What Does a Change of Season Reveal About Your Well-Being?
u r a healer℠ Public Series · No. 02
A change of season can affect how we live. Winter, spring, summer, and fall naturally influence how we eat, move, travel, spend our time, and care for ourselves.
But the calendar seasons are not the only seasons we live through.
There are seasons of life and circumstance. Becoming a parent. Moving through menopause. Becoming ill or recovering from illness. Caring for someone you love. Relocating. Experiencing different demands at work. Reconsidering a relationship or career.
Each of these circumstances can affect your health and well-being priorities, your routines, and what you realistically have the capacity to do.
And sometimes the change happens before you have fully noticed it.
Notice What Is Inconsistent, Missing, or No Longer Fits
You may realize that you have not been sleeping as well. You have missed several blood pressure checks. You stopped taking a supplement that had been part of your routine. Something you normally do has become inconsistent—or a familiar habit simply no longer fits your life the way it once did.
That does not necessarily mean something is wrong.
A change in season may reveal a problem that needs attention, but it may also reveal an opportunity. You may discover that you have naturally developed a new habit that works better. You may find that something you thought you needed no longer belongs in your routine. Or you may recognize that you have adapted well to a change and want to continue what you are already doing.
The first step is noticing.
What changed?
And what does that change reveal?
Not Every Season Asks the Same Thing of You
The expectations you place on yourself cannot reasonably remain the same under every circumstance.
Consider someone undergoing chemotherapy or recovering from an illness or surgery. In another season, preparing meals, exercising, bathing, working, and completing the responsibilities of the day might feel routine.
However, during treatment or recovery, getting yourself out of bed, bathing independently, walking to the kitchen, and taking a yogurt from the refrigerator may represent meaningful acts of self-care.
The action may be small. Its meaning within that particular season may not be.
The same is true for a new parent. Caring for an infant while trying to understand a new role, manage interrupted sleep, attend to your personal needs, and make decisions that support the baby’s development changes what is realistic.
Even ordinary seasonal changes can affect our routines. Swimming may be the activity that fits during one part of the year. Walking, running, hiking, or another form of movement may fit another.
The important question is not always:
What should I be doing?
Sometimes the more useful question is:
What is appropriate and possible in this season?
That is part of what a change of season can reveal about your well-being.
What Deserves Your Attention Now?
In Public Series No. 01, I asked you to consider what deserves your attention now.
A change of season gives us another way to examine that question.
Once you notice that something has changed, you can begin to ask:
What changed?
What does that change reveal?
What still fits?
What needs revision?
And of all those things, what deserves your attention now?
Observation comes before priority.
What you notice has to be considered in relation to your present capacity. You may notice several things at once, but noticing them does not mean they all require action at the same time.
Take time to consider your observations carefully. Are there any physical signs? Can you identify the situation, habit, or practice involved?
Not Everything Needs to Change
Suppose you have an overdue or recommended primary-care visit. Making that one priority may involve more than simply putting an appointment on your calendar. You may need to request time away from work—not always easy—wait for the appointment, see more than one practitioner, complete testing, and follow through afterward.
That one decision may already require a meaningful amount of time and attention.
There may still be room for another small change. But that does not mean this is the time to add several new habits, overhaul your diet, begin an ambitious exercise routine, reorganize your sleep schedule, and tackle every other concern you have identified.
A significant priority may need enough time and attention for you to follow it through. This is worth paying attention to.
Changing one thing can require more effort than we anticipate. It asks something of our attention, our commitment, our time, and our capacity.
So another useful question becomes:
What one change fits the importance of the need and my present capacity?
The answer may be different from what it would have been six months ago. It may be different six months from now.
That is the point.
Reassess Rather Than Automatically Overhaul
A change of season reveals information.
- It may reveal that something needs attention.
- It may show you that an old routine no longer fits.
- It may tell you that your capacity has changed.
- It may reveal that something you are already doing is working well and deserves to continue.
- It may show you that this simply is not the right season for a particular goal.
Paying attention to those changes allows you to reconsider what you are asking of yourself before automatically adding more.
So, as you consider the season you are in now:
What has changed?
And what does that change suggest deserves your attention now?