Letting go to grow

Autumn is my favourite time of year. 

The light changes – the sunshine touches everything with golden light, and I suddenly notice the definition of every single leaf because the colours have changed individually for each leaf, and I recognise a change in my perspective.

The days get shorter, so I appreciate the daylight hours more than I do in summer when the days seem endless.

Summer is great, but to me it seems like everything is uniformly green, and I don’t notice any variation in the leaves.

In autumn, I suddenly realise that the leaves have changed, and every tree has its own range of colours, from deep orange to auburn to reds and yellows and browns.

And the trees lose their leaves so that new leaves can grow in spring in the new year.  So, although the tree trunk remains the same, when the leaves fall and new leaves grow, it is not the same tree.* 

I was reminded of this when playing underwater charades with friends in the pool recently - I thought I had blown out all the air in my lungs, and couldn’t understand the reason I wasn’t able to get down to the bottom of the pool. Then I realised that even when I had let go of all the air I *thought* I had, there was still more I could let out.

I had to trust and let go of even more, and then I could float down to the bottom of the pool. And I knew I would get back up to the surface again.

And so it is with my Dyspraxia and ADD, I learned and adopted many ways of doing things and thoughts I believed to live my life. Some of these ways of doing things have been effective; some of them have not been as effective. As I learn about myself, and become more aware of my strengths and my challenges, however, I am evolving new ways to do things more effectively. I change a little every day, just as the leaves on the tree change colour every day.

And come the spring next year, I will no longer be the same tree, and new leaves can grow.

Lynn 

Dyspraxic Pioneer

* In May I wrote a blog piece recognising how I have changed since moving to Oxford, based on Heraclitus's quotation, "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he is not the same man". 

If you would like to read it, you can find it along with other posts on my blog, Lynn's Pearls of Wisdom