What’s a SEASON?
Twelve weeks, approximately 90 DAYS give or take.
It makes sense to me that our dear universal parents, Mother Nature and Father Time, prefer a whole SEASON to gift us with the lessons each 90-day cycle has to teach us, year in, year out.
What we learn in our 20s about the SEASONS of life differs often from the lessons we need to learn in our 50s.
Cold Winters necessitate us to acquire wisdom on how to conserve fuel (physical, emotional, financial, intellectual, sexual). Sometimes total hibernation is required. During life’s Winters we fight or find our willingness for times of solitude and bunkering down to endure the inevitable storms life throws at us all from time to time.
The SEASON of Autumn requires we prune back, turn over the soil and prepare to plant needed seeds of growth. This is a time to rigorously clean house and do a stock-take, reviewing what we need to weed out, replant and take to the dump. Autumn is hard work as we discern what to no longer waste our time and energy on and what to keep investing in (relationships, career, financial investments, health habits, study).
In approximately 90 days we will see another shift. The SEASON of Spring offers new growth, time to enjoy beauty and reap rewards. If we’ve done our hard yards throughout Winter and Autumn we will see beautiful growth start to bloom. This is a time to stop and smell the roses, to reap the harvest and unashamedly share the abundance of our feast. Spring is the time when we give ourselves permission to be fantabulously joyous. Too many of us allow guilt to rob us of this SEASON’S delight. Guilt because siblings, parents, colleagues or friends that have not put in the hard work or sought to find new tools to tend their life’s garden stand on the sidelines chanting “Poor me, why are you so lucky?”
The harder we work during the harsh SEASONS of life, the luckier we seem in our Springtime.
Then there is Summer, a time to drink in the sun’s long-awaited warmth, but also ensure we self-care and don’t burn ourselves in the warm fires of life. So many pleasure junkies who refuse to endure the harder SEASONS spend their lives chasing the sun, only interested in the good times. This SEASON is a time to relax and play, so we recharge and prepare for the harsher SEASONS that will cycle again next year. Some of us won’t stop, remaining busy bees all throughout life’s divine summer SEASON, destined for a restless year ahead if we refuse to deliberately slow down. If we won’t rest we become the restless.
Our human heart needs to goes through a complete four-SEASON cycle of growth year in, year out to ensure we remain well-rounded, resilient, multi-skilled people. Some of us, however, only chase the sun, others of us hide and get drunk in the storms. Thus we lose the ability to find and sustain our balance throughout life. We become one-SEASON wonders. We all know people who have lost their balance and become one-SEASON slaves. I’ve given them some easy to remember tag phrases …
The Hostile Hibernators, The Worrisome Workers, The Fucking Fabulous and The Pretentious Players.
If we focus on only one season we become narrow-minded people who are emotionally tiring to be around, boring as batshit in other words. However, if we cycle willingly through all of our emotional seasons the work and the reward transforms us instead into …
The Happy Hibernators, Wealthy Workers, Emotionally Fit and Fabulous and last, but not least, a Peaceful Player. So how do we emotionally transform ourselves you may well ask? I did and my answer was consistently …
“You gotta do 90 meetings in 90 days.”
If you are a recovering addict like me you will have heard this mantra probably one too many times. If we are looking to make a dramatic change in lifestyle we need to become willing to offer up a SEASON (12 weeks, or 90 days) to commit to transforming ourselves and our lives.
When we watch TV shows like The Biggest Loser or Big Brother a 12-week window is preferred so the person’s true colours have a full SEASON to reveal themselves. Nicorette patches suggest a 12-week commitment as do 12-step programs echo the requirement for absolute commitment for the first 90 days. For they are the very first SEASON of transformation.
To become the whole package, the real deal in relationships, we need to acquire the willingness to remain emotionally, physically and intellectually present for each SEASON.
There is a healthy, necessary time to hibernate, to work, to be fabulous and to play for us all. Sometimes we experience four SEASONS in one day. This includes the storms in relationships that cold Winters bring followed by the need to prune and replant, and relearn every Autumn then give ourselves permission to be fabulous and have some fun. Intimacy is a multifaceted skill involving our ability work, rest, invest and play.
So if you are looking to make a major change in your world, please do not short-change yourself and try to do it in under 90 days. Give yourself permission to complete a full SEASON of commitment to self-betterment so new growth can occur giving you a robust chance of sustaining your heart’s dreams in the future.
May this SEASON we are currently experiencing gift us with new growth, maturity and understanding.
Lotsa love Cynthia xxx
© Copyright 2016 Cynthia J. Morton Emotional Fitness™
This Word Vitamin is an excerpt from my latest bookset “The Four Seasons of the Heart”. If you would like to order your own full set of Daily Word Vitamins one for each day of the year, in book form for yourself or as a gift just click on the SHOP tab and place your order.
