Dropping Your Leaves: Finding Grace in Life’s Downshifts

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Have you ever noticed how we admire trees for shedding their leaves each autumn, yet criticize ourselves when we need to slow down? This thought-provoking mini-episode explores the parallel between nature's cycles and our own rhythms of energy and rest.

Starting with a simple self-reflection on how you're feeling right now, we journey through the various cycles that govern our lives—daily energy fluctuations, weekly patterns, monthly rhythms (especially for women), and the larger seasonal shifts that affect our mood and productivity. That afternoon slump you experience around 2-3 PM? It's not laziness—it's your cortisol naturally dropping. The desire to slow down as winter approaches mirrors what trees and plants have been doing for millennia.

Social media and hustle culture have conditioned us to push through fatigue, comparing our low moments to others' highlight reels. But what if we granted ourselves the same grace we give to nature? We don't look at dormant perennials and call them failures—we understand they're gathering strength beneath the surface. Your need for rest isn't weakness; it's wisdom.

As we enter the autumn season and approach the holidays, consider how you might honor your own natural cycles. Perhaps it's time to "drop some of your own leaves," creating space for the renewal that comes after rest. Your essential nature knows what you need to truly thrive—are you ready to listen?

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Episode Transcript

Mary (00:01):
Hi and welcome to a mini episode of no Shrinking Violets.
So I'm going to ask you todayhow are you feeling?
Are you tired?
Are you feeling energized?
I don't know when you'relistening to this.
These episodes drop on Mondays.
So if you're at the beginning ofa week, what does that feel
like?
Think about what kind of cycleyou have in your week.

(00:25):
If you have a job, it's sort ofan imposed cycle.
Do you have a day that youchill out?
Think about your daily cycle.
How's your sleep?
Do you have rituals that helpyou wake up?
Do you have rituals that helpyou downshift?
And, depending where you areright now, what is the weather

(00:45):
like?
So here it's starting to getcooler, which is energizing.
For me, spring is my favoriteseason, but fall is my second
favorite, so it's fall here.
The leaves are starting to comedown and we're heading into
holiday season and I'm hostingmy family this year, so there's
a little bit differentpreparation and we're going to
travel before that.

(01:05):
So a lot of things to take intoaccount.
But think about to your cycle ofthe year, and if you celebrate
holidays near the end of theyear, what does that feel like?
Does it feel energizing?
Do you feel sad, do you feelwistful or nostalgic?
Do you dread it?

(01:27):
Do you love it?
Is it exciting?
What are the things that wearyou out?
Being intentional about what ourcycles are is really important
because I will talk for Westernsociety it's that hustle culture
where we need to push through.

(01:48):
And now that we can compareourselves to everyone else on
social media, we can be extrahard on ourselves because we
often see someone doing the funthings or looking energized I
mean that might be changing alittle bit now because I think
the tone of social media ischanging.
But especially women, I think,compare themselves.

(02:12):
So, depending also where youare in this season of your life,
are you raising children?
Are your children kind oflaunched?
Are they in college, becausethat's a whole new season for
you.
Are they out of the house?
Is someone getting married?
Thinking in terms of cycles,because nature is made to run in
a cycle.

(02:32):
So there is the day cycle,which some flowers open during
the day, some open at night.
There's a reason that we havethe light and dark that is
supposed to inform our sleep.
That's a topic for another day.
But we have our weekly cycle,we have our day, I mean our
daily cycle during the day too.
I don't want to forget that.

(02:54):
So if you are like me and thishappened when I was working for
somebody else this would be moredifficult because now I can
manage it a little more, nowthat I'm working for myself.
But I would hit that low energypoint between 2 and 3 pm and
that is when our cortisol startsto drop off.

(03:16):
But being aware of what are thethings that you want to do at
certain times of the day, somaybe you want to think about
when do you want to exercise?
Because if you tell yourselfI'm going to exercise at this
time of day but you rarely do,then let's shift that.
Do it in the morning if that'swhat you.
I love that feeling of havingmy walk in the morning, even

(03:39):
though I would rather sit anddrink my coffee and read a book.
But looking at what is yourcycle during the day and trying
to build things into that cycleat the times that it will work
for you.
Same thing for your week, likemaybe you want to have your own
time to go to a bookstore ortake a walk, or build that into

(04:03):
your week ahead of time.
And then, if you look at youryearly cycle that now, of course
, for women, the monthly cycle,if you're still menstruating,
that's a whole thing, becausethat's definitely a cycle.
But also look at your yearlycycle, because now everything is
downshifting where I live inthe eastern United States and
the leaves are falling and it'sactually beautiful.

(04:24):
It's one of the most beautifultimes to take a drive and look
at the oranges and yellows andreds and russets and all the
different colors in the hillsaround here.
But it also is a time whereliterally the plants and trees
are deciding it's time to rest.
So when we see a plant stopgrowing.

(04:48):
So now my perennial garden, myplants that come back every year
the stems are black.
My echinacea, my coneflower,they're just seed heads.
I leave them there for thebirds.
The finches love them.
But it looks bad, it doesn'tlook great, it looks dead.
But I know it's not dead, it'sjust resting and the leaves
falling off the trees.

(05:09):
They've just decided it's time.
And it's not even cold here yet.
It's really when the lightshifts.
So again, all of these thingsare tied into the sun and the
nighttime cycle, but the treesjust know it's time to shift our
sort of our chemistry.
We need to shift our moisturebecause we don't want damage

(05:31):
from when things freeze.
So we're going to drop ourleaves, we're going to shift
some things, we're going tosleep.
We don't ever look at nature,trees, plants and say, my God,
they've just stopped trying.
I can't believe they're notgoing to put new leaves out
until spring.
They're going to stand therewith bare branches for five

(05:53):
months.
It sounds funny to say that.
Or to look at our plants thatare going through this cycle and
say I can't believe they'redone blooming already.
They're so lazy.
But yet we don't acknowledgethat we have a cycle too, and
when you feel the need for rest,that is your body telling you

(06:13):
something.
Sometimes our mind experiencesat first, or our emotions if we
have something that happensemotionally, we forget that that
still means we need to rest ourbody because we're one full
being.
So as at least here in theUnited States, as we head into
fall, into autumn, start tothink about what that looks like

(06:36):
, that we accept that beautifulshift in the nature around us.
We accept it, we see it, weunderstand that the plants and
even the animals are doing thesethings because that is their
cycle.
So having that same grace foryourself is really important,

(06:57):
especially as we're heading intoa time of year that has a
myriad of emotions tied to it.
If you celebrate the holidays,so maybe take some time to drop
some of your own leaves, takesome time to downshift, to start
to look at what your needs areand honor what you need and,
until next time, listen to youressential nature and find what

(07:20):
you need to thrive.