Reflection time has been on continuous high and I’ve already been focused on the energy of wrapping up 2019, implementing closures and rewriting new stories for 2020 on many fronts since the onset of October, especially. I’ve felt for most of this year that I was a year older than I am and kept catching myself fully believing that. Whether I have been jumping timelines, am already living there on a parallel reality, or am excited about something coming next year, I’m not fully aware of, I don’t know. In any case, I’ve been tying up everything and feeling the end of “something” taking place on larger levels than I can fully grasp or explain yet.

Astrid, of course, is mirroring this (no pun intended by the photo above). And we have both deepened into another round of self-reflecting together.

Seeing her inspired this message we shared yesterday on social media, but felt to reshare it here for those of you not on those platforms:

Do you place value on self reflection and make a little time for it each day? Or do you find yourself running around all day doing a lot of things so that you’re too tired to have some moments to reflect? Checking in with yourself doesn’t have to be an either or thing or even something that needs tons of space for. You can check in with how you feel, your thoughts, etc. in the moment. The key is to train yourself to have this be a natural part of your day and process so that you aren’t just going through the motions, but are actually engaging everything very consciously and with presence to what’s really going on… How you’re reacting, responding, how things feel moment to moment, what’s underneath it all. In this way you avoid stuffing things that can crop up on you later, as well as learn to be in each moment with all of you. You also can use those moments to understand the reflections around you and what they mean, as well as learn to be present for others and understand the difficulties they, too, are going through because they likely aren’t present with their own stuff either. Compassion grows for all encounters and people, including yourself.

Autumn here has been stunning, prompting deeper levels of gratitude for all that nature is reflecting right now. The crispness of the air, bewitching sunsets and sunrises, the turning leaf colors, mountain scents of chimneys warming their homes, savory aromas from all the baking and cooking I’ve already been doing, breaking out the layers and cozy clothes, forest critters chattering away while enjoying last moments and preparing before the snow comes…perhaps you might find yourself immersed in a new cycle of corresponding activities and experiences, as life transitions anchor in.

Fall is the beginning of the yin cycle and a time of harvest and storage. And with Fall’s presence comes a cycle that supports organizing your life and going more within your mind and body to reflect on everything, as opposed to the more external, Fire element that Summer engaged us with. The Autumn season, according to Oriental medicine, is associated with the element of Metal, which reflects the energy of organization, communication, order, the mind, and protecting boundaries. It’s a good time for putting closure to projects started and a good time to begin more introspective projects.

The beautiful fall energy and leaves provide inspiration and support personal growth, especially for developing your sense of awareness and intuition of everything within your internal environment and how that is reflecting in your external world. They also signify transformation and endings that create the opportunity for new doors of beginnings to open. They teach us about letting go more easily and trusting in the natural cycles of right time, action, and place merging.

With Sun in Scorpio’s energy present, this adds to the need to be conscious about the inner experience even more. Everything is in transition and transforming – purging if you may – in order for the new to emerge and take form. If you are going through challenges, remember you have family, friends and support systems that can assist. You need only to step out of your discomfort zone and ask. Be loving and patient with yourself through it all and of others as well, as they are going through their own relationship to change.

Things are constantly shifting and rapidly so, as you I’m sure are feeling too. There is no time to worry and expend on what has passed, if you’re busy being and creating in the moment. That energy of the moment will shift anything unpleasant that “has” been and allows everything to start anew if you choose. That does not mean you condone or forget even though you forgive, but wisdom carries over, ensuring you do not repeat certain choices and learns to process more effectively anything else that presents itself. Not only is energy shifting rapidly, but so are we. People do have the ability/choice to change overnight so it is wise to suspend conditioned judgments, which are anchored in the past.

I’ve been reflecting on the directions of my life and how that merges with what’s all around me, and like clock-work had retreated more within to explore my relationship to things in my life. I even started a new journal of daily practices that is beginning to feel and look like a little spell book for 2020. 😉

Have you found yourself feeling a shift of focus yourself recently and implementing new ways of rewriting your life?

If so, I feel that this is all aligned with our return to natural harmony, which starts within each of us and then reflects outwardly. It’s a journey and has its own unfolding perfection, but just because you don’t see the idealized end result you want happening right now doesn’t mean it’s not in process of becoming.

It also doesn’t mean you can’t find a lot to be grateful for right here and now, as the way you are is perfection despite judgments otherwise.

Impulses to create are simply natural innovative impetuses. Creative energy at work, renewing itself and imagining new dreams.

Nature does this every second around you.

Yet, it’s also okay to just surrender to the natural flow of you. This process will take place regardless of our engaging it more actively.

Perhaps they are one and the same and it’s the observer who gets to decide how to view it as either a process of being or a process of doing. Both seem, to me, to be the same. Just engaged in different ways.

We both feel that self-reflection can lead to greater connection to all things, people, and life in general.

When you stop to tune into what you feel or think about something, you can’t help but start to notice how things interrelate.

Astrid reminds me that everything is always unfolding and each delicate petal that opens, curls, and softens, is equally as valuable as the entire flower. Without each petal there is no blossom. The blossom is the unity of threaded parts. And even when the blossom merges back into the Earth, its essence lingers and becomes the blueprint for another blossom of experience to come to life.