Making Room for Grief

In Chinese Medicine Autumn is the season associated with grief and loss. As soon as September begins to fade, we being to see patients being coming into the office with the inkling of sadness and grief that they can't quite connect it to anything in the present moment.  Regardless how big the losses are, big or small, they effects us surprising and different ways and those lingering feelings tend to show up in the Autumn.  

The annual emotional cycles follow the cycles of nature.  Every Fall, the opportunity to sit with, revisit, be with, and let go of our core losses. Winter is the time of deep gestation, Spring brings us the energy of new beginnings and possibilities, Summer is the yang-fire of manifesting our visions and our projects. 

Focusing on the Autumn season, it is also centered around the harvest - the time of reaping, and assessing past strategies in hopes of better harvests in the future, and the time of assessing the losses of the year.  This doesn't always have to be in an overwhelming way - time can soften the edges - but acknowledging what we carry within us. Each year we come from a different place, because we continue to grow and change and see our grief through different lenses. 

A great example of are traditions such as Dia de Los Muertos and All Souls Day that celebrate this time of year, when the energetics of the season hold and reflect that sort of energy. 

So, if you find yourself feeling and thinking back to core losses, know that you are not alone, it is a part of the natural cycle of the year.  Do not sit alone with those feelings, reach out to a therapist, guide, mentor or close friend to be with you in that process. ​​