So many people are experiencing overthinking and a sense that something is missing. They're finding that life isn't as good as they thought it would be.

So naturally we search. We read books, we try techniques, get really productive, maybe turn to spirituality. And yet, at a collective level, the numbers for depression, anxiety and suicide continue to move in the wrong direction.

That made me wonder if we might be looking for answers in the wrong place.

I think something has changed in the way we live that's affecting the mind. We've accidentally built a world that asks one part of the mind to do almost everything.

The part of us that runs everyday life, the one that thinks, plans, and talks in our head, now has a job far bigger than it was ever built for.

I often imagine this part of us as needing the four seasons. Everything in nature moves through cycles, and I think this part of the mind was designed to do the same.

But right now, it's living permanently in summer.

Summer is fun, it's exciting. It's the season of doing, solving, planning and pushing forward.

But constant doing, pushing and trying is exhausting. No one thrives in a season that never ends.

What this part of the mind needs is its other seasons back. Autumn, winter and spring. 

This is often where meditation comes in. It's one way of helping the mind experience winter again.

But if a mind has been out of winter for long enough, it can lie there attempting to meditate and still be running on summer logic.

"How much time do I have left?"

"Am I even doing this right?"

The thinking itself keeps the mind in summer.

Something else happens too. 

The longer the mind spends in summer, the less at ease it becomes in winter.

This can begin to show up as things like insomnia and night waking. The mind trying to rest and finding it difficult.

And it isn't only winter we've lost.

Spring and autumn used to be part of ordinary life. So ordinary no one even knew what they were doing, or how important they were.

They were the in-between seasons. They looked like natural transitions in our days. Little pauses that happened without us even thinking about them as well as the activities and environments we used to naturally be in.

Increasingly, they're disappearing too.

So we're not just skipping winter.

We're living almost entirely in summer, and the mind becomes exhausted from it. We feel that exhaustion.

When I look at nature, I don't see constant productivity. Every living thing has periods of activity followed by recovery.

We start to feel like something isn't right. Because it isn't. Because we're missing nearly all of the seasons, not just one.

Every living thing has a rhythm. Whether it's the ocean pulling back before creating the wave, or the inhale before the exhale.  There is always a pause before the next push.

And yet, collectively, we're living lives where we are "on" almost all the time. Then we try to solve it with more of the very thing that's keeping our minds in summer. 

Maybe instead, the answer is to bring back the other seasons that the mind needs. To restore ourselves physically and mentally, and perhaps start turning these statistics around.  

If you're tired in a way that doesn't quite make sense given how "fine" everything looks, it might be less about something being wrong with you, and more about a mind that's been stuck in one season for far too long.

If you'd like support finding your way back to the other seasons, book a discovery call or get in touch. I'd love to help.