3 Things I'm Releasing This Fall

Fall is my favourite season.

It is an evocative time when nature invites us to her home to watch the splendid show she has put on about letting go.

Using inks of warm hues - red, orange, and yellow - the trees write us poems filled with gentle metaphors about saying goodbye to things that are not serving us.

Fall is for traveling inward and listening to what our souls need. The reckoning of what this journey might ask of us to shed can be painful.

For maybe the things we need to let go of have made themselves so ingrained in our personhood that it can feel like we won’t know who we are without them.

It is okay and no one said it was going to be easy.

But maybe one of my favourite arab proverbs ‘die before you die’ will give you some hope.

The first ‘die’ in this proverb alludes to the death of all that we hold on to that keeps us for truly living, so that when we actually do reach the end of our time on this earth (the second ‘die’), we can say we lived a life that made us feel alive.

So with that in mind, here are three things I am seeking to let go off this year.

Rush.

The past few months my days have felt like I’ve been playing catch up and no matter how fast I move, every step forward, every ‘to-do’ item crossed off brings with it the disappointing realization that I am nowhere near caught up to where I need to be.

So instead of chasing an unattainable check-list of who I ‘need’ to be as a mother and what my children ‘need’ , I’m choosing to slow down.

Opting for things that make time feel like it’s stopped (thank you long walks).

Cooking (and eating) intentionally.

Have days where I don’t feel like I need to check the clock every minute to see how I’m doing on time.

Sip my tea while it’s hot and cuddle my babies with no mental checklist of what I need to be doing instead.

Expectations.

I recently entered the realm of entrepreneurship, and let me tell you there is no way to do everything I’m supposed to do to be ‘successful’ without coming out on the other side of it burnt out and disconnected.

As a mom of three, no level of success can justify going down that path. So as I enter this season, I have realized that I may not fulfill society’s expectations of who or where I need to be.

My timeline may look different and that’s okay, because success to me is as much about guarding my authenticity and listening to my soul’s needs as it is about ‘making it’.

Phone time.

The world out there has made us feel like the only way we can keep on top of everything is if we are perpetually connected to the contents and apps in our phones.

We are so tethered to our devices we have become disconnected to the people around us: our partners, children, families, friends, and even the stranger in the elevator that could use some kind words if only we managed to look up from our phones for a minute.

Nowadays I have a small wooden box that I keep my phone in, its edges symbolic of boundaries that need to exist for things that infringe on one of our most coveted resources - inner peace.

I don’t know quite yet how my plans of letting go will pan out. But if you too are feeling called to release what no longer serves you, I hope you can be comforted by knowing that you are not alone in this journey.

We are in this together and I can’t wait to see what’s waiting for you on the other side of this.