Transitioning into Fall Energy [Episode #510]

This week’s topic is: Transitioning into Fall Energy

Fall is definitely here as of just a few days ago when we experienced the autumn equinox. You probably have felt a little bit of a transition in your body, in your environment. I know I have!

We had a very different kind of summer, with what’s going on in the world. I would say not necessarily worse or better, but different. I like to look at it that way, because if we get caught up in lamenting, then we can start to feel that pang of struggle and resentment, and that doesn’t help anything. So I think our perspective is really important as we go through all these changing times.

As we head into fall, we definitely want to keep ourselves grounded and anchored because there are so many different things that are changing in the world. We also have to stay strong within ourselves as we see so many different structures around us changing and crumbling. Now more than ever we really need to take care of our health and wellbeing.

Have you been wondering about this very topic? If you want to know the answer to this question and 3 more sent in by Beauties just like you, listen now to find out!

Remember you can submit your questions at https://mysolluna.com/askkimberly/

[Questions Answered]

Ava – Florence, Alabama

I love the fall season, however, I definitely feel a shift when it comes to my energy level. This year especially feels different since summer did not feel like summer… Do you have any tips on how to keep the momentum going to feel alive and motivated?

Sophia – Frankfort, Kentucky

How can I take care of my heart as we move into this time of the year when the temperature starts to fall and the sun goes down earlier? I’m starting to feel anxiety setting in. Any tips?

Maggie –  Braintree, Massachusetts

How do I stop wanting to fight the energy change that comes along with the change of the season? I often want to be somewhere else, if it is summer I want winter, if it is winter I want summer. Any advice for accepting where I am?

Bev – Brookings, Oregon

If I were to start practicing one new habit for fall, what area would you suggest first, from your Four Cornerstones?

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Inspirational Thought of the Week

“To make life a little better for people less fortunate than you, that’s what I think a meaningful life is. One lives not just for oneself, but for one’s community.” –  Ruth Bader Ginsburg

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Other Podcasts you may enjoy!:

• Boosting Your Immunity For Fall
• Natural Ways to Alleviate Common Cold Symptoms?
• Getting Unstuck
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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Kimberly: 00:01 Hey Beauties, welcome back to our Thursday Q&A podcast, where our topic today is transitioning into fall energy. And believe it or not, beauties, fall is definitely here as of just a few days ago when we experienced the autumn equinox, and you probably have felt a little bit of a transition in your body, in your environment. No matter where you happen to be living, there’s definitely bigger things happening in the collective that affect how we feel, how our energy levels are, what we’re drawn to be eating and our practices, so we’re going to get into that today on our show, really excited to hear your questions.

Leave a Review and Subscribe on Itunes

Kimberly: 00:46 Before we jump in, I just want to give a quick shout out to please remember to leave us a review on iTunes. I say this every week, but if you haven’t yet already left us a review, it’s a great week to do it, just to support the show, which is free and easy, and… Yeah, it’s just something wonderful to do for the community to help other like-minded Beauties like yourself find this information, which can hopefully really benefit their lives. And you can also subscribe to the show, and that way you don’t miss out on any of these podcasts.

Kimberly: 01:19 I’m going to be reading the questions today myself, Katelyn has been swamped over the past few weeks, and yeah, so I’m going to be here today. I mentioned this last week, but we are… We now have a system for collecting your questions through voice text, which is really awesome, I love… I would love, love, love to hear your voice and to hear you read your own questions. So if you head over to mysolluna.com/askkimberly, there’s a whole way to just upload your voice text, so please keep the questions coming and please leave me an audio version of your questions, which I’m super excited about for future shows.

Kimberly: 01:59 All right, Beauties, let’s talk about fall energy. We had a very interesting summer, to say the least. A very different kind of summer, with just what’s going on in the world. I would say not necessarily worse or better, but different, and I like to look at it that way, because if we get caught up in lamenting the fact that maybe Fourth of July wasn’t the same, or Memorial Day or whatever, then we can start to feel that pang of struggle and resentment, and that doesn’t help anything, so I think our perspective is really important as we go through all these changing times, so I just like to say it was a very different sort of summer.

Kimberly: 02:47 And as we head into fall, we definitely want to keep ourselves grounded and anchored because there are so many different things that are changing in the world, and we also have to stay strong within ourselves as we see so many different structures around us changing and crumbling, and really it’s been a wild ride, so now more than ever we really need to take care of our health and our wellbeing.

