Living WOW and Honoring the Seasons Today in the northern hemisphere it is the first day of summer and season change is something that is foundational in living WOW. Living WOW is a lifestyle of intention and choice and part of that is honoring the seasons. I was first introduced to season change back when I was doing Ama Bodywork and Chinese Medicine. She introduced me to a book called Staying Healthy with the Seasons by Elson M Haas MD. Each season change I pull out the book and flip to the chapter about the season that’s coming up. Even though, at this point, I have a seasonal rhythm and I’m in tune to the change that’s happening, I love to go back and look at what are the elements associated with this season? How does this season manifest in the organ function? I find it fascinating and I’m not yet a master of that so I still like to go back and review and learn more. The Importance of Recognizing and Respecting Season Change We have listeners all over the world and those in the southern hemisphere are going into winter so I’ll address all of the seasons as I introduce why honoring the seasons is foundational to Living WOW. First, I want to point out to you why it matters. In our culture of SAD, the Standard American Diet and Lifestyle, we have forgotten about season change. Depending on where you live, if you live in a more temperate climate, you may not have a true four seasons with your climate so it looks different. Regardless of the temperatures, and they certainly do affect our activity, in our SAD life…it doesn’t. We just turn on the air conditioner in the summer and turn on the furnace in the winter. We don’t recognize, we don’t acknowledge and respect the season changes the way our ancestors did. The way historically our bodies are created to do. I found this pattern early on in my transformation. This was key when I realized, every single fall between September and October I would get bronchitis and then it would linger on through the entire year. I would then have a deep bronchial cough that I couldn’t shake. I started to recognize that my body needs something different in the fall, in the winter, in the spring, and in the summer. Our rhythm is different. The foods we eat are different. The days are longer or shorter. Ignoring that and just working day in and day out and not even giving a nod to the fact that we’ve changed seasons is part of why I had the kind of breakdown I would have. I’m a spring birthday. I think there’s a real reason that I feel like I’m dying in the winter and then in the spring I feel like I’m waking up and coming alive. Summer is full throttle and I like to run at full throttle. Summer is my time and then I forget to put the brakes on in the fall and change my rhythm. So, I crash. My body would shut itself down historically because I didn’t catch the messages. I wasn’t listening to nature. I wasn’t following the cues. Now it’s become a critical part of thriving with autoimmune diseases. It’s relevant whether you have autoimmune diseases or not! My autoimmune diseases are what cracked the case for me and helped me to understand the importance of the seasons, but it’s relevant to everyone. I don’t care who you are, seasons matter. If you can learn to embrace them and celebrate them, instead of ignore or bemoan them it matters. Regardless of where you are, I hope that you come away from this episode today with A: an awareness, B: an appreciation, and C: maybe some action plans of ways that you can optimize this season change. It’s either the 20th, 21st, or 22nd and as I get closer to it, I look it up and start planning. I usually start about a week ahead of the season change in preparation and getting ready. Then the week of season change I usually will have some sort of cleanse. This season change I did a 24 hour fast, then a three-day juice cleanse, to get things lighter and ready for more fresh and lighter foods. Then I’ll go into my Supercharge, which I usually do the 1st to the 10th of the month, but at season change I scooch it back and do it around the season change. With Supercharge I cut out dairy, gluten, sugar, caffeine, and alcohol. It’s just really clean light foods so that my body can get ready and be optimal thriving in the summer season. It’s not too much of a change from my normal routine, but it’s enough to give a nod to the fact that we go from warmer transition foods like casseroles and soups to lighter, fresher, cooler foods which for me tends to be lots of smoothies, salads with fresh fruits and vegetables being the majority of my diet. If you are in the southern hemisphere, you’re doing the opposite going into root vegetables, warmer foods, more meat, more dairy, more grains, because you’re warming your body. I tend to have a much more dramatic season change between summer and fall and winter and spring because we are going from lots of energy and huge growth to taking it in and ...
