there will be a season when you discover that much of what you spent your life chasing...

you no longer desire.

That is not necessarily loss.

Sometimes it is clarity.

Sometimes it is maturity.

Sometimes it is the beautiful realization that you no longer need everything you once believed was necessary to be whole.

There is freedom in that discovery.

You can love your children without needing to direct their lives.

You can honor your younger body without resenting the one that carries you today.

You can appreciate your accomplishments without requiring them to define your worth.

You can welcome a quieter life without interpreting quiet as emptiness.

And you can enter an unfamiliar chapter without insisting that you already know how it must unfold.