The changing of seasons calls for rest...

It is full-on fall here. The trees are making their magnificent and amazing transformation from green to gold. The warm summer days are replaced with crisp, cool mornings. The seasonal change is obvious. And I love it all.

Change can be beautiful…and magical…and transformative.

But the trees will soon lose their leaves and go dormant for the winter.

Change also means loss…and grief…and letting go.

As I thought about the trees and their beautiful colors, I wondered if the message is about the beauty of change? Or is it about endings? The trees are signaling the coming arrival of winter. What does winter mean, other than short days and long cold nights?

Winter is Mother Nature’s built-in recovery period. She spends most of the year growing, puts on her final show of the year, and then takes time off. And she offers no excuses or defends her need to rest. She just does it. Every year. For months at a time!

Rest. Who does that? Who automatically and regularly takes time to rest and recover? I know I suck at it.

What is so scary about the big bad rest monster? Why do we avoid it? Fear it? Blame it? Or just pretend it doesn’t exist? It feels like other four-letter words. BAD.

I’ve come to believe the rest monster is just a made-up boogeyman to keep us from spending time in silence. To keep us from hearing the voice of our heart and learning from life. To keep us plugged into the noise around us. To keep us playing the same messages…“You must keep going. Stopping is for quitters. Rest is for the lazy.”

I call BS on all of it.

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Rest and dormancy are as essential to the life cycle of a tree as they are for us. Especially after a change or loss. I fought this after my illness, eager to return to normal, get back to work, go for the next big project, and keep pushing…until I couldn't. I didn’t know why I couldn’t push through.

It wasn't until I took some time off that I could understand why I needed the time in the first place. I skipped winter. I had my glorious fall colors in the form of clean PET scans and just tried to move right into spring. When I got out of the danger zone, I ran as fast as I could to the door that said, Normal Life – Enter Here. I was ready to move on. Good riddance. Let’s get back to easy street.

It’s too bad the sign was a lie. There was no normal life after. And I certainly did not want to sit and think about the path I’d been on. But that was exactly what I needed to do. I needed to winter. I needed to sit still and be quiet. Only then could I see the sign on the door that said, New Life – Enter Here.

I couldn’t push through because I was no longer the same person. But I didn't know who I was anymore because I never stopped to think about the change that just happened. I never allowed myself to see who I had become. That is what rest is for. To witness the becoming.

Rest and reflect...

Change is hard – and it’s exhausting. It takes a lot of energy to stay upright when the ground beneath you is shaking and shifting and threatening to swallow you up like quicksand. Like me, trying to find normal life again, it’s easy to believe that the antidote to change is simply to move on and find the next normal.

But in my experience, that ignores the important step of integration. Of reflection. Of taking the time to ask, Where have I been? What have I learned? Who am I now? And what do I want? It’s not about dwelling on the past but allowing it to transform from dead leaves to rich compost. I could not appreciate or understand all that had changed in my life until I sat and sifted through the dirt and decaying leaves, let them sink in, and allowed them to nourish my roots.

Mother Nature insists on winter for a reason. Rest is essential. It is also hard. Being still is as uncomfortable as January in Iowa. But, like the trees, we need seasons of silence and stillness to replenish and prepare for the new life of spring.

Choose rest. It might be the hardest thing you do.

Change is hard. Rest might be harder. But we need both to grow.