A Mindfulness Approach to Navigating the Changing of Seasons

September always feels like a second New Year to me. It’s the beginning of cooler weather, trees changing colour, the crisp breeze in the air. Maybe you’re starting a new school year, or have kids who are going back to school. New supplies, new teachers, and sometimes new fears. Maybe you have thoughts like “What if my kids don’t make good friends?”, or “what if my classes are too hard?”, or something like imposter syndrome “I shouldn’t be here because everyone is smarter than me anyway and I don’t belong”. Or insert any of your own version of these anxious thoughts where we want to be able to control the outcomes of the future, but it is always out of your grasp. Of course, it is completely normal to worry about new things and upcoming changes in life. But if you find that it is beginning to affect your day-to-day where you struggle to think of anything else, or you try to find the end of the anxious thought spiral, there are a few of my favourite tools you can try. 

Number one is simply taking a good long breath. In through the nose for 5 seconds, and then exhale longer than your inhale. It sounds too simple, but taking a long breath has been proven to help calm the nervous system and restore rational thinking. Will it cure your anxiety? Probably not, but with practice, it can help take you from the futuristic worrying, and place you back into the present moment and thinking about the here-and-now. Which brings me to my second favourite tool.

Number two: What is inside and outside of your control? I love to do this activity with clients. If you are a visual person you can draw two circles, one smaller one inside one larger one to represent what is inside your control and what is outside your control. If you are a writer or list maker, you can do a T chart to list it, but I find it helps to have a visual to refer back to. What most people find interesting is that the things that are inside of our control have to do with ourselves, our thoughts, and our physical bodies. We can only control ourselves, for the most part. Everything outside of our control is what other people think, do, say, or even circumstances such as the weather, or something that happens at work. This activity helps to remind us that we can only control so much, and the other stuff, while frustrating, cannot be controlled no matter how hard we try. I love the question “Can I do anything to change this right now?”. If the answer is no, then constantly thinking about it is only going to hurt us. The last one I will leave you with is the 5 senses. This tools helps to interrupt the thought spiral, an impending panic attack, or rumination, by reminding yourself to connect to the present moment and space around you. There is the idea that as humans we cannot focus on two things at once, so if we are focusing on things in our environment and really noticing them, then we cannot focus on the things that are making us anxious. So we use our 5 senses to pull us back into the present moment when we feel or notice the spiral happening. 

Find 5 things you can see. Describe them in detail. What shape, size, colour are they? Get as detailed as possible.

Find 4 things you can feel. What is the texture like? What are the sensations? Do you notice anything about your body when you feel these things?

Find 3 things you can hear. This can mean turning on music, or listening to the hum of the refrigerator. Can you hear multiple things going on at once? 

 Find 2 things you can smell. Is it pleasant or unpleasant? Do these smells bring up memories or other sensations in your body? Do they remind you of anything?

Find 1 thing you can taste. This is a great time to also enjoy something like a piece of candy or something that has good memories associated with it. Or you can try licking a lemon or having a sour candy which can also shock your nervous system and help you to calm. 

As the seasons change, and perhaps things are starting to get busy again after summer, it’s important to remember to take time for yourself. Notice what is going on for you, and try not to fill up your plate (time, energy) with so many things that you forget that you need to also care for yourself.