Creating an Autumn Reset

Autumn reset? What does that even mean?
I am going to challenge you to take a look at the way you shift from summer days to what tends to be, but doesn’t have to be, the more mundane routines of Autumn months. Summer days tend to be more carefree with school out, holidays happening, more hours of daylight and just an overall sense of greater freedom. As the shift to scheduled Autumn days takes place with returning to work, school, team sports, meetings… you have a choice to fall into your usual patterns, or to create a reset.

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Do you shift and change your self-care routines and holistic wellness practices with each change of the seasons? I do. But I have discovered that I’ve fallen into the rut of the mundane. UGH!

Here is an example of what I mean. Yin Yoga is my regular “go to” and in my practice I bring in meditation and breathwork. I find this combination helps to keep me flexible and mobile while also sloughing off the stress of the day. But my practice, through the past year, has been shoved into any gaps in my schedule, or at the end of my day,  and only when I wasn’t too tired. 

The poses that I practice have become routine too. Which muscles are sore and which ones I need to have stretched out and flexible for work tomorrow take priority, rather than an overall holistic approach to my practice.. ​

The seasonal shifts usually include taking my mat outside (summer) or staying indoors (all of the other seasons), different stretches to work through gardening muscles (spring, summer) versus sitting inside to sew and craft (autumn, winter).

This is what my planned Autumn reset includes: 
I’ve already scheduled my yoga practice into my Autumn calendar, before I scheduled my work days and that alone is a huge shift for me!  

I’m in the process of creating some new yoga practice music lists that include guided meditations and/or guided breathwork, I’ve created a list of themes I would like to explore related to selfcare, body awareness, more play time… and will integrate them into my stretches and meditations, and I’m revamping my space a little to include some fairy lights and scented candles.

These are all little things, but combined they will give me motivation to take my practice further.  (I’ll be posting the new playlists on Spotify if you would like to use them as well. They will be under Autumn Reset Yoga).​

It can be difficult and sometimes stressful to drop mundane routines and habits, and to instead listen to what your mind, body and spirit really need in order to be nurtured. There are those who expect you to meet your usual obligations and responsibilities, and we often place unrealistic expectations upon ourselves to do that. Yes, there are things that just have to get done, but what if you approached them in a different way. What if you created a conscious way of doing the task rather than following the usual routine.

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What an Autumn reset looks like is going to be unique to you. As I create some major shifts with my business, my goal through the upcoming months is to engage in radical self-care. When I think of making radical self-care a goal for my re-set, I’m sure my picture of that is very different to yours. 

Not wanting to overwhelm myself I settled on 3 things I have decided to reset for the Autumn months. The first, as mentioned above, is my yoga practice. Second on the list is cooking, still keeping it natural and seasonal, but also pulling down some of those ethnic recipe cookbooks on my shelf and using those recipes instead. 

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Finally will be social media and disconnection. My personal social media pages were created before business pages were available, and because of that there are those on my personal page that should really be following business pages instead. Shifting people over is the first task and then consolidating my business pages. As I look to create more online offerings (workshops and classes) it’s redundant to keep pages for each of my locations. Time to trim them down to 1 that represents all of what I offer through Hand to Health. Decluttering my website is already underway and is moving towards these new business goals as well.

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Disconnection means becoming stricter with myself around answering business phone messages, texts or social media during my time off. It’s healthier to have a complete break from work related responsibilities and really, completely take my time off. This one is going to be challenging for me as I will be breaking a habit that has been pretty ingrained for a number of years.

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So here is the challenge.
Think about the routines you follow as the shift from summer to autumn comes about. Take the ones that feel mundane and uninspiring and think about ways you could shift the energy around them. What could you do differently? 

Perhaps consider:

• Your workout and exercise routines
• Less time outside to what you more often do inside
• How you cope with shorter days, less daylight, cooler temperatures
• The shift in available seasonal veggies…menu planning, recipes, what you eat
• Caring for your knees, feet, legs and hips as you change from light summer foot wear to heavier runners and boots.
• Decluttering or rethinking your inner spaces, where you spend more time during Fall and Winter. It can take only a few small changes to make them more inspiring.
• Cleansing Social Media to follow those people and pages that you really want to (not because you feel you have to), those with content that you really enjoy.
• Morning and Evening routines, how you begin and end your days, What could you add that would bring you joy?
• When was the last time that you learned something new? What inspires and interests you?

Selfcare Changes Ups for Summer to Autumn