The Power in Naming Your Seasons
Take some time. Just sit for a bit and reflect. You are in a season in your life; you always are. Can you put words to it? Can you piece together a phrase that captures it? That illuminates your inner world to you first and then to the tribe around you?
Years ago, when my kids were younger and times were hard, we started a little practice that helped all of us. We called it heart-checks. I would ask them how their heart was doing, and they would try to express what they were feeling inside. We limped along sometimes, and the truth was often ugly. But my bravest hope was that they would feel seen and heard by their mom. And as a mama who was so worried about her kiddos, I would receive invaluable insight into their thoughts and emotions.
Season-naming is like a heart-check, but with a broader spectrum and a strangely-centering outcome. I liken it to placing yourself in the context of your own life as you define that context. And it can be pure therapy. Comforting. Motivating. Enlightening. Redemptive. Shaking.
And then sharing your Named Season with the ones who help you beat life’s drum can invite intimacy and lead to a breathtaking connection.
I will go first.
The past two days have been some of the most remarkable of my life. Walking the streets of Florence was an utter delight for me on Thursday. Around every corner, I found another wonder. Ciao, Firenze!
I marveled and gasped and gaped. I ate and drank and stumbled through my infantile Italian.
I ambled over and up and through and in and within its glory. And I mean glory. In history and design and art and flavor.
And I chanted to myself continuously, “I am in Italy! I am in Italy! I am in Italy!” And I felt myself standing up out of the grave and sloughing off the dust and muck and heaviness.
So this question tugged at me through the glorious streets. How would I put words to this season of my life? I wanted the perfect language to convey the dimension and light and air breaking forth in me.
This, ladies and gents, is my season of Rising Up.
Out of the ashes of my past. Up from the first years of motherhood that I would call a season of Dismay in Battle. Up from the period when I was a stay-at-home mom that can best be described as My Disappearing. Up from the last years of my marriage, a Dark Water Swim that I knew would either drown me or strengthen me. And the year after my husband left that I would label Grief Personified.
Over the last year, I entered a weird season of Deciding to Live (who knew I had to decide that?) and leaped off a sort of cliff to make room for change. And now, I am Rising Up. And dragging that phrase onto center stage, I felt this internal alignment. Yeah, that’s good.
Anything hit you yet? Dig deep! Courageously face it. Take the transparency plunge.
Need more ideas?
What about a season called Hope-Dominated? Or Finding My Voice? Oh, or an empowering time called Believing Me? Or are you in one of the more challenging, winter-like seasons of Deep Valley or Strife Journey or Grinding Grief? How about the spring of Unsettling Freedom or Dawning Hope? The summer of Satisfaction or Accomplished? The autumnal season of Persevere or Spinning Lost or Transition?
Or the scariest, life-draining seasons called Avoidance, Heart Denial, or False Peace. Settling for Less.
Identifying your unique season allows you to gain presence in your own life. And whenever you connect to your existence, good things follow, like understanding, growth, true peace, healing, awakening, or dreaming. Intentionally dwelling in your journey impacts time, colors life, and sharpens vision. And somehow, even self-acceptance can become available to you. And you can learn or get moving or celebrate or just be still.
But the secondary and precious by-product of naming your season is that you will create ground to invite others to discern theirs. And then other people genuinely matter to you because you matter to you, and honestly, we desperately need to matter to one another.
Oh! And by the way, He can be found there because He lives in presence.
(We can find any season in our life in Easter week if we look for it. Here are some that I see. On Palm Sunday: Triumph. Praise Received. Seen. From Monday to Wednesday: Preparation. Behind the Scenes. Reflect. On Maundy Thursday: Intimate Fellowship. Servanthood. Travail. Surrender. Betrayal. To Friday: Falsely Accused. The Silent Time. Taking a Beating. Persevere. Cross Carrying. Burden-lifted. Pain-filled. Abandonment. An Unquenched thirst. Feeling Forsaken, Dying, Apparent Defeat. Denying Fear. Saturday: A Trip through Hell. The Aftermath. Rescued. Sunday: Chain-Breaking, Death Shedding, Dawning. Victory.)
It’s Sunday morning for me, y’all, and I haven’t had many of these. Woohoo! And I can’t believe it is here. Undeniably, unarguably, unequivocally. And I am grateful for these two months that I have to let it come because I don’t think I would have in almost every other life scenario. God knew.
Whatever your season, I raise a glass to you and with you. The treasure we are lends depth and breadth to every season, treacherous or tenacious or tender. May you rest in the green pastures, grow through the battles and rise from the valleys.
