Begin... Again... or New...?

Fall always sparks a feeling of newness to me.  It’s probably connected to all those years of school with a new school year beginning each fall.  An interesting juxtaposition to be sure as seasonally, fall is actually a marking of harvest at the end of growing along with the colorful endings of all the leaves in the trees.  The ocean stays warm through September, but the weather starts to move away from swimming weather and towards the cold of winter.  Fall is the yearly transition towards ending.  So while I feel the power of the possibilities of new, it also has the feeling of coming to an end. 

There are a lot of ends during a human lifetime that we have to navigate along the way.  These ends often have an experience of mixed emotions associated with them, and at other times can just be one emotion.  Sometimes emotions are strong or intense.  Ends can feel easy, and other ends can feel hard.  Sometimes one ending can feel simultaneously easy and hard with different aspects of the ending leading one way or the other.  Endings happen.  They are a part of life. 

When endings happen, we are sometimes presented with an absolute ending.  There is no where else to go and nothing more to be done.  The ultimate ending.  There are times when we hit these types of endings where one thing has come to a complete end, but when we turn a bit or look at something a little bit differently we see that in fact this presents us with something else.  Something new.  It can feel like beginning again or a completely new something that we have never done before.  Endings are often incidents that spark something in and around us, urging us onward into something.  It can sometimes be the next step and at other times it can be a whole new adventure.

These occurrences can be natural feeling- like a perfect puzzle piece fit.  Other times, these occurrences are terrifying and we feel that to take a step in any direction will lead to a catastrophic fall down into a never-ending abyss.  If we don’t take a step, we feel that we won’t fall and that nothing bad will happen.  This is anxiety that comes from a fear of the unknown.  It is equally as true that if we don’t take a risk we won’t have the possibility of something amazing happening.  The hard part is that we don’t know what will happen before we take that step.

Here we come to a point where we can see that how we think affects how we feel.  If I think and perceive failure as a negative and something to be avoided at all costs, then if something doesn’t work out after I’ve taken a risk-step I’m going to have a very different experience than if I have a mindset that says failure is part of the process and an opportunity to learn something.  One way of thinking keeps me stuck.  The other way of thinking keeps me moving onward.  Onward is where adventure awaits.  There is no way to live a life without having regrets- these are a part of being human.  They become a part of our experience, of our story, and therefore help to shape the person that we are.  It again comes down to mindset- how you think about something affects how you feel about it and thus the actions that you take or don’t take.

Sometimes when an ending comes, we need to sit and think.  To be present in that moment with all of the messiness that can come with big feelings.  Simply sit and feel them.  Breathe into and through them.  Gather them as you would an apple harvest and use them to nourish and support yourself in moving forward.  There are many endings that you will not get over, but that’s not the point anyway.  The point in anything is how it helps us to grow.