spring can really hang you up the most? 🍃🌷

Hi Reader, 

Happy waltz day (3/4, get it?! 🤓), one of my favorite nerdy music holidays!

(Just for fun, here’s a waltz, Before the Bright Leaves, from my upcoming album.)

I have always looked forward to spring (my favorite season), but over the last several years, I’ve noticed that this can also be a difficult time of year.

Early spring (fine, technically, pre-spring right now) energy feels uncomfortably buzzy to me. I start waking up earlier as the sunrise gets earlier, mirroring the outdoor landscape waking up.

This waking-up and coming-out-of-hibernation energy is exciting, as someone who lived in Minnesota, a place with legit winter, for a long time. But, it can also can present as agitation and anxiety, as our nervous systems catch up with the change - transitions can be tricky!

Part of me isn’t ready to let go of the winter coziness, and part of me is excited to wake up to spring and new possibilities (perhaps even a new-year feeling), so there’s a tension and a scattered energy happening.

Spring gets romanticized because there's often nicer weather, and many people have negative feelings about winter. But even with positive transitions, there's a lot to process. Coming out of hibernation poses its own challenges and adjustments, and takes a lot more of your body's resources than you realize. (Allergies! 🤧)

If spring is actually a tough mental health time for you, it's more normal than you think, and this is good information to have about yourself.

Now that I know that I have this increased anxiety and restlessness starting in early or mid-March, it’s much easier to handle, because I can prepare for it. 

I know that my brain may have more excitement about new projects, with less energy capacity and ability to focus on them, and that doesn’t have to be a terrible thing!

If you have similar feelings, you might have to shift your self care practices in order to nurture yourself through this season. You may need different things in the spring than you do in summer, fall, or winter.

Generally, I find anything that feels grounding to be a good practice during this time of year, such as:

• Getting under a weighted blanket
• Putting on a lavender-based essential oil blend
• Reducing sensory stimuli when I feel overwhelmed
• Paying attention to when your energy wanes, and resting when necessary

I have many more suggestions in this PDF, Balancing Spring Energy:

Since this anxious energy tends to make me feel too scattered to focus well on creativity, these practices make it more possible to get in the flow!

There's nothing wrong with you if you feel less energy than you think you “should” during this time of year, or if you feel extra anxious. 

Hopefully you can accept that those energies are happening, and be extra kind to yourself. It doesn't mean that you have to stop trying to do the things that are important to you, but maybe you just approach them with a little more ease and kindness - wishing you the best in that! 💗

How do you feel about the transition into spring? How does it affect you and your creativity?

🕸️ Staying on the good side of the internet 🕸️

• "How do I keep going?" - A legit question, when so many bad things seem to be happening all around us. Lisa Olivera (the author of Already Enough: A Path to Self Acceptance) has many beautiful answers for us!
• 5 Ways to Quickly Build Belonging - Late to the party, but I just finished reading The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker, which inspired many ideas (which I will write about soon!) For now, this article is a good taster.
• I just re-remembered how much I love Betty Carter - here's her version of Spring Can Really Hang You Up the Most (which inspired the subject line of this email!)