Question 1: I love the fall season, however, I definitely feel a shift when it comes to my energy levels. This year especially feels different, since summer did not feel like summer. Do you have any tips on how to keep the momentum going to feel alive and motivated?

Kimberly: 03:18 So let’s dive into our questions, the first one comes from Eva, and she is from Florence, Alabama, and she writes, “I love the fall season, however, I definitely feel a shift when it comes to my energy levels. This year especially feels different, since summer did not feel like summer. Do you have any tips on how to keep the momentum going to feel alive and motivated?”

Kimberly: 03:40 Eva, thank you so much for your question. I did not look at this before, so yes. I was just talking about how summer didn’t really feel like summer, it was obviously hot and the sun may have been out, but as far as just the normal easy breezy activities and get-together, and just sort of the trips, the things that may have defined your summer weren’t there, so what we have to do is… Again, this is all based on feeling what is summer based on what we’re doing out there and what’s happening out there, and what we want to do is we want to start going inward for an internal point of reference versus external. We really want to feel, how can we take care of our bodies right now, and not just based on the doing and what we’re able to do or not do out in the world, but what’s going on with me right now?

Kimberly: 04:36 I think one of the gifts of COVID, and of course there’s… Horrible as far as aspects of it as far as the suffering and the people that are sick, and the big impacts financially obviously, but the positive side of it is this ability to simplify our lives, to reevaluate what’s important to us, what we want to continue to put energy in, and what we want to pull back from. So I would say to keep the momentum going as we go into fall, Eva, is to really start to check in with your body. Forget about summer. Again, we don’t want to lament the past or lament what’s going on, but right now, this is a very important transition point. In Ayurveda, we would say you’re going from this really pitta, hot season, into the windy vata season, so again this is where we start to perhaps notice that we’re more drawn to hot elixirs and ginger, and grounding foods, because the vata energy feels like movement and if it’s not grounded, then it can be… Then it can contribute to feeling anxiety and just feeling ungrounded, so from a food…

Kimberly: 05:48 From a Four Cornerstones perspective, again, food, body, emotional wellbeing and spiritual growth, food-wise, I would say hot foods, hot drinks, hot herbal teas, ginger tea, soups and stews, and getting back into your root vegetable routine. In my house, we eat a lot of carrots, not so much beets. I think beets can be tough for kids, and Bubby’s not really a beet fan, and they’re kind of… I just find them harder to cook with the peeling and all, so… But we do love sweet potatoes here, we do love beets… Sorry, we do love carrots, anything grounding like that feels really, really good right now.

Kimberly: 06:31 If you are a bread eater, I… I don’t eat bread as much as I do rice, but I do like my sourdough bread, which is much easier to digest, I find, and we get it at the farmers’ market. It feels grounding sometimes just to eat a piece of bread for me. It’s not exactly gluten-free, but like I said, sourdough bread seems to digest better. So feel what’s good for you, this is not necessarily the season you just want to have raw salads all the time. You can have a salad, we love having that raw component of the meal, but then you can pair it with cooked lentils, cooked sweet potatoes, cooked quinoa, make sure you’re getting that cooked component in this season, which will again feel very grounding.

Kimberly: 07:14 From a body perspective, I talk about touch a lot, I think it’s really healing for our nervous system, I don’t think we touch enough in the Western world, so I will say to give yourself a little bit of Abhyanga, or get a… Which is a self oil massage, or get a massage if you can safely, even if that means from your partner or your roommate, you can do an exchange, but I think touch is a really great way to ground the body right now, as is physical grounding. This morning, I actually… There was a little bit of dew on our lawn as usual, but I went out and just took little bit of a walk around our yard. The grass part of our yard is not big, but just even a couple steps, a couple moments in the morning helps me feel anchored for the day ahead.

Kimberly: 08:03 So those are some of the body practices I like to do, and then emotionally, because there is this shift, because it’s like, “What is going on, what happened to summer?” Now we’re getting into the busyness as we… I feel like fall, there’s the fall part, but then there’s always this part that’s like, “Holidays are coming,” so I try not to think about the holidays so many months in advance, because I want to be here now, but it’s sort of inevitable in our society, we’ll start to see Christmas stuff really soon I think. But emotionally, just honoring what’s going on and how you’re feeling, and taking the time to journal.

