If you are feeling heavy during this fall seasons change, know you are not alone.

Fall is a time and season for letting go, for deep grieving. Just like the trees drop its leaves, we too must slowly drop our external leaves to be able to go internally deeper. We must let go of the attachment to keep things the way they are and give ourself permission to enter into a new chapter.

Nature is one of our greatest teachers. It is always changing. Even in the fall season, each tree takes its own time to drop their leaves. No one is rushing the tree: its leaves just gently fall one by one. And by the end of the fall season the leaves are gone.

The only thing constant is change and the more we invite in a gentleness to drop our leaves, to let go slowly and mindfully we come into a sense of wholeness with our being.

Fall is a time we move from yang to yin energy, a part of the Chinese Medicine system. We are moving from the high intensity energy of summer and moving into the slowness of the fall season. Often times there is a resistance in moving into more of a yin state. We resist slowing down. We resist allowing our body to take the time it needs to soften and let go over whatever is holding it back from truly coming to a sense of stillness.

We, you, do not need to resist this change. We can embrace it with an open heart and mind. First though, we must grieve.

Grief has been one of my greatest teachers. It has taught me how to love deeper. Moving through grief has been one of the most challenging and liberating things I have allowed myself to do. As we choose to move with our grief this season, we must choose to also be present with what arises. We do not need to fear the somatic experience our body has during this time. Rather we just need to sit and be present with the waves we will feel during this time.

As a trauma informed therapist, yoga teacher and survivor I understand it is not easy to sit with the stillness. It often times feels un-settling and ungrounding in a way that our nervous system may not be able to feel safe to just sit. And so, just know, you do not need to be a meditation expert to sit with yourself. Rather can you sit with yourself in just this moment and feel the full experience of your breath? Feel the full expansion and contraction of our breath in this moment. This is what it means to be present.

When we allow our experience to simply be with our breath we allow the waves of our grief to move and we can start to move out of feeling “stuck”. I often here this in my therapy practice is that clients feel “frozen” in their grief, they do not even know where to start.

And the best place to start is with your breath. Your life force energy. Simply place one hand on your lower abdomen, your belly space, and one hand on your upper chest, your heart space, and just feel the magical rhythm of your breath.

Fall is a time to get more quiet and to ease into the transition into the winter. How we move through the transitions of our life really does determine the next chapter of our life. The more you can move with mindfulness, allowing yourself to be fully present with what is–you will be able to find more peace and freedom. Often times by doing less and being more, we find that is not our doing that defines us but our being that allows us to simply show up as we are. Let yourself just be this fall and mindfully move through the grief you may be feeling so you can move deeper into love.