"I wish I knew the beauty of leaves falling. To whom are we beautiful as we go?"
Jeffers
Autumn is a time of transition and this makes the experience of autumn bittersweet for many.
During times of transition, self-compassion practices become even more important. This means treating ourselves with the same kindness, care, and understanding that we’d offer a dear friend during times of difficulty or change.
Self-compassion has three core components:
self-kindness,
common humanity,
and mindfulness.
Self-Kindness
Self-kindness involves treating ourselves like a dear friend.
Common Humanity
Common humanity is the recognition that suffering is part of the shared human experience—something we all go through.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness asks to stay present with what we are experiencing. We stay with the calm, the pain, the joy, the fear, the curiosity that we feel without ignoring or exaggerating it. We allow it to rise and fall like the tide.
The Vivid Edge of Life
In preparation for winter, the world of nature brings vivid color to all that has come into being, just before it sheds the accumulation gathered during spring and summer. This is the cycle of transformation in the natural world.
The vivid colors are saturated in anticipation of winter's near arrival. As we feel the bittersweet nuances that arise with leaves bursting into flame and then falling, we may take time to reflect upon what we might bring to the very edge and then release.
What no longer serves us?
What might interfere with the peace that coaxes restoration?
What space can we create for the new to evolve?
Can we locate our essence and beauty amidst the shorter days and longer darkness?
Here are six self-compassion practices to navigate this season of transition with peace and self-love.
1. Self-Compassion Pauses:
We all have the right to experience wholeness. We have the right to take time to remember, learn, and heal.
As daylight increasingly wanes, we may feel that we have even more to accomplish in a shorter period of time and wish that we could do more or be more.
The first practice calls upon you to pause in the face of your to-do list, stressful thoughts and demands.
- First, hold out your hand as if to create a boundary and press the demands of the encroaching world to a safe place just outside of your space. You are going to create a room in which to really breathe.
- Then take that hand and place it over your heart.
- Take 3 slow deep breaths, drawing your breath all the way down to the bottom of your belly.
- On the exhalation silently repeat: “May I be kind to myself in this moment.”
- Acknowledge that suffering is part of being human.
- Remind yourself, “I am not alone.”
2. Mindful Movement In Time Through Space:
Our rhythms change with the seasons.
- Reconnect with your inner tempo and rhythm as it resonates in your body through movement.
- Do some slow stretches or take a peaceful walk in nature.
- Feel the ground below your feet or your seat.
- Let gravity be your friend and allow it to draw you closer to your own space on this earth.
- Allow yourself to take up space.
- Allow yourself to move through space and time and to melt resistance.
- Connect with the changing environment.
- Consider a mantra such as “I am present and open to the transitions around me.”
- Move in any way that feels natural to you—in ways your body yearns to move.
- Feel the transitions within a regular day. Morning to afternoon. Afternoon to evening. Cool crisp beginnings and endings and a warming middle ground.
- Feel the stillness within you even as you are a participant and a witness to the daily and seasonal shifts.
3. Make a cozy sanctuary for your soul:
Create a welcoming space in which to retreat from the demands of the outer world.
- Bring little details into your space that remind you that you are loved and that at heart you are love.
- Calming color, books or art, fragrances that evoke nurturing memories, flickering light, a soft cozy blanket, a lovely crystal or rock, a favorite pillow. Try to honor all of your senses in creating your space.
- Let your body relax.
- As stress seeps out, emotional well-being can come to fill in the space.
- Follow your breath as it enters through your nose. Follow it to every nook and cranny of your body. Your breath is life. Your breath is light. Wherever your breath flows within you the light of your life force flows within you.
4. Create rituals:
Create a ritual for the beginnings and endings of your day.
Instead of mindlessly quieting the alarm and dragging yourself out of bed, reciting the days schedule, how might you welcome the morning light? Instead of scrolling social media until you feel drowsy, how might you welcome the sacred journey of sleep?
Consider keeping a journal next to your bed and list of all of the blessings in your life right now, from simple joys to major accomplishments. Recite a prayer or mantra. Take a deep cleansing soak in the tub.
“Let me respectfully remind you,
Life and death are of supreme importance.
Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost.
Each of us should strive to awaken. . .
Awaken, take heed. Do not squander your life.”
Joan Halifax Roshi
5. Fall Journaling:
- Consider areas of your life that feel in need of renewal or letting go. What changes do you want to cultivate as you prepare for the coming months? Can you offer yourself compassion as you write?
- What dreams or intentions do wish to nurture?
- Begin with "I remember when..." and let whatever memory needs to flow onto the paper to do so.
6. Make connections.
We all need connection. Have you been experiencing loneliness? When loneliness arises during autumn it can feel more melancholy.
Think about joining a book group, hiking group, ceramics class, writing group, movement class, spirit circle or worship group.
Allow yourself to feel that you are an important part of the world, because you are. You bring your unique gifts to any group you join.