Kimberly: 08:43 I’ve been asking for a little bit more help from hubby especially, just so I can just have a couple minutes away, I’ve been… As moms know, you get really wrapped up, and Mr. Eggie slash baby Moses is on my body 24/7, except for if I take a nap, so sometimes like now, recording the show, I just need a little bit of time, so my emotional wellbeing practice right now is really learning to ask for help and space when I need it so I can process. So I would just say emotionally, just feel when you need that time, when you need to withdraw, when you need to journal, or when you need to talk to someone when you need that community.

Kimberly: 09:32 We have a little pod here, there are about four friends, our kids are the same age, we’ve been really, really quarantined, but we do see each other, but we keep it outside and we keep it social distanced. But one of my friends is going through IVF treatment, so we are coming together, I’m going to be holding a full moon circle for her next Thursday, since October 1st is her embryo transfer and her first… The full moon. So obviously I’m not naming names, you and I probably both know different people going through different aspects of their journey in their fertility journey and health journeys, but I bring this up just to say that it’s really nice to be there for each other, so we’re coming together to meditate and to send her love and healing, and best energy for her procedure.

Kimberly: 10:31 So it’s nice to have that circle of support, and sometimes we just need to vocalize that we need it, or we need our friends to come around us, or we need our family member to be there to talk to us, or our partner, and it’s so healthy to ask for that, and I love that she reached out and she asked me to hold that for her, because again, sometimes I think we get so into our own lives or into our own heads, and we start to feel isolated. So especially Eva, I would say to feel alive and to motivated, is to also to fall back on community as well. And spiritually, to stay anchored, to do your meditations, to find time to be in nature, and that will really just help you feel alive, and truly alive through this whole transition period.

Question 2: How can I take care of my heart as we move into this time of the year when the temperature starts to fall and the sun goes down earlier? I’m starting to feel anxiety setting in. Any tips?

Kimberly: 11:19 Wow, when Katelyn’s not here, I can really go on. All right, let’s go into the second question, this comes from Sophia from Frankfurt, Kentucky. Cool name, Frankfurt, Kentucky. I never heard of that part of Kentucky. Did I just say “Kennedy?” Frankfurt, Kentucky. I know there’s Frankfurt, Germany, but I never heard of that, that’s… Sounds really cool. All right, Sophia, what are you wondering? She says, “How can I take care of my heart as we move into this time of the year when the temperature starts to fall and the sun goes down earlier? I’m starting to feel anxiety setting in. Any tips?”

Kimberly: 11:56 Oh Sophia, I love how you phrase this, “Taking care of your heart.” I definitely feel like that’s a great way to put it, because there’s the mental space, there’s the mind, there’s, “Okay, we’re going to get organized, we’re going to try to be more productive,” those are the mental parts, but the heart part is, “How do I stay connected to my body, how do I stay connected to myself, and anchored through this changing time?”

Kimberly: 12:24 So I will say, everything that I just said to Eva is very much applicable to you, Sophia, with the Four Cornerstones that I just mentioned. Anxiety is natural in the fall, we see the pickup of activities and work stuff as people try to cram more in before fall comes, and again that increasing vata, which is the wind and air energy in our bodies, is said to be very aggravated as we go into fall, so you really want to protect… The more that energy gets aggravated, the more anxiety we feel, so one of the things that it can affect is our digestion, it could affect things like constipation, so I would just say, Sophia, just to keep your body feeling really on point, make sure you’re still taking your Detoxy, your SBO Probiotics, just check out the Solluna supplements, the ones that I personally take that really help me feel grounded.

Kimberly: 13:20 You want to make sure you’re protecting your throat area, this is an area that becomes very vulnerable this time of year especially, so start to wear scarves, sweaters, just being really mindful of the energy around your throat and your neck, and just protecting that. Sometimes I like to even wear a scarf when I’m meditating, just to… Or a big cardigan, just to feel really contained and comforted, and that feels really good to me.

Kimberly: 13:45 It’s a time, Sophia, to just… I would just encourage you to take more space to feel cozy, whatever that feels like to you, so wrapped up at home, doing your meditations, cozy FaceTime chats with friends. You might want to, in your journal, just write down your intentions for the rest of the year. Sometimes we just think about what we want to create at New Year’s, but how would you like your fall to look, and how would you like to feel in your body, and what are some practices that you want to set aside more time for that maybe have been pushed to the side? Anything that you can do to come in with more intention and clarity will definitely help with anxiety, as well, again, as the practical, the foods and the body practices and so on, emotional practices that I talked about with Eva’s question.

