And it feels like the future is callin' (#ifykyk).

Ok, but for real. It's September 5th and I'm in my new office space located inside of Vermont Doula Company (VDC) in South Burlington. It is such a beautiful space and I feel so lucky to be here. You can see pictures of the whole office on VDC's website, but here is a picture of my little space:

I'm still sort of moving in and trying to figure out where to put things and obviously I am in need of something to put on the giant empty wall, but it'll come together. I'm also so glad to be sharing this office with Benji Soll, who did his graduate internship with me last year and although he still has one more year of school left (overachiever that he is, he's doing the dual track program at UVM in Clinical Mental Health Counseling and School Counseling), he'll be doing part time outpatient work under my supervision. Talk about another gift from the universe.

And when I think about the seasons changing, I know there are some season changes I'm so ready for. Like right now, I'm feeling pretty done with the Vermont summer we've had and pretty ready for fall. My 4.5 year old keeps bemoaning the fact that it's still not warm enough to wear fleece footie pajamas and she desperately wants to pull out the hats, gloves and thick coats. Sometimes, we are eager for change and while that eagerness gives us hope and helps us engage in forward thinking, it can also leave us feeling pretty powerless. "I'm sorry, love, I can't make winter come faster." The only way to get to winter is to wait it out and go through Fall.

Other times, we mourn and grieve change. Hell, I'm still grieving changes from many years ago and am still working on reconciling some of the losses related to change. Some people desperately want to hold on to the hot, sunny days of summer. I used to really dislike fall and really dislike winter, so the end of summer was really just a loss for me. But now, I've found ways to lean into the change and re-frame how I think about the seasons. I try to see them through the eyes of my children as magical winter wonderlands. I recognize the importance of seasons, the importance of change and impermanence, and really how the season change promotes new growth. And I work hard to hold onto both of those feelings at the same time: the grief of the end of something and the hope for new growth. And yet, there is a constant underlying theme that we really can't control anything about it: I am once again powerless to the changing seasons, even if I can find beauty in it.

And there are lots of other ways we can experience change and transition: as welcome, long-awaited friends, ends of chapters and beginnings of chapters, unexpected joys, profound loss - and all along, there is only so much we can do about any of it. And the things we can control (ahem, leaving the safety and security of a job *coughs at self*), are held in balance with other needs we are trying to attend to. On the one hand, I feel like changes and transitions are so simple and yet they feel incredibly complex and loaded. (would it even be a post by me if it didn't have a loaded baked potato??)

I also think about parenting challenges related to change and transitions: the profound change and transition related to having a child and navigating first time parenthood, the new challenge(s) of adding additional family members, and developmental milestones. Often big changes are accompanied by big feelings (see my last post). It's something I see a lot clinically - especially in the toddler years! These first five years are SO INTENSE and no wonder -- they're intense for a reason! The human brain grows rapidly in the first years of life and is 80% grown by the time a child reaches the age of 5. That's A LOT of learning. And when I think about toddler tantrums and the amount of crying that occurs in the first few years of life, I feel so validated when I remember how much growth is happening.

All that to say, it is important to recognize change and transition externally (ie: the leaves changing, or quitting your job) as well as change and transition that happens internally (ie: processing trauma or learning new ways of coping). There's a myth that growth spurts are for kids, but my lived experience has been that growth spurts happen for all of us throughout our lives and there is great value in making sense of those experiences.

With that, I'm off to continuing to build out my online course for parents (I changed the name, btw: bye bye PMHCourses (yawnfest), hello Through to Thrive). I'll see y'all in October for the next theme, aptly set to be Fear.