By: Cari Corley
A simple joy in my life is quiet time holding a fresh cup of coffee, the rising steam indicating just the right amount of warm. This moment improves exponentially with the changing of the colors every fall! The beauty that radiates into the fall air with the changing of the colors is best measured deep in my soul. There is a window of time in September and October when I am a little obsessed with catching the right calendar window of time to head into the mountains for this majestic event. This year I caught the changing of the colors perfectly and Mother Nature did not disappoint. Last weekend while hiking in the mountains with my family, we spent our time pointing out beautiful patches of red, orange, yellow, and green. Another reason I love fall is because it seems to be a reflective season after all the crazy adventures of summer. This fall I have been reflecting on a process that my husband calls trending towards green.
As a first responder, he studies the stress continuum below. (Laura McGladrey, Responder Alliance.) This stress continuum shares the same colors as fall. It has four colors: green, yellow, orange, and red. Stress is a part of everyone’s life and different seasons of our lives we have more or less capacity to respond to that stress.
What I love about this idea of trending towards green is that it gives me permission to be where I am right now in my ability to deal with stress. It also pushes me to make a choice that will allow me to pursue a healthier version of me if I am not in a place where I have a lot of energy to deal with the new stressors that will most likely come my way. I have spent time in all four colors. I have had seasons where I was in a state of ‘ready’. I had the margin and energy to handle new stressors that came my way. I have spent time where my responses to new stressors where reactive and seasons where new stressors just added more salt to the wound and I didn’t even have the energy to react. I also have spent time in ‘red’ where I didn’t have the capacity to even process new stressors as individual events. The stressors were not outliers, but the state of my existence. I am a perfectionist. I do not like being anything other than healthy or ‘ready’. I have had to learn how to treat myself with the same compassion that I offer to others. In the seasons where I spent a fair amount of time in the red and orange, I struggled to figure out how to go from red to green...yesterday. My thinking was very all or nothing...if I was not ‘green’ then I must be ‘orange’ or ‘red’. The magic of this idea of trending towards green is that it gives you permission to be where you are, and encourage you to make choices that move towards green, not necessarily get to green right now. As I work on this idea of trending towards green, I have found that as I look back on my personal history I am able to appreciate the time I have spent in each color. The time I have spent in red, orange, and yellow have made me who I am today. I even find that I am able to reflect on the beauty of my personal stress landscape. Much like the mountains in the fall, my landscape is full of each of these colors...and the reds, oranges, and yellows sure do make the green pop! :)
So as we spend some extra time this fall season with a cup of hot chocolate, coffee, or tea sitting by a wonderful candle that makes the room feel like fall...where are you, where’s your head at, how is your soul doing as it responds to the new stressors that invade our world daily? If you are anywhere besides green, what is one thing you can do to trend towards green? If you are living in green, a state of “I’m ready! Bring it!”, first take a moment to be grateful. (insert pause for gratitude here…) Second, think about your Shine sisters...is there someone you can show a little extra love as they do the brave work of trending towards green?
Shine sisters, on this wonderful fall morning, I want to remind you to take a moment to remember that bravery means we show compassion for ourselves as well as others. Honor your journey by giving yourself freedom to be right where you are, knowing that your magic is in trending towards green and supporting each other as we trend towards green.