Kimberly: 14:37 I think that creating some… Again, some practices that just really, really feel like anchors to you. So for me, my tea in the evening, and my meditations, and my grounding, and my time to chat with hubby and some really close friends, is essential, otherwise I do start to feel like unanchored, so find those, Sophia, and make sure that you’re looking at this from a Four Cornerstone perspective. So another thing you could do in your journal is to write down that cross, and in the quadrants, write down one practice or a few that you want to focus on from a cornerstone perspective, just to really nourish yourself as we go into fall.

Break

Kimberly All right, Beauties, all that being said, we are going to head into a short break, and I’ll be right back after the break to answer two more of your questions.

Question 3: How do I stop wanting to fight the energy change that comes along with the change of the season? I often want to be somewhere else, if it is summer, I want winter, if it’s winter, I want summer. Any advice for accepting where I am?

Kimberly: 15:42 Next question comes from Maggie in Braintree, Massachusetts, and she writes, “How do I stop wanting to fight the energy change that comes along with the change of the season? I often want to be somewhere else, if it is summer, I want winter, if it’s winter, I want summer. Any advice for accepting where I am?” Wow Maggie, this is an awesome question. I think that this avoidance idea is really common, and it’s really easy to want to be somewhere else versus just relaxing into where we are. There’s a little bit of a resistance here to being present, there’s a little bit of… It feels like a squirming energy. As I read your question, I could just feel a little bit of moving around from this place to this place, instead of just relaxing and being like, “I’m here now.” There’s a little bit of an element of control too I think, when we want something to be the way we want it to be, and we dictate how it looks and how it feels, versus going with the actual flow.

Kimberly: 16:48 So you put it here, “Accepting where you are,” Maggie, this concept of flow is something we’ve talked about in the Solluna Circle at times, the analogy of water, where the water shapes to what is the environment, right? If you look at a river, the water shapes around the rocks that flow down the path, it shapes to the shape of the bank, and it just keeps going along, so instead of this… This word “Fighting” the energy, I would encourage you, Maggie, to really take some time here to breathe and to be still, and in your meditations just… We’ve guided meditations for free over at mysolluna.com if you’re interested in learning any of those, just any sort of guidance, and then I would try the very simple affirmation, “I am flow,” or “I go with the flow.”

Kimberly: 17:44 And all this idea of fighting and resisting, just be aware of it and start to notice when it comes up and you say things like, “I hate the fall, I wish it was summer.” Just be aware of any time you start to make a comment, or you say something or you think something about not being where you are, right here, right now. We know that the now is the point of power, we know that any time you’re trying to escape the now, it’s just going to create stress and struggle, so the only way out is through, is to breathe here in the moment, and to find a level of peace in this moment.

Kimberly: 18:25 So awareness, meditation, affirmations, “I am flow, I go with the flow,” these are ways to start breaking this habit, because I do think it’s a habit, I do think it’s a mentality, Maggie, I think you can overcome it. I think that you can learn to look at things a different way, I know I did. I used to always be analyzing what I said or what I was going to say in the future, but staying present is a practice and it really does come, your strongest ally here is definitely going to be your meditations, and again, just the self-reflection and self-awareness.

Kimberly: 19:02 Sometimes I think that we think we can push a button and we change everything magically on the spot, but practice means we keep staying aware, we keep watching our reactions, we keep modifying our reactions based on how we want… Our intentions, how we want to feel, how we want… Our highest ideals. If we want to have calmness and equanimity and flow in our lives, then we need to start living from those ideals.

Kimberly: 19:32 So give it a go, Maggie, just start noticing in your life, and definitely start affirming this idea of flow in your meditations, and then you can also… Movement is really powerful, and sometimes I just sit on my yoga mat, or I get to the mat, and I just do really… What does flow look like in your body? And don’t worry about specific poses or making it look a specific way, just feel like literally flowing and movement, and moving your spine or moving your limbs, and just start to embody that from a movement perspective, and you can bring that in, and that feeling, teaching your body what it feels like not to resist, not to be rigid, but to be here in the moment and to dance with the moment, is something that can feel really wonderful, and can start to translate into your mindset as well, so thank you, thank you so much for your question.

Question 4: If I were to start practicing one new habit for fall, what area would you suggest first from your four cornerstones?

Kimberly: 20:24 All right, Beauties, we have one last question, and this one comes from Bev in Brookings, Oregon. She writes, “If I were to start practicing one new habit for fall, what area would you suggest first from your four cornerstones?” Well, I love this question, Bev, and I think that… The most effective way to work with the cornerstones is to again take a piece of paper, draw out a cross, and to write “Food,” “Body,” “Emotions,” and “Spiritual wellbeing.”

