Lessons from Springtime

Audio By Carbonatix

You’re seeing it too, right? You’re seeing more people walking or riding bikes around your neighborhood. You’re seeing more motorcycles and vintage cars out on the really nice days. You’re seeing your kids or yourself more drawn to heading outside to enjoy the backyard or the patio on the warmest and sunniest of days. Maybe you have even heard the ice cream truck drive through your neighborhood once or twice already!

I think most people have a little more pep in their step when the weather starts to turn and we start putting winter behind us for the year. When I think about spring, the change in weather has me thinking of some lessons we can learn from the behavior of nature itself:

Let go of something old. I’m sure we’re all picking up some dead sticks, branches, and stalks that didn’t stay attached through the wind and the weight of snow and ice during the winter. There’s a natural “cleaning up” that happens with some of the weaker or unhealthier parts of plants during winter. This analogy won’t be perfect, but try not to get hung up on that. Because I want to encourage all of us to work to let go of something ourselves. Maybe we’ve been carrying around some hurt or resentment or anger that isn’t doing us any good. If you’ve been trying to let go of some of this stuff on your own but haven’t had success, I’d encourage you to reach out to a counselor or coach who is trained and gifted in helping people work through these kinds of things.

Try something new. We’re starting to see the earliest buds showing up right now. But we know that before long, we’ll be seeing grass growing, flowers blooming, and trees starting to replace their leaves. In the same way, let’s take a cue from nature and try something new. That could be a new habit or hobby that we can do with our family. It could be a new perspective that we want to develop or a new practice that we want to implement because we know it will benefit our family life. We can work on listening, being more kind, being more active together, or any number of other things.

Let’s each work to let go of something old and try something new. When we do, I believe we’ll be winning more often at home.