Supercharge September

In the northern hemisphere, the weather is changing. Even hot days taper more quickly. The twilight creeps in earlier, and the night air is cool. Kids have started school, or start next week. In our village, the tourists have left, suddenly leaving the streets quiet. You can feel the season in the shifts in the weather, the light, and the rhythms of our homes.

As the season changes, expectations for the months ahead are unsure, and perhaps even rocky, and we humans don’t like uncertainty. We’re primed for security— and the need for belonging. But it’s impossible to know how to be secure, or how to belong, in a world that is in such flux, in workplaces where people are continuing to leave, and which have not yet been redefined after the cataclysmic changes of the past two and a half years.

Facing the wind means taking this discomfort and reframing it— acknowledging the fear, the concerns, the uncertainty, and stating them aloud. Writing them down. And then deciding how it is that you will move through them.

Perspective: Seasons of change are perfect opportunities to refocus and reset. As we close out Q3 and move into Q4, now more than ever, it is the perfect opportunity to turn to face the wind. What are you avoiding, or putting off? What goals are you further from than you’d hoped to be? What else do you want to define for a focus for the rest of the year?

Sometimes things don’t go as planned

After a wonderful weekend away with my family, we all came down with COVID. We have avoided it so far, and suddenly we were flat on our backs, and miserable. We’re recovering slowly, but still a bit under the weather, and it’s been humbling, to say the least.

It was an unwelcome but important reminder to give ourselves grace to let things go as we rested, and healed. I’m not much good at that lesson. I imagine I’ll be learning it for the rest of my life. A setback is not forever, but it’s an invitation into a rhythm of stillness in the midst of the work, as well.