Life changes colours like the seasons

It is important to understand that there are seasons in our life and that each of these seasons are helpful to us. Spring can be compared to birth and childhood. It is the season in our life of new growth. It is the period of our lives where we clear out the old to make way for the new. It is a time where we create new beginnings for ourselves and our lives. Summer can be compared with youth. It is the season of our life to enjoy ourselves. It is a time of play. During this period we feel bright and happy.

We are loving life and reaping the rewards for the positive changes that we have made. Autumn is the season of our life where change occurs and we need to let go of the old. During this period of our life we recognise and feel the need for change in our lives. In order for us to change we need to let go of things like the leaves falling from a tree. Winter is the season where we experience challenges and difficulties in our life. It can feel like a cold and lonely time. Our life may appear bleak.

We may be dealing with storms in our life which creates fear and anxiety for us. However, we need periods of winter in our lives. These winter times provide us with important learning and understanding. It is through the challenges and difficulties in life that we learn our most valuable lessons. Winter also helps us to appreciate and be grateful for what we have. Without periods of winter in our lives we can take for granted all of the goodness that we experience.

It almost feels like if you say it out loud, you’ll jinx it. But the weather is starting to change for those of us in areas of the country where our seasons are markedly different. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, the winter is marked by the “fear” emotion — this year’s extenuating circumstances notwithstanding — and the water element, which makes sense, evolutionarily. We didn’t always know that we’d have enough to make it through the winter… And the way human gene encoding gets passed down through generations, it tracks that as the weather gets colder, we feel heavier and more inclined to close ourselves off and conserve our resources (both external and internal.)

So if you’ve made it through the winter in one piece, congratulate yourself! Fear is natural and necessary, and if we can learn to metabolize it rather than avoid it, we build our resilience much more efficiently. Moving into spring… you may be surprised to learn that the dominant emotion associated with this season is the “anger” emotion. Stay with me here…up and out, wood and frustration as springtime brings up certain cultural rituals that we often take for granted.

Sunlight and temperature affect the body, but the effect is vastly overestimated. If a person seems to be significantly affected by these things, something else is going on, some other stress and overwhelm in life. That is important to recognize and not go off chasing after the seasons disorder but to find and address the correct problem.

A more difficult situation is an underwhelm, where a person is inventing things to worry about and grabs on to any disorder they hear about, just because they do not have enough challenges and nothing to live for. Let’s say an elderly lady is living alone with no money problems and no big responsibilities. Everything is likely to be an ordeal to her, like cooking or driving to the grocery store or to a repair shop for oil change. These things can take all day and cause tremendous stress. The lady is also complaining about the seasons disorder, restless legs syndrome and other disorders.

Let's say the lady got herself a cat who needs to be fed and taken care of. Feeding the cat and cleaning the litter is the tremendous ordeal now but driving and shopping are easier and the disorders kind of faded a bit. Now lets say her 15-year old great grand daughter moves in with her with a brand new baby and the old lady has to take care of the baby to make it possible for the girl to attend school. When the initial shock simmers down, feeding the cat is no longer a problem and all disorders are forgotten. Kind of whatever doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger.

We all have peculiar behaviors for every changing day but we do not notice. It also depends on composite of many other phenomena such as our day-to-day activities on that particular day, presence or absence of friends, food we are going to have that day etc. We have seasonal foods, programs, visits and many other activities and spend days accordingly, enjoying. When we are alone on rainy days, we appear to be morose. When we are having sun on cloudless wintery day, we want to go out.

We know that anything and everything can affect one’s psychology- it’s all about the stories you tell yourself and what you believe to be true. If someone recognizes seasonal changes they can change how they approach each season, change a life rule, change a life habit, change a diet, change how you perceive each season. The mind is very powerful and will create a health problem to help us recognize something is off in our thinking. If we didn’t experience poor health how would we recognize when something is wrong- 100% of all health problems is related to our psychology- change your psychology- aka how you think and your health will change.

Why do we reorganize our closets? Deep clean our homes? Rejoin the gym and revitalize our workout routines? It’s because we want to cull ourselves from the dormant energy we’ve guarded so closely during the winter, when we might’ve hoarded feelings, objects, habits, and other ideas that no longer serve us. It’s time to reassess what resources we no longer need, and start the process of getting rid of them. To do that, we utilize the vibrational resonance of spring. (If you can’t feel that, it could be an issue of focus – don’t worry, it’s very common in our world. Try this to help.)

Like fear, anger is a useful emotion, when applied responsibly and with intention. Even anger has a very specific range range of motion — Up and Out. Think about what flower buds and blades of grass do… What you’re doing when you deep clean or set up a yard sale… What farmyard animals and other critters are doing when they have their spring babies…It’s all the same “anger” energy — the up and out — to push through barriers and into new worlds. And what happens when you aren’t able to decongest, to cleanse, to break through the membrane we spent the winter creating? Frustration, resentment, anger. Organizing Our Feelings properly.

Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is now a commonly accepted diagnosis for just such a change in seasons. Typically it explains the increased potential and acquisition of depression, low energy, and low libido that arises when the length of day decreases. This becomes empirically evident as we move away from the equator with more people being effected the greater the distance from the equator, as the length of daylight hours decreases in the winter the further we are from the equator. Evolutionary biologists theorize this was a survival mechanism in which a slower metabolism favored odds of survival as food scarcity increases during winter months.

Another theory regarding low energy and libido is that melatonin levels (sleep hormones) remain relatively high in the winter months. There is a relationship between SAD and decreased Serotonin levels although I’m not familiar with how this maybe influenced by the length of day although there does seem to be some correlation with high melatonin levels and low serotonin levels. Women’s libido in particular is decreased in those with SAD which may also be an evolutionary strategy. Babies don’t fare well with low food stocks. Although I would think this would be something that would kick in 9 months before the winter months to really work.

While we require different seasons to experience and celebrate the variety of nature, as one season becomes more and more intense it can produce a down side too. Just like scorching heat in the summer scares people to go out during mid day, likewise a cold and damp rainy day also affected not just the physical mobility but also how one feels about it. As someone said it is all down to the different neuro chemicals in the brain. Those can be Googled and made more sense of. Cold countries will have the problem of reduced sunlight during winters and they bring in all kind of seasonal affective disorders(SAD) due to that.

As such modern day life makes people less physically active and this can affect the mood even further. Sunlight is very important for both healthy body and mind. This is the reason why our parents or other smart people tell depressed people to go outside. Because sunlight has been proved to improve ones mood. But too much sunlight can harm too…so the conclusion is that winter is probably the month where people sub-consciously have better moods. Sunlight with less heat and a good sleep at night makes people happier.

Everything in nature is connected to each other similarly seasons are also connected to Moods not only in humans but also in animals. We have 8 moods 4 are positive and 4 negatives they are directly affected by the time of day and seasons. Like in the morning as we get up from a good sleep we normally have elated mood. Mostly summer and spring seasons are related to elated mood including mania . In these seasons people mostly feel the mood of courage, surprise.

In rainy season and sometimes winter people are more affected by depressed moods including sorry and depression that is why places where mostly it rains people feel the grey depressed mood and are affected by depression disorders. Spring season brings mood of happiness so people wait for spring. Serotonin and other hormones affect the mood based on seasons even there are season related mood disorders. Cheers!