Autumn and the Art of Letting Go: A Seasonal Approach to Yoga

Why I practise with the seasons

For the past ten years, I have dedicated my life to a seasonally aligned yoga and sound practice. Some of you have joined my workshops, or the trainings that Tom and I have offered over the years. Today I want to share why this seasonal approach is so powerful, and offer a few simple ways to begin aligning your own practice.

And by practice, I mean whatever you do. Getting the kids ready for school. Your yoga, your qigong, your tai chi. Your job. Daily life itself.

The question underneath all of it is the same: How do you feel grounded and centred within yourself, so that you can offer the very best of you to your practice, and at the same time, be nourished by it?

Every practice is an exchange of energy

The most important thing in whatever we do is that there is an exchange of energy. When we teach, hold sessions or give classes, there is an old idea that still lingers. I heard it from my mother's peers, and sometimes I still hear its echo in the back of my head: "Energy work should be free."

Part of that belief comes from a rejection of money. But money is simply energy. And an exchange doesn't have to be money at all, it can be any offering that is of genuine use to you.

Say someone needs a session with you, and they make cheese. You eat a lot of cheese and feed it to your family, so that exchange serves you. But if the pressing need right now is your phone bill, cheese won't cover it. So you ask yourself what you need to meet that need. This is how we begin to make conscious decisions about exchange, and about the value of what we offer.

Learning to value ourselves

It starts with valuing ourselves, because so often we don't. Especially as women. For a long time our worth was negated from the outside, our grandmothers experienced that and somhow .it still lives on in us, like a memory in our cells. I'm generalising, of course it isn't true for everyone, and it shows up in greater or lesser degrees. But I know some of you will recognise yourselves here.

What the calendula knows

Our sense of worth is, in the end, a mental construct. Simply an echo of what we believe. We need to be more like nature. Have you ever wondered whether a Calendula judges if its seeds are worth anything? It doesn't. It is simply part of a cycle. When the seeds are ready, they fall to the ground. Some grow, some don't. Those that grow make more flowers, which make more seeds. It is a natural flow of energy.

Of course, we are not plants. We have minds, awareness, senses, speech, so much more. But we can learn from these natural processes that unfold without calculation or premeditation. When something comes to an end, we let it go. When something new comes into our life, we open to it with love.

That new thing may grow and flourish. Or it may not, and perhaps it teaches us a lesson in letting go. Either way, it invites contemplation:

• What did this come into my life for?

• How did it serve me?

• What was my first feeling when it arrived?

• Where did I place my attention?

The gift of the drought

Nature is a great teacher because of her simplicity. She doesn't calculate whether it's right to rain, or hold back the heavy clouds. She just happens.

Sometimes there is no rain for a long time, and we feel the dryness and the squeeze. Then the rain returns. And perhaps that drought meant certain weeds died off, unable to survive without water. With those weeds gone, other things are free to flourish. See how clever she is?

So ask yourself: What do I keep nourishing, watering and feeding that is only taking up space? When we nourish what doesn't nourish us back, there is less room for what would. Keep an eye on where you place your energy.

This too will pass

I'm not saying you need to change anything. I'm saying it helps so much to bring awareness to it. Then, even in moments when you feel stuck, stagnant or frustrated, you can remember: "This too will pass, and I have the free will to place my energy elsewhere."

Or perhaps you recognise that an experience is really difficult and uncomfortable, and you need to see it through. This isn't about dropping anything uncomfortable and moving on. Sometimes discomfort is exactly what helps us grow. So we look honestly at where we are, and at what is being asked of us.

Neither rejecting nor feeding

Often we get stuck like a broken record, looping over what is unpleasant and falling into complaint. Instead, we can open and say: I embrace you. I understand this is what I need to experience now. When we truly feel it, we allow it to pass through the body. It may take a long time or a short time.

There are two ways we stagnate the process:

• Rejecting it. "I don't want this. I'm done with this feeling." What we reject festers inside, out of sight, until one day it comes out and hurts us — often as physical illness.

• Feeding it. "Woe is me, look what is happening to me." When we hold on to our sorrow or grief this way, we lose touch with our true essence and become identified with the pain. It takes over, and there is no space for the new to arrive.

So, for this to pass just remind yourself you need to be present in the experience, you must not hold on you must not reject. You must simply get on your mat and breathe, allow it to flow, and know that "This too will pass".