Show Notes
You prepare for the seasonal Shifts when it comes to weather. Why don’t you do the same when it comes to life changes and life seasons? Learn how to move on from past seasons and embrace the new times.
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Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Are you holding on to a season a little bit too long? I've done it. Everyone's done it. Let's talk about it.
[00:00:28] Welcome to shifts and ladders. It's Ryan Robinson. Hey. We've been talking about relationships and some of the things that that entails over the last couple weeks. But as you can hear from my congestion allergy season has completely decimated me. It's demolished me. My nose is all messed up and all the things that go along with it. But what it prompted was this thought of seasonal changes and what do we have to do to let go of one season to transition into the other? The podcast is called shifts and ladders. And at the end of the day, no matter what's happening, you need to be prepared for whatever shift is going on. So I would like to possibly explore over the next couple podcasts this art of letting go and what all of that entails.
[00:01:28] I want to go to some scripture, I'm going to go to the book, and I'm going to read something about seasons. To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven. There is a time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant and a time to puck, to pluck what is planted. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to break down, and a time to build up. A time to weep, and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing. A time to gain and a time to lose, a time to keep, and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to sew, a time to keep silent, and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate. A time of war and a time of peace.
[00:02:32] This was ecclesiastes, chapter three, verses one through eight. Okay, now this is the thing about this.
[00:02:44] What Solomon, in Solomon's book of ecclesiastes is actually a very, it's not the most happy book you want to read. It actually has a lot of practical wisdom. Now, this is actually Solomon in his older age, after observing and experiencing, almost made a word of the experiences of wealth, money, relational equity with kings and kingdoms. There was pretty much nothing Solomon couldn't have. And this is actually his written word about all the things that he experienced. And you'll hear this common phrase that says, it is like chasing the wind, it's like vanity, and it's actually probably, I mean, and it's in the Bible, too. It is a very practical book. There's, there's hope in it, but there's a lot of, like, hard hitting truth. And one of the hard hitting truth is that there are seasons, and there are seasons in the sun. Everything in heaven has a under heaven has a season, so there's always going to be shifts. So I, um. We're in actually in the middle of fall season, and usually how I know when the season has changed is when there is some kind of reaction from my sinuses, and it's ragweed season.
[00:04:19] And I think that's the only time around the fall when you start experiencing this kind of ragweed pollen throughout the years. You get, you know, your spring with the trees and grass pollen and all that kind of stuff. But my particular experiences around ragweed, I don't know why I can't talk today, but it's so important for us to know what to prepare for in seasons. So one of the pieces of this that we, I'm going to talk about a few of the misconceptions of seasonal changes.
[00:04:55] And most of the time, if we want to be real about it, we want to stay in a really good season. No one wants summer to end.
[00:05:04] No one wants spring to end, really, depending on where you are, but no one wants the summer to end. I mean, there's so much fun to do. There's things outside. You go on vacations, you can go to the beach. You don't have to dress up. You wear less clothes, hello, somebody. You basically get to experience what you want to experience, right? When it's summertime, if it's too hot, you can deal with it. But most people can't deal with extreme cold, right. Or cold weather period.
[00:05:36] Sweater weather in other cases. So. But what we do, and actually, this leads to the first point, sometimes we convince ourselves that we're going to be stuck in a great season forever.
[00:05:54] You could be in a great job. You could be having great moments in your family. You could be having some of the best experiences in your life. And out of nowhere, you could be having a challenge.
[00:06:07] You could lose your job. You could have gotten a car accident. There's all kinds of things that could happen, right? Your computer could die. You know what I'm saying? Like, there's things that happened where you have to deal with the seasonality that comes with being you, one, being human, and two being you. And most of the time, people lock in on saying, this is going to be the best season, and this season is never going to end. You could be making a whole bunch of money in your career. You may not have anticipated stocks to go down. No one, for example, anticipated a pandemic in 2020 because everything was going well and then all of a sudden it wasn't. And the thing is, y'all, we have the most challenge. And just as human beings, we like things being comfortable and predictable. I'm gonna say that again, we like things being comfortable and predictable because that means we are in control in our circumstances. But the last time I checked, life does not consult you for your comfort and for your pleasure.
[00:07:17] Life is going to be lifen no matter what happens. So you have to decide, how am I going to hold on to seasons open handed? Okay?
[00:07:30] Am I going to be prepared for seasons as best as I can? I'm wearing a sweatshirt. In the last podcast, I was wearing maybe a longer sleeve shirt because it's cold now, it's colder in the daytime or in the evening time, I should say.
[00:07:49] So what we have to remember is that we cannot hold on to seasons forever.
[00:07:56] And I'm going to speak for myself. The times when I have gotten the most disappointed and hurt are points when I thought certain seasons weren't going to end. This is where I was going to be.
[00:08:10] And I have gotten my feelings hurt. I have gotten so disappointed because I thought that this was what was going to be the best thing in my life.
[00:08:22] And this speaks to the fact that I didn't have vision past a certain point.
[00:08:29] Seasons are going to happen whether you want them to happen or not.
[00:08:36] You have to acknowledge that you are not in control of your seasons. You just have to prepare for the seasons when they do happen based on what's happened in the past.
