Slowing into Autumn - Honouring the inner & outer seasons
🍁 The changing season outside… and within
Autumn is one of nature’s quickest-changing seasons. The light fades faster, the winds rise, and the plant world lets go. What feels golden and abundant at the start of the season becomes bare and skeletal by the end.
Ayurveda calls this Vata season — with its dry, cool, mobile qualities. Vata energy can leave us feeling scattered, anxious, restless or depleted. The antidote is to gently bring ourselves back to earth: warmth, nourishment, rhythm, and rest.
Wrapping your hands around a warm mug before the day begins
Eating grounding meals like roasted root vegetables, stews, or porridge
Walking the same woodland path each week to feel the season changing around you
Moving slower, resting deeper, and letting your breath lead your body
These small rituals become our anchors. They give us something steady to return to as everything shifts around us.
🌙 Inner autumn: the season of the self
There’s another autumn happening too — the inner autumn that we experience each month in the luteal phase of our cycle, and more profoundly as we enter the perimenopausal years of our late 30s and 40s.
Red School beautifully describes this time as the moment we begin the journey home to ourselves.
Where our 20s (inner spring) are about discovery and our 30s (inner summer) about building, our late 30s and 40s bring a different tone — one of depth, discernment and truth.
In this inner autumn:
Homecoming awakens — your inner world grows louder, reminding you what you truly need and desire
Truth-speaking rises — that gritty, provocative energy you might feel isn’t something to apologise for, but a sign you’re coming back to your senses
Truth-seeing clears the fog — you begin to see through cultural stories and remember what’s real for you
Your inner critic sharpens — calling you to grow your inner authority and stand in your power
Instinct stirs — a raw, wild wisdom reconnecting you to nature, your own body, and what matters most
This can be confronting. The rose-tinted glasses come off, and life suddenly feels more real. But it’s also profoundly liberating — the part of you that’s tired of pretending finally gets to rest.
🍂 Rooting through change
The outer and inner autumn mirror each other: both ask us to shed what’s no longer needed and root more deeply into what nourishes.
This isn’t about giving up or turning inwards in isolation — it’s about finding steadiness so we can walk through change well.
When we tend our daily rhythms — nourishing meals, slower movement, cozy early nights, moments of community connection — we create space to feel, recalibrate, and return to ourselves.
So if you’re feeling a little wobbly or windswept right now, know this: it’s not just you. It’s the season.
And you’re allowed to slow down.
Let the leaves fall.
Let things soften.
Let yourself come home.
✨ To support you in this transition, here’s a free online practice — a grounding session designed to soothe your nervous system and help you settle into the slower rhythm of autumn.
ACCESS YOUR FREE 15 MIN PRACTICE HERE
With warmth and falling leaves,
Eirian x