What can you slough off?
I was at the chiropractor yesterday, getting an incredible adjustment. My chiropractor noticed my stuffy sinuses, to which I replied “yes, they always seem to get this way at the change of season — I don’t know why.” “Well,” she said, “we’re animals. just like some animals get a winter coat, we can prepare for the seasons too — especially now as the weather is shifting, and the time change just happened. Maybe you’re just sloughing off in preparation for the new needs of the next season.”
Wow. Talk about getting coaching from everywhere! What a great lesson — that our body is smart enough to prepare for what’s next, and that that may require getting rid of the old to make way for the new. A concept that sounds good when I say it, until I look to apply it to my clothes closet or my business…. because making space often looks like getting rid of things I think I need.
Nature does this well, especially at this time of year. We harvest the fruits of our summer labor, then so much of it goes away — the leaves, the color, the bounty — all in preparation for the next round to come: taller, fuller trees, another round of crops, new families of animals. There is always something next.
In the wake of Hurricane Sandy we have seen this in the extreme out here on the east coast — the very landscape of our shoreline has changed. Some have lost houses and property, some even friends or family. There can certainly be time needed to grieve those losses. If that’s where you are, please take the time needed at that stage.
After that stage… then what? What can you take from this experience — Sandy, the season, the transition you’re in — to build the next phase?
Consider that we need to let go of our past to start hanging out with our future.
Here’s an exercise to get you started:
1. What’s the future you’re headed toward? New job? Moving? Doing more charity work? Getting spiritually connected? Having children?
2. What are three things you can let go of to move in that direction? Maybe… Stop hanging out with current colleagues after work? Let go of an hour of TV a night to make more time for other things? Release the limiting belief about yourself that says “I can’t because….”?
3. What are three (even small) steps you can take to prepare for that intended future that IS COMING? Drive through the area you want to buy a house in? Read up on childbirth? Re-work your resume?
Keep releasing the old to make room for the new, and start putting the new in, intentionally, piece by piece, and you will find that your future will start to move toward you, just as you are moving toward it.
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