What's Your Season?

Nov 11, 2021

The fall leaves have mostly tumbled to the ground.  Early mornings are fuzzy with the dark sky and crispy with frost on the grass.  It’s another sign of the season change here in Minnesota.  Mother Nature is telling us to prepare for what’s next (yah! snow is coming!).   

 

And in the bigger picture, the weather season change signals time to refuel, release, and replenish life.  The transition in considering what Mother Nature needs next to fully show up for the next phase. 

 

Just like the weather has seasons, we have seasons as well.  We’re not always in a state of spring or summer.  We’re not always storming or having unpredictable weather patterns either.  

 

And just like the weather, we MUST go through the seasons.  It allows for the new, for releasing, for sitting in the known, and even the unknown spaces.   As we meander through our seasons, it can feel a bit uncertain if we don’t recognize where we are and what led us there.  At times we may even look for the opposite feeling thinking that it will cure all.  

 

What if our season changes are simply like Mother Nature’s, there to prepare us for the next phase?  How can we honor the season we are in to create space for the season ahead?   

 

Let’s consider a season through the eyes of well-being.  The Meaningful Life Model1 provides an equation for different seasons of wellbeing.

 

Surviving < Chasing < Maintaining < Living

 

Being in Food Safety & Quality this well-being model spoke to me.  I thought about all the times I felt as if I was treading water and just surviving day-to-day.  When I was advocating for myself, my team, and our programs, I was chasing for a better world.  As areas of work improved, we were maintaining those improvements.  When the improvements were finally embedded into our culture, we were living.   

 

Then someone would leave, or there’d be a management change, or a new demanding customer, or a shift in company direction, and parts of our world would move backward to find we’re back in the chasing season. These situations helped us appreciate each season and know it was temporary, just like the weather.  Our seasons continued, but instead of frigid, blizzard-like weather for weeks, we’d have a mild snowstorm.  That’s when we’d pick up our shovels, move some snow, and be back to living.  

 

We were grateful.  Without going through the struggle of that season, we’d never recognized that we had moved forward to the next phase.

 

What season are you in? And what can you honor for the next stage?

 

Thanks for the read!



1- Meaningful Life Model.  Learning Journeys: The International Center of Coaching.