Observe the Shift: Learning to Live Well in Autumn

My last post featured sleep tips from Ayurveda and Chinese Medicine. I want to return to that topic later, as there’s still much more I could say about sleep. At this moment, what’s most pressing in my mind is to ponder again on the Ayurvedic sleep advice to “observe the shift.”

Observing the shift (paying attention to changing circumstances and learning to be in touch with your own inner response) is probably just generally great life advice, and autumn is an absolutely excellent season to get in touch with the shifts within and around you.

Autumn is a seasonal pivot, a time where we’ve turned from yang (the heat light and expansion of summer) towards yin (the eventual full contraction and cold of winter). It’s not quite hot and it’s not quite cold. My office thermostat in Center City has been struggling to figure out if it needs to pump out heat or blast AC.

So too can this be a confusing time of year to navigate. It’s no longer summer but it’s also not winter. Autumn reminds us to pay close attention as we don’t quite know how to dress or what to eat or how to be to best support ourselves during this windy time.

Autumn offers us the opportunity to pay attention internally. To notice what habits feel good and to adjust what feels nourishing for us. We can think about physical nourishment (as we turn towards watery soups and stews to hydrate and to ease up the burden on our digestion) and also spiritual nourishment; what habits do you want to continue and where could you begin to let go? 

Autumn is the season of the Metal element. Metal presents in nature as gemstones and crystals, the bedrock of the earth. It’s also framed as the breathless awe-inspiring space on the top of a mountain (so majestic you almost can’t breathe), or the endless echoing space inside a deep cave or crevasse. 

Autumn is a stark time of year that asks us to determine what to hold onto and what to let go of. To be absolutely crystal clear, like a gemstone, like the reflective quality of the metal element itself, about what will sustain us through the winter into the spring. And to get in touch with what we need to release. 

If you want a beautiful summary of the opportunities this season offers us, my teacher Thea Elijah has a beautiful 5-minute video about how paring down creates space for us to breathe and be. 

How in the letting go, in the exhale, in the decluttering of the mind that Thea talks about in the video, we actually get back the qualities of meaning and wonder that may have been lost amidst our frantic search. 

Whether you watch the video or not, I invite you to tune into yourself and to reconnect with the breathing space to live a life of meaning and love.