Discover the Promise of the Five Seasons
by Dr. Joseph Cardillo, PhD

We are not living “with nature.” We are part of it. This connection flows through all that we are and do. Indeed many answers you seek toward improving your life are found in your ability to understand and harness the ebb and flow of this relationship.

Nature, however, has made it big for us – so that we can’t miss seeing it. All you have to do is pay attention to her greatest manifestation of this connectivity as demonstrated in the continuous cycle of seasons.

Rooted in Eastern and Western psychology and Asian medicine, the concept of living with the seasons is an effective code for optimizing your life. It is one of the easiest, safest, most natural (no side-effects) ways to improve your health, happiness and overall performance. It’s fun. It’s effective. And it’s free. 

So what season are you? 
Many people have a favorite season.  Some individuals go so far as to describe themselves as a “summer person,” or “winter person” and so on. Your preference usually has a lot to do with your unique character, favorite activities and overall temperament. Lots of people travel and some even relocate to more fully immerse themselves in environments that put their lives in the comfort zone and fuel their creativity and motivation. 

But is there more to glean from such environmental sensitivity? For example, can getting better synchronized with seasonal cycles offer alternative, non-chemical treatments for improving or reversing certain health conditions? Could it engender more meaning and deeper satisfaction in one’s life? The answer is yes. In fact, this practice is at the core of Eastern holistic arts and sciences. It is their basis for living well.

Which season is best?
Although we may prefer one season over another, realistically no one season is “better” than the others. According to Asian medicine, each season has its own unique energy and each energy cycle plays a strategic role in everything from how you feel – overall – to how you respond to pain and anxiety, how well you focus, and how you coordinate your life to accomplish day-to-day objectives and deeper life-goals.

The important thing is you can learn to listen to how nature’s seasonal cycles affect you. You can learn to draw on them and coordinate their specific energies so that you operate optimally in all your daily activities. The process is more than poetic. This synchronicity will lead to improved decision-making, alertness, memory, conflict resolution, an increase in relaxation and physical strength, and all around healthier more creative living. Conversely, many problems you may be experiencing can be the result of imbalances with these energy cycles. These problems may include: low energy, weak focus and attention, low motivation, interpersonal conflict, mood swings, depression and more. The good news is you can learn to balance and eliminate these.

Because we are a part of nature and nature us, seasonal energy movements describe not only the rising and falling of energies in our external environment, but the up and down energy you feel minute-by-minute, event by event, conversation by conversation, thought-by-thought, throughout your day, week, month, year and so on. You can feel the effects of this momentum physically and emotionally. When you synch up just right (harmonize) with these cycles, you feel healthy and happy. You feel like you are doing everything with ease. You feel good inside and out – like you are on top of your game.

The formula is simple:  ultimately, if you change the way you understand and use nature’s energy you will change your life and contribute the best of you with everyone you touch.

The Fifth Season
In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) there are five seasons. Each season depicts a specific energy within nature. Spring, for example, begins nature’s cycle of rising energy, for us a time of new growth, a time to seed and scatter ideas and life directions and see what among them takes root. Summer maximizes this cycle of upward fiery energy and seeing - with clarity - what is growing and what isn’t. Autumn begins the cycle of falling energy. It is a time of abundance and gathering and letting go. Winter continues nature’s falling cycle. It is a time of condensing and storing energy and of incredible inwardness, creativity and assembly. This is the time to pack your dreams, into little bundles you will seed into your future come Spring. 

The additional season, the fifth season, however, is what is referred to as late (or Indian) summer. This is the period of unusually warm days that can come anytime from the end of summer to around the middle of autumn and even later. In TCM and holistic arts, this season (and its unique energy) is the center of the entire cycle. Coordinating all the other seasons or energy movements so that they make sense – in your life – this season is the headquarters of it all. In Asian psychology and holistic medicine, centeredness and balance are essential. This is because when you are centered you are most self-aware; you attract thoughts, behaviors, and activities that are for your most good as well as for the most good of those around you. So from the fifth season, you can learn how to cool off negative aggressions, yet at the same time, fire up positive ones. Through introspection, you learn how to prune what is not pulling its weight in your life and find and nurture what is. You see who you have been, who you are and who you want to be. It is from here, within its middle cycle that nature – and thus you – can coordinate and harmonize the rest.

In a way, these five universal movements operate in our mind-body like a network, running virtually unconscious to us – most of the time. With a little information, however, you can become much more aware of them and their abundant influence. With this, you can begin using these rhythms to strategically influence and improve your life. The trick is in learning how to synch up and stay connected.

Joseph Cardillo, PhD, is a top-selling author in the fields of health, mind-body-spirit, and psychology. His latest book is The Five Seasons: Tap into Nature’s Secrets for Health, Happiness, and Harmony, published by New Page Books. ISBN: 978‐160163‐258‐6.

Article is printed with the permission of Joseph Cardillo.