[00:08:49] There is this part, um, in between seasons, between, uh, summer and fall, where it is like, um, 50 something degrees in the morning and then it's like 80, 75 to 80 degrees during the day. And unfortunately, you have to prepare for both kinds of climates. You might have to wear a jacket, but have something underneath that. When it is time, you can actually remove your jacket and be able to enjoy the weather of, you know, of 870 to 80 degrees, right. But if you don't do that, if you don't prepare in advance, you're actually going to be setting yourself up to getting yourself sick because you assume that just because it's going to be 80 degrees later on, that your attire for the morning is acceptable. And then you're just going to have to deal with the fact that you didn't dress properly. My wife has gotten on me when we first got married, she would get on me about, hey, why don't you wear a light jacket or something like that? I'm like, I don't need a jacket. You know, man talk, mansplaining. I don't need a jacket because I'm gonna be in the car, then I'm not to walk into the building. And my wife was like, okay, whatever. You do what you need to do. And then I ended up getting sick. And then I'm like, baby, I need you to take care of me. And she's like, mm hmm. And she has to deal with me because I refuse to prepare for a seasonal shift.
[00:10:32] Right? There's things you gotta do when seasons change, y'all. You got to change your filters, air filters in your house. But what are you doing to make the shift in your life when seasons change?
[00:10:45] Are you anticipating the seasonal changes? Are you taking inventory of what you need, what you don't need, what you can put away, what you can use? Are you doing that kind of work in the shift in changes?
[00:11:04] It sucks sometimes because we really like the times that we're in.
[00:11:09] I mean, some people have chosen to stay in moments forever, but unfortunately, forever is folly. It doesn't exist.
[00:11:21] Only eternity exists.
[00:11:24] But seasons are always going to happen here as long as we are living on this earth. So there's a couple things I want to expound upon, and then we'll probably get into this in the next pod. But first one I'd mention, we cannot fool ourselves into thinking that this current season that you're in, whether it's good or not, is going to last forever. It works both ways. Whether it's good, it won't last forever. Whether it's bad, it won't last forever. There's hope there, right? So remember that if you're in a struggling season, that it will not.
[00:12:03] Will not last forever. And if you're in an amazing season right now, it will not last forever. So learn to live with open hands then. The next part is letting go of certain items as you transition into the next.
[00:12:22] There's parts of this, of summer that I love, and I mentioned it, but I love wearing shorts and wearing t shirts and those kinds of things. The clothing attire is completely different, right? Because I'm lighter. I don't have to carry so much. I don't have to wear jackets and all that kind of stuff.
[00:12:41] I like summer wear.
[00:12:44] But when fall comes, you have to let all of that stuff go for a period of time.
[00:12:55] So, unfortunately, you have to remember you can let things go and you must let things go so that you can make room for the things that are adequate for that season.
[00:13:11] I have a process that I go through about around this time where I go through and start transitioning the clothes from the summer with the clothes that are for the fall and the winter. I have little bins that I start packing things in. And unfortunately, I hate putting this stuff up. It's so much work to make the shifts and transitions. Hate it. But it's necessary because if I don't do it, I'm going to be sifting through the things that are no longer required in the season that I'm in. Y'all that will preach to somebody.
[00:13:56] You will be sifting through things that are no longer needed in a season if you choose to not prepare in advance.
[00:14:06] Fortunately, I have a little system that I do, but it took me a while to get there.
[00:14:11] But now I don't have to deal with the summer stuff. I'll deal with the summer stuff comes, and now I'm just dealing with the fall and the winter gear. Okay.
[00:14:21] Why is that important?
[00:14:24] Because if you have everything in your area, you are spending more time on the things that are no longer needed when your attention should be going to the things that are needed in this particular season. So a reflection request, a reflection question for you.
[00:14:46] Are you paying attention to the things that are mat. That matter in this season? Are you taking care of your family? Are you taking care of your health? Are you taking care of your responsibilities? Whether it be a job or, you know, commitments that you've made? Are you taking care of those in this season because they shifted from one season to another? You may not need to start doing, you may not need to cut grass pretty soon, but best believe you're going to have to start preparing for breaking up the leaves.
[00:15:19] Are you tooled enough? Do you have all the equipment necessary to thrive in this next season of your life?
[00:15:31] It's necessary, y'all. So just to recap, two one, the misconceptions. One, this season that you're in will not last forever, period. Whether it's good or whether it's bad, it won't last forever. And then number two, are you adequately prepared for what you have coming in this season?
[00:15:57] Okay.
[00:16:00] Yeah, I want to make sure we talk about this again. One, because my, I think the part about this crazy thing called shifts is that they sneak up on us like we didn't know. It's so funny to me when people realize, oh, man, it's fall.
[00:16:21] Yeah, it was like, in September. In September. The late September we basically acknowledged that fall is here.
[00:16:32] It may not felt like it feel like it. Okay, we're going to talk about this next time. It may not have felt like it yet but it was transitioning to it later. So you may be in a new season right now of abundance but it may not feel like it yet.
[00:16:50] Oh God. We're going to talk about that in the next podcast. So if you could do me a favor this would be incredible. Incredible. Okay, like and subscribe to this podcast, to this YouTube channel and share it with somebody. I promise you're not the only person who is struggling during shifts.
[00:17:11] Not just seasonal ones, career ones, family ones, relationship ones. There's all kinds of shifts that are taking place that are seasonal and people need help navigating them and I hope this has added some value. But until the next time we'll catch you on the next podcast. Peace.
