Honoring Your Inner Seasons in a Culture That Rarely Slows Down
Almost three years ago, I self-published my oracle deck Your True Nature Oracle. At the time, I carried a quiet knowing that remembering our true nature would become increasingly important in the years ahead.
What I’ve come to understand—both through my own life and through my work as a therapist—is this:
Our true nature is nature.
We are descendants of the natural world. We are cyclical beings, moving through seasons just as the Earth does. And when we remember this—when we allow this knowing to settle not just in our minds, but deep in our bones, bodies, and beings—our nervous systems begin to settle.
The nervous system is a vast network that looks like the root systems of trees. When our nervous system root system reconnects with its true nature—when we allow the rememberance that we belong to the Earth to fill our bones, bodies, and beings—an enduring sense of belonging emerges within us. One that no human can ever fill for us. An inner flame begins to steadily burn again, helping us become more anchored in our own center as we move through life.
Many of the people I work with come to therapy feeling anxious, exhausted, or burnt out. They are high-functioning, thoughtful, and self-aware. They’ve done a great deal of inner work. And yet, their bodies remain tense, braced, or unsettled. Often, an inner death is beginning—an unravelling of old roles, identities, and ways of being that no longer serve who they are becoming. They are not looking to push forward or fix themselves. They are seeking permission to move differently through the world by embracing their own seasonal natures.
On Being in “Spring” All the Time
One reason our culture is so sick—literally in dis-ease—is that we are consciously and unconsciously taught to live as if we should always be in Spring or Summer.
We’re encouraged to:
Grow
Produce
Improve
Launch
Stay positive
Keep moving forward
What we’re not taught is how to experience inner Fall and inner Winter.
We aren’t taught how to shed, release, grieve, rest, or let old identities die. Instead, we’re taught to feel guilty for even considering these. We aren’t shown how to be with endings, uncertainty, or not-knowing. And when these seasons inevitably arrive—as they always do—we feel unmoored, overwhelmed, and lost because we haven’t been taught how to navigate them.
Anxiety, burnout, emotional overwhelm, and feeling “stuck” often arise when we externally try to live as if it’s time to bloom while we internally feel a call to pause, rest, wilt, shed, or navigate a cycle of death-and-rebirth.
Inner Seasons and the Nervous System
When we don’t have permission to move through inner seasons, the nervous system interprets rest as danger and slowing down as failure. The body stays in a state of low-grade survival, even when nothing is externally wrong.
Understanding inner seasons gives the nervous system something it deeply needs: orientation.
It helps us recognize:
This is a time of going inward, not pushing forward.
This discomfort doesn’t mean something is wrong with me. It is a necessary part of shedding, releasing, healing, letting go, and allowing old parts of me to die.
Illness or problems are not an indication of individual failure or that something has gone wrong. They can facilitate deep spiritual and symbolic renewal, leading us naturally into expanded, more complete ways of being and thinking about and experiencing ourselves.
When inner Fall and Winter are named and honored, the nervous system can begin to settle. There is less urgency to fix, override, or explain away what’s happening. Instead, there is room to slow down and deeply listen to our inner wisdom.
This Is the Heart of My Work in Therapy
At the core of my work is supporting chronically stressed and spiritually curious individuals to reclaim their true nature—not as an idea, but as a lived, embodied, felt experience.
That often means coming into gentle, supported contact with death-and-rebirth cycles within psyche, body, and relationship: the endings, the shedding of roles, the unraveling of identities that once worked but no longer fit.
These experiences can feel destabilizing without support. But when they are held with care, structure, and nervous-system awareness, they become empowering. Clients begin to remember that they do have the capacity to move through these seasons. They always have.
Therapy becomes less about fixing and more about creating enough safety for the body to allow change to unfold.
A Closing Prayer
May you reclaim your true nature as a seasonal, cyclical being.
May you learn to honor your inner Falls and Winters just as you honor your Springs and Summers.
May you trust that pausing, slowing down, letting go, and not knowing are necessary parts of your life.
May you meet yourself in every season with gentleness, compassion, nourishment, and care.
With care,
Heather
P.S. — If you resonate with this post and don’t yet have my oracle deck, I could not recommend it more as a sacred companion on your path. Purchase Your True Nature Oracle here.
P.P.S. — If you live in Connecticut or New York and are seeking a therapy experience that honors your wholeness and meets you with depth, care, and reverence, you can learn more about my approach and book a free consultation here.
