I was on the beach the other day and I felt it, Fall. This time of year is always a bit tricky for me. I am self-proclaimed summertime girl. I love it! I can't get enough it. During those months I am outside more, see family and friends more, eat fresh simple food and enjoy delicious libations and it's baseball season! It's all just so much fun :). I was walking down the beach with my dog (Buddy) and besides the surfer we were the only beings in sight. I even told Buddy, "Ahhh, Fall is here!" I think he agreed. The dolphins did too, another sign things are changing.
Yes, we mark the end of summer with Labor Day, that's when I also return to my normal teaching schedule. It's an emotional time for many and myself and my family are included in that September marks the month of my brother's passing, a life taken too young and unexpectedly! I am painfully aware of September and I love summer. It's a conflicting time for me and I feel myself swirling. I love and I hate all at once.
I see Fall in the sunsets, I feel it on my skin and I can smell it in the air so I have this aversion to September yet an attachment to the sights, sounds and smells of Fall. It makes me feel confused, a bit overwhelmed, unsettled and just a bit off. I guess some can contribute it to Mercury in retrograde. Honestly, I don't know. All I know is that this transition is tough for me. Transitions can be very uncomfortable. It is in this state of uncomfortability (I swear it is a word) where I learn the most about myself. Sometimes I try to over schedule myself to get lost in my day-to-day so I don't realize that change is happening. With every effort of resistance... the change still happens and you guessed it, it just makes it harder and well, that usually backfires. If I let myself be "ok" in that state of uncomfortablity I know I will be ok. Here's how I get through it: 1) Irepeat to myself, "This too shall pass." 2) A ground down into whatever is touching the ground (floor or even my seat). 3) I feel my breath move my body. I focus on my foundation, use my breath and repeat my mantra and almost immediately I can feel the "swirling" and uncomfortability start to dissolve and wash away. I feel strong in my base and softer in my face (yup, that's rhyme and I know it!).
If I am lucky enough to be in an open space when having those feelings of swirling, overwhelming and resisting change I find tadasana (mountain) pose. There is nothing more grounding than standing in tadasana. For me, there is no other pose that grounds me more. Like a mountain, I stand knowing I will withstand any shifts around me or even happening to me. Change is coming. Change is good. How I respond to change makes the difference in how we move through the uncomfortability or get stuck in it. I choose to move through it, not around because I know "this too shall pass."