As humans, we can get quite comfortable with things staying how they are. Even as some of us look forward to change or continually create it in our lives, sometimes in the form of much drama, there are often still things we’d rather see remain the same.

With the beauty of autumn and the color change of the leaves on the aspen trees, I was excited to photograph my backyard dressed brightly in cheery yellow. That is until I remembered the half-completed two-story home still under construction just beyond my fence. We’ve enjoyed an empty lot behind our property for over a decade, and that is changing.

Other big changes have found their way to us this year as well. My elderly mother came to live with us and I left my job to become a full-time caregiver. These changes took a bit of getting used to, but like most change, now three months later, we have found a new routine.

Every year, as the colder temperatures of approaching winter chase me back inside, I notice how much “abundance” I have gathered. This year, the excavation of my mom’s half-century of living in one house (and not parting with much), has given me cause to also purge my own belongings. After tossing bag after bag and box after box to the garbage or thrift store, I realize that I too have been a bit clingy about keeping things I no longer need or use.

Perhaps the universe, with its predictable cycles, is offering up the opportunity to assess our ability to let go and not cling to the past. We can cherish and love those things that are truly precious to us, that remind us of our journey or that of our ancestors, while being able to say a fond farewell to items that instead block our flow of energy by weighing us down visually or emotionally or both!

And so, it is with great love that I peruse the purchases of the past reminding myself not to keep something simply because I “paid a lot of money for it” or “I might need it someday”. Yes, there have been things I have been able to dig out of a closet or drawer at a moment’s notice, not having to go buy them, but now having space to breathe and live is more valuable to me that the minuscule possibility I may need a random item 10 years from now.

I’ve learned to trust my process of discernment. The reward is a spaciousness decluttered of excess and the ability to actually find something amongst the stuff. Even more than just living in a space that is, well, more spacious, is the lesson that comes from the letting go. We all know that everything in our world is temporary and change happens, invited or not. So as one beautiful season leaves and another marches in, we can embrace that which we resist, and learn to lean into the cycles of life.

— Sana Hayes is a free spirit, as comfortable in a tiara as she is in pajamas. She writes to better encounter the radiant self in each of us. Contact her at cowgirlsana@gmail.com.