Kimberly: 20:59 Now, this is where personal reflection is very powerful. I can say to you, “Bev, always start with food,” or “Always start with emotions, because that’s the one that’s really lacking for most people, is emotional introspection and nurturing and wellbeing,” but I can’t say it for you, you really have to intuit it for yourself, and not what you want it to be, but where you really feel there is nurturing, there’s work that needs to be done.

Kimberly: 21:37 A lot of times, we’re drawn to what’s comfortable. “Oh, I can crank out another recipe. Sure, I’ll pick up ginger and start drinking that or this, it’s easy to see, it’s tangible,” but often, the ones that we’re like, “Nah, I have a little bit of resistance to journaling, or to feeling my feelings or emotions,” those are usually the ones that we do need to work the most, so… Because again, so Bev, you could approach this different ways, you could look at it and say, “Okay, if I’m just going to have one habit, I’m going to see which cornerstone resonates the most with me, let’s say it’s emotional wellbeing, and I’m going to spend 10 minutes a day journaling and processing my feelings, and that’s going to be my one thing.”

Kimberly: 22:20 Or you can say, “I’m going to adopt one simple habit for each of the cornerstones, so let’s say for the food one, I’m going to commit to drinking hot water with lemon every day. From a body perspective, I am going to do dry brushing every day, or three times a week,” whatever your practice is that you want to connect with your body, or “I’m going to take my Probiotics every day. Emotionally, I’m going to journal, or I’m going to be aware of my feelings, or I’m going to question why I keep beating myself up, or why I feel really angry about one thing.” That’s a little bit more vague, so we could say as an actual habit, “Hey, I’m going to spend five minutes a day journaling,” and then from a spiritual perspective you could say, “Hey, I’m going to commit to a morning meditation, even if it’s really brief, but in the morning I’m going to do it no matter what.”

Kimberly: 23:18 So again, I think it depends on your personality. I personally, because I love the holistic way that we look at things [inaudible 00:23:26] the Four Cornerstones, I think doing one simple small step for each of them is ideal for me, but if that feels like too much, and it could be too much for you, then just pick one that you feel like could really use your love, and I would say the one that feels the most encompassing is definitely the meditation, Bev.

Kimberly: 23:50 So it makes everything better, right? You have more clarity, you’ll be able to be stronger against food cravings, you’ll be able to digest better, you’ll have more focus, there’s so many things that come from meditation, so if you did have to pick one thing, I would say maybe perhaps just commit to your meditation in the morning. Maybe just three minutes or five minutes or 10 minutes, but commit to it. And then again, I’ll leave it to you, see what resonates with you, there is no right or wrong answer here, but it’s really what you feel in your heart will serve you the most right now.

Kimberly: 24:25 But I love these questions, and I will say overall, Beauties, that because there’s so much shift right now, only you know your… You know your body best, and only you know what’s inside your heart and what’s inside of you, and know the steps and the tools that you need to really grow to your highest potential right now, so feel into that, lean into that, give yourself the space to intuit it, and you will see so many benefits.

Thought of the Week

Kimberly: 24:51 I want to leave you a quote of the week from our amazing Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was such an incredible beauty, she was such a beautiful soul, so full of vision and strength, and she did it in such a classy way that I really admire her, and I know all of us women have so much that we owe her as far as our… Just our love and our acknowledgement, because she was such a trailblazer. And I really like this quote from her where she said, “To make life a little better for people less fortunate than you, that’s what I think a meaningful life is. One lives not just for oneself, but for one’s community.”

Kimberly: 25:40 And this just makes my heart feel really warm, I love our community, and I want you to know, I’ll reinforce again, I’m always here for you. I love this, I love being part of our community, I feel really honored to walk with you and to… For us to be part of each other’s lives, so please keep the questions coming, and remember also I’m on Instagram at @_kimberlysnyder, and our Solluna is at @sollunabyks, [inaudible 00:26:14]… Blanked for a second, yes, @sollunabyks for daily inspiration. And also, be sure to check out our new Beauty Inside Out course, which is on Commune, which I think you’ll love a lot, and it has a lot of information and practices to help you as you go into fall.

Kimberly: 26:32 All right, Beauties, all that being said, sending you so much love, we’ll be back here Monday for our next Q&A podcast. Until then, take care, and lots and lots of love.