Where is Your Life Leading You?
Maple from Momoyogusa–Flowers of a Hundred Generations (ca. 1909–1910) by Kamisaka Sekka. Original from the The New York Public Library. Digitally enhanced by rawpixel.
Happy Almost Autumn!
It’s the time of year I like to spend day dreaming about caramel apples, waning temperatures, the delicate dance of crystalline morning sunlight, and, yes, jackets!
I observe humans engaged in a squirrel hustle, steadfastly committed to closing down summer in preparation for a new season. Your bountiful spring/summer garden may be slowing down, as you jar tomatoes and contemplate preparing your beds for winter slumber. Or, you may be a parent whose child is entering kindergarten or heading off to college. Or, you may be one who dreads year-end holidays and views Labor Day as the kickoff to a months’ long slog through to the Ides of March.
Or, you may be a helper or healer returning from the traditional August vacation (remember Richard Dreyfuss’s holiday in What About Bob?), prepared to meet your clients where they are in the transitional here and now.
Wherever you are, autumn is a time of reflection. A time of letting go. A time of nurturing our energies for the long days of winter. Consider how you can use this time to determine what is important to you, what sustains you, and what no longer serves you.
This month, I will kickoff a blog series on the Wellbeing Wheel, which contains eight aspects of life: Physical, emotional, spiritual, vocational, intellectual, financial, environmental, and relational. I liken this wheel to the first bicycle we learned to ride: When all the spokes are even and the air in the inner tube properly inflated, moving forward, with or without training wheels come quite naturally and provides little resistance. It’s when one or more spokes are bent/missing and/or the tire is deflated that moving forward is more difficult or comes to a halt.
When working with clients seeking balance and harmony in life, I first invite them to identify the areas that provide them strengths. We then look at the areas that would benefit from a realignment to one’s values and goals. Individuals and couples find this work enlightening, rewarding, and inspirational!
Where is your life leading you?
Contact me for a 30-minute consult to discuss what areas of your wellbeing could use a tune-up before entering Fall on September 23!
Lisa A. Rainwater, PhD, MA (couns), LCMHC, CCMHC, CGP, CT is the owner of Rainwater Counseling in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she provides depth psychotherapy and relational attachment and grief counseling to individuals and couples. She earned a master’s in German Studies from the University of Oregon; a master’s in Counseling from Wake Forest University; and a doctorate in German and Scandinavian Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Lisa is a Certified Thanatologist through the Association of Death Education and Counseling and is seeking certification in Grief Therapy as Meaning Reconstruction at the Portland Institute for Loss and Transition. She has training in Young-Eisendorf’s Dialogue Therapy for Couples and will be participating in the Jung Discovery Group’s The Last Frontier: LOVING our Opposite Retreat in October. She is currently enrolled in a year-long program, Jungian and Post-Jungian Clinical Concepts, at the Centre of Applied Jungian Studies.
