WHAT THIS SEASON IS ASKING OF US
We’ve officially entered the fall season, which has been highly anticipated for me. I’m typically a summertime girlie. However, the way the heat index was set up this summer, I was TOO excited for the season to change. Not only to feel more comfortable, experience less fatigue, and hopefully avoid pseudo flares, but also because of what entering this season represents.
Fall is always a beautiful reminder of what it means to let things go, prune what no longer serves you, give yourself permission to change, slow down, and allow yourself to shine in all your rich and beautiful colors.
As I’ve been thinking about this season and the many changes happening in my own life, I’ve also found myself reflecting on some of the things I’ve written and shared over the past couple of years as an ILLfluencer. In many ways, these blogs have become little timestamps of different seasons of my life. What I was navigating. What I was learning. What I was making peace with and, sometimes, what I was still trying to understand.
Looking back, I can see versions of myself learning how to slow down, redefining my relationship with rest, grieving changes in my body, wrestling with how I’m perceived, learning to receive care, and figuring out the difference between hearing my body and actually listening to it.
At the time, each reflection was about whatever I was navigating in that moment. Looking back now, I can see the thread connecting so many of them: I was changing.
The funny thing is, growth doesn’t always announce itself while it’s happening. Sometimes you don’t recognize how much has changed until you revisit an older version of yourself and realize you don’t think, feel, respond, or even want the same things anymore.
Maybe that’s the thing about change. We often think of it as one big decision or defining moment, when sometimes it’s happening quietly in the background. A boundary here. A realization there. Something that once fit starts to feel a little tighter. Something you once needed no longer feels necessary. A version of yourself you’re grateful for, but no longer need to remain.
Living with chronic illness has taught me that change isn’t always something we get to choose. Our bodies change. Our capacity can change. What we need from one season to the next can change. Sometimes, the hardest part isn’t the change itself. It’s giving ourselves permission to respond to it.
We can spend so much time trying to get back to who we were, what we could do, or how things used to look that we miss the opportunity to meet ourselves where we are now. Meeting yourself where you are doesn’t mean giving up. Sometimes it means recognizing that the version of you who got you here doesn’t have to be the version of you who carries you forward.
Maybe this season is an invitation to ask yourself: What am I holding onto simply because it once worked for me? What has my body, my life, or this season been asking me to do differently?
There may be things you’re ready to release. Things you’re ready to redefine. Things you want to make more room for. And there may be things you’re still figuring out. You don’t have to have all of the answers before you give yourself permission to change.
The trees don’t fight to keep every leaf. They let go of what has completed its season and make room for what comes next.
Maybe we can, too.
