What Autumn Has to Teach Us About The Art of Letting Go
Image by Johannes Plenio/Unsplash
If you live in the Northern Hemisphere, the first signs of autumn are probably arriving all around you. Here in our leafy corner of England, the maples are turning vibrant shades of yellow, orange and red. Acorns and horse chestnuts are cascading to the ground. Insects have begun their winter hibernation. It’s colder, wetter and darker, the first storms blowing in from the West. In our house, dinners have slowly morphed from quiche and salad to mashed potatoes, pies and gravy. Jumpers and scarves have been roused from their summer slumber and donned in layers against the chill.
For some people, this is a tough time of year, especially those whose moods are sensitive to the seasons. It’s normal for our mood to shift as it gets colder and darker, so if you’re feeling down right now, sending you warm thoughts, as I know from personal experience how hard that can be.
Personally, I love autumn – second only to spring in my seasonal affections. It’s just so beautiful. It gives me great pleasure to watch the trees morph from green to red, berries shining crimson in the hedges, sunlight streaming through papery, vibrant leaves. And, alongside the beauty, I think autumn has a great deal to teach us about embracing change, especially accepting the idea of impermanence, one of the foundations of the Buddha’s teaching, two millennia ago.
What is impermanence?
Most people don’t like change. We want things to stay the same, especially if we feel calm and comfortable with our world as it is. This is especially true if you struggle with worry and anxiety, because you will probably be highly sensitive to things feeling uncertain or out of control. So you seek certainty and control, grasping tightly at what is to try and stop it becoming what will be. But the Buddha taught that this is an illusion, uniquely created in the human mind. Because nothing stays the same, everything around you is in a state of flux and change, all the time.
Watching the seasons unfold, we can clearly see how this works – spring becomes summer, then autumn and winter, before it all starts again. We might love summer, but wishing it to stay forever will, sadly, not make it so. This idea of impermanence applies on the grandest scale – even our galaxy, the Milky Way, will eventually merge with other galaxies, its planets and stars scattered into new formations. It is is changing, constantly, whether we can see or feel that or not. At an atomic level, everything comes together, falls apart, then re-forms into something else. Every cell in your body was born billions of years ago, in the cauldron of an exploding star. The carbon atoms that form you were once in a deer, or a caterpillar, and when you die will become one of those acorns cascading down, or a fox’s bushy tail. You are just borrowing those atoms for your time on this planet.
The Buddha helped us see this profound, vital lesson: because everything is in a state of flux and change, if we think: I can only feel safe and comfortable if things stay the same, we will inevitably suffer. That is why we all need to learn how to embrace change, rather than fighting against it. Take ageing – how much suffering comes from people desperately trying to look young, banishing their wrinkles or dyeing their hair? Take it from this grey-haired, rather wrinkled, almost-60-year-old therapist, ageing happens whether we like it or not! Far better for me to embrace the grey hairs and celebrate the wisdom that comes with my advancing years.
The practice: Explore Letting Go
Again, if you do struggle with anxious feelings and find uncertainty hard, I am sorry. I know how painful anxiety can be. But Buddhists have known for 2,500 years that the more we can accept impermanence, embrace change rather than kicking against it, the less we will suffer and calmer we will feel. It might be a good idea to spend time journalling about this. Try using these questions as prompts:
How do you feel about change? Does it excite or worry you?
And ageing – do you accept the march of time or find it scary?
What obstacles prevent you from embracing change? Perhaps feeling anxious, having a tendency to worry, or catastrophising about the future
Is there anything in your life you could work on accepting? Find small changes, rather than huge ones, like your kids growing older, or subtle changes in your face or body as you age
If you could accept change with a bit more equanimity, how might you think and feel differently? Might you be a bit calmer, more grounded or at peace?
I hope journalling, and thinking about these ideas in general, prove helpful for you – they certainly have for me.
Love,
Dan ❤️
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