How to Maximize Spring's Shifting Energies

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There is something about us that wants to organically feel free and soar. How refreshing it would be to wake up in the morning, put on your favorite “hit the road running tunes” and just do it.

This time of year, as we head out of winter and transit into spring our sensitivity (and desire) for such soaring energy builds up. A part of nature and nature a part of us, this cycle into brighter, longer, more energetic days ahead, may already be amping up your cabin fever. Mine certainly is. So I’d like to mention a few concepts regarding this shifting of energies and the yearnings that go along with it so we can maximize spring’s support and beauty. Here we go.

In many holistic traditions, this build-up in rising energy has a function. For one, it can help you overcome some of the stress-causing patterns that may have been driving your activities this past year. Many of us are ready to turn the page and start anew. This natural robustness we feel to freely do things can be used to enhance your everyday mindfulness and to drive new plans and dreams for 2021 and beyond. This is great energy to help you get unstuck if you are feeling like you are spinning your tires. So, when the right time and place present themselves and opportunity knocks, you will be ready. However, I am not saying to be passive in the meantime. Not at all. We can do things to get the momentum going in the right direction.

As we went into 2020's lockdown, most of us had a lot of daily patterns and routines we relied on to get us through the workday, interpersonal relationships, and self-improvements — some of these habits as simple as an exercise or relaxation routine. Of course, a lot of that went out the window as schedules, environments and new demands all changed for the long-term, at the drop of a dime. Lockdowns stretched the limits of these habits. Many well-established solutions began to stress and even fail. These may have caused you a rollout of new problems, by the way with no solution. If you tried to just let it go, thinking well … whatever is is, frustrations might have gotten worse. In the end, you may have found yourself automatically repeating actions that messed you up in the first place. If you’re human, you may have found yourself exacerbated, looking for a way out.

Too Much of a Good Thing?

So we all want out! It’s worth reminding ourselves that no one can push themselves 24-7. However, spring fever can elicit unrealistic expectations. The next thing you know, you are pressing to get things done before their time or hurrying from one task to another. The energy surges you feel when you segue out of sickness are similar. When your good energy rises after you’ve cooped up with illness for a while, and you “just” start to feel a little better, it is pretty easy to over-reach. Or siphon off your higher energy by using it toward goals that are not in your best interests. Either can leave you feeling cognitively and emotionally scattered, stressed, and fatigued.

Curate Your Goals

On the other hand, as with all of nature this same rising energy, so to speak, activates in us as it does, for a reason. It helps us activate and match intentions with strategies, which include what we think about, feel, remember, and creatively assemble to meet our goals. This forward movement involves our ability to learn from keeping one eye on our past intentions and actions and the other eye on “seeding” new goals, such as career, relationship, education, health, relocation goals, and more. A predictable pitfall is to become frustrated because we want to see changes we’ve seeded happen fast. Our job is to give them the time they need and curate them the best we can.

Your Body Is a Vessel

Decades ago, I had a sensei who used to say, “Your body is a vessel. It can only hold so much energy. Your job is to empty the bad and replace it with good.” His anthem worked to establish a good mindset every time we entered the dojo and I discovered it could be transferred to other daily activities. So it quickly became an anthem I relied on to keep the good vibes going.

Here are a few tips for sustaining some positive energy this spring and using it to feel a little freer and maybe even fly:

1. Get outside if you can. Take plenty of walks. Welcome the abundance of light. Slow and deepen your breathing. Smile with your eyes often and feel how this helps simultaneously activate a sense of calm and alertness throughout you.
2. Use this seasonal cycle to visualize images of positive change in your life. You may enjoy doing this as you walk. If it’s hard to get outside much, you can find a quiet and calm space indoors. Let images of positive and new personal change emerge and float across your mind like reflections on a lake. Don’t attach to any or put thought into any. Just listen and observe. Later on, you can reflect on these and decide to move forward with the ones you’d like to seed.
3. Be positive. When you are feeling pumped up it is essential to focus on positivity. Otherwise, spring’s rising energy can easily send you into a tailspin.
4. Use your cellphone to take pictures of natural scenes that have a positive and calming effect on you. Later you can use these to shift into a more positive mindset whenever you need.
5. Use positive language. I also recommend this technique while out on a walk or outside activity. If you like to put a mental voice to your impressions, practice using a gentle, soft one. List five words that you associate with positive feelings of spring’s rising energy (e.g. flow, sparkle, surge, radiate). Use these by saying one or more of them mentally to yourself before and after various daily situations—e.g. your drive into work, an office meeting, or a delicate conversation with a partner, colleague, or employer, and so on.
6. Get aware. More than ever, this is a great year to make some changes. For this, you need time to think through your thoughts. So give yourself scheduled time to just reflect on and visualize changes you’d like to see happen in your life. Use these to help scrutinize opportunities you’ve discovered or which you might like to seed, such as partaking in incentivized re-location or new cutting-edge degree programs recently popping up around the country. Exciting times if these are for you. But there are so many more you can discover or generate. Be creative.
7. Every night, plan to do something you love the next day and then do it. This can make a little difference that will make a big difference in how your day unravels. Put on your favorite “hit the road running tunes” and launch the day.