Tag Archives: Seasons

Shedding Leaves

CNV00137I watched orange-brown leaves drift to the ground and felt I understood how that luscious tree-turning-dead-pole-with-twigs felt. I had also been shedding. Not leaves, but responsibilities.

Just as there are seasons in nature, there are seasons in life. In recent months I’ve been reminded how swiftly those seasons can change. So often we get caught up in doing that we can believe our activities are a measure of our worth. Slowly but surely I’ve recognised that there are times when we have to shed some ‘important’ things from our schedule to get through a change in season.

Something I’d never quite aligned with shedding until now was survival. Trees shed leaves so they can invest energy into the hidden processes that help them endure long, cold winters and, get this, prepare them for rapid growth when the winter passes. Leaves need to go because sustaining them diverts resources away from making that transition for surviving until spring. And this is where that connection between me and the deciduous tree hit.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I struggle to drop duties or scale back involvement in organisations etc, but I recognise that when winter hits suddenly, a ‘shed’ is essential for self-preservation. Too often we judge people’s value on what they are doing, or can do but don’t. Perhaps they’re just in the middle of a long winter.

Deciduous trees are also a strong reminder that every season has a beginning and an end. Even though trees ‘scale back’ on leaves for the winter, they also know spring will come again and when it does, they are ready to burst forth new leaves and actively expand their canopy once more.

Maybe you’re also facing a season where it feels like you’ve had to cast off leaves by the bagful. Don’t feel guilty or think this is a reflection of your value or capacity. Often leaf shedding is plain ol’ wisdom. But one thing we must remember is to also anticipate spring, and when it comes, allow our lives to continue expanding into new things.

In Position

For nearly two months now I’ve been trying to jot down blog posts, only to end up with numerous half-done pieces that seemed to be going nowhere. The background to this apparent blogging block began late in February. I was at the stage of awaiting manuscript edits and figured that in the interim, I should set myself a goal to ensure I remained productive. With visions of NaNoWriMo, I began my own personal novel writing month in March.

While plugging towards my goal word count, a submission opportunity arose with a criteria into which the in-progress manuscript fitted nicely. No more personal goal ‘just because’. I had a definite due date and I had to harness every writing chance that I could!

Now it is May. I submitted two days ago, and after a hectic few weeks at work, thought that this might warrant an evening off… Then, bing! The blog ideas started to flow!

I scribbled down thoughts, amused at how I’d had nothing for so long only for it to change in an instant. Self-reflection hinted that perhaps this could have been because my focus was needed elsewhere.

This made me think of a recent netball match I played. A member of the opposition injured their ankle, stopping play. As a current first aider, my instinct was to go to the player to assist, then run for ice. It then dawned on me that there were already people assisting and my attention was required elsewhere. There were two teams relying on me holding my position.

As the player was subbed out and play resumed, I saw that one of their off court team members had already begun applying appropriate first aid. In that instance I could have run off to get ice and assist the player, but it probably would have been a bit annoying for the other players when the umpire whistled for play to continue, only to find a WD missing. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the ability to assist – others were doing that.

I had to position myself in the place I needed to be at that time.

In life there are moments, even seasons, like this. There are numerous examples where we have to prioritise a particular role or activity over another: study; rearing young children; working a less-than-ideal job to pay the mortgage; reducing involvement in particular activities to enable more family time etc. This doesn’t mean that we can’t do other tasks; we just might be prioritising what is most important at that time. I guess it’s a little like driving a car on your side of the road. Sometimes you might get stuck behind a slow vehicle or have to navigate a windy, mountainous road. Though you could attempt to pass recklessly without appropriate caution, the wiser (and safer!) approach would be to wait until the oncoming lane, and our line of sight, is clear.

The reality is these seasons end. And as wisely observed by one of my friends, when stepping back from a particular role for a period to focus on something else, you can give others the opportunity to be involved in a position otherwise unavailable to them. Now I’ve just got to figure out how that works in the blogging application… 🙂