Spring Renewal: 5 Ways to Reawaken Your Spirit and Get A Fresh Start

Spring is truly a natural time to reawaken your spirit and get a fresh start inside and out. Perhaps there is a change you have been considering for months or even years. Maybe a new and invigorating idea has swept in with the new Spring air. You may have specific ideas in mind for changes you would like to make in your life, or just a vague sense of restlessness that’s nipping at your consciousness in the quiet moments. Regardless, Spring’s unique energy offers us the opportunity to renew or even reinvent parts of ourselves that are hungry for growth.  Here are five ways to make the most of this season’s call for rejuvenation.

Mark the occasion

In the busy flow of our lives we often don’t make the time to really mark important moments. That includes dedicating ourselves to a new project, journey, or process. We frequently blow by our commitments without ceremony, either because we don’t have time or perhaps because we’re fearful that we’ll disappoint ourselves or others later on. After all, if we don’t announce to friends and family that we intend to lose twenty pounds this year, we won’t worry about the perception of failure if we don’t end up doing it. But in minimizing our intent, desire, or commitment to make changes, we rob ourselves of an important opportunity and ritual. Making a “big deal” out of a new journey or important occasions is a rallying call for support from the important people in our lives. It is also a significant “notice to self” in which we acknowledge that amidst all the other people whom we serve, our selves remain vitally important figures worthy of attention, care, and nurturing.

Celebrate Spring in ways that are meaningful to you. If you’ve been craving a special night out with friends or a long weekend away with someone whose company you adore, Spring is the perfect time to make it happen. Or maybe there’s a solo adventure you need, from a spa day just for you or a weekend retreat in the mountains with others who share a common passion. Regardless, honor Spring renewal as the important time it is by doing something that feeds your soul and starts the season.

Do something different, really different

At one point or another most of us have initiated a fresh start of some sort with a preparation activity. We may have gone on a cleaning and organization bender of the scary junk closet in our home to mark a fresh start to staying organized or decluttering. And while getting those sorts of tasks done can certainly be a relief, they’re also fairly mundane and not much of a tribute to the renewal Spring offers.

Do yourself a kindness and consider a less traditional means of kicking off a fresh start.

This means opening up to experiences that are new. Not necessarily wild, extreme, or out of your comfort zone, just new. Maybe consider participating in a volunteer event that you wouldn’t normally be drawn to, or taking a class in a subject area completely outside of your realm of knowledge. Offer to help out a friend or relative with something you really don’t relish, but you know would be greatly appreciated. Take a meditation, yoga, art, or dance class, or invest in a plant you’d like to nurture. Find seasonal starts that feel different in ways that are important to you.Make Spring Resolutions

Spring . . . with nature blossoming and longer daylight hours . . . is a much more natural time to make some Resolutions than is January 1, if you really think about it. Consider all that extra sunshine an invitation to make some meaningful changes in your patterns. Spring Resolutions might involve a new commitment and strategy to a specific goal. For example, resolving to ride your bike through the neighborhood three times a week in the evening, taking your kids for an outdoor family activity at least once a week after dinner. Or revisit your New Years’ Resolution(s) and leverage the energy of the season to recommit to them.

Shine some sunshine on yourself

Often, the winter months are a flurry of activity. The holidays, school schedules, work demands, and a range of other September through April calendar demands leave us exhausted and struggling to catch our breath. Spring is a completely natural time to take a deep breath and engage in overdue self-care and self-compassion.

For some, self-care may mean a rebalancing of schedules that have gotten a little out of hand so that we can take better care of ourselves on a daily basis. Daily attention to ourselves through exercise, spiritual practices, social support, good nutrition, and adequate sleep are so very important and often go by the wayside. Others may find themselves significantly overdue for a substantial vacation. Vacations aren’t always geographic. Perhaps you need a vacation from a certain stressor, a certain person, certain habit/behavior pattern, or a certain situation. Spring is rich opportunity to get space (mental or physical) and return renewed and refreshed.

Find what renews you and keep doing it

Spring renewal endeavors can serve as important models for us the rest of the year. When we find the activities that serve us well in this way, we can strive to implement them on a regular basis in small doses that continue to nourish us the rest of the year. The energy and momentum of Spring is an important launch into practices to sustain us as we go forward into the coming seasons.

The Psychological Effects of Spring and The Reminder of Change

As Spring unfolds around us we start to see, hear, feel, taste, and smell the incredible changes of the season. Not only are our senses immersed in these alternately subtle and intense transformations, our internal processes respond as well. Our sleep cycles may be altered, our moods may change, and our perspectives may be renewed. Along with these sublime shifts, most of us experience some kind of Spring Fever. Whether it’s the sudden urge to clean and organize a physical space like our home, or a sense of mental restlessness that compels us to move in other parts of our lives, the longer days and sweeter nights are often a source of unexpected energy.

As Spring presents us with internal and external motivators to make changes, we have an incredible opportunity to use this zest as a springboard for personal growth. It is important to remember that like buds popping open on the trees overnight, the change itself is usually not the difficult part. For us, it’s making changes stick that tends to be the real challenge. Getting a gym membership or bringing flowers to your partner is one thing; continuing to go to the gym and exercise regularly or being loving and compassionate towards your spouse when you’ve had an insanely stressful day can be quite another.

As human beings, we tend to have some pretty complicated feelings about change. On the one hand, we live in a culture that loves to sell the idea of overhaul. The popularity of “makeover” themed pop culture entertainment in which “average” people dramatically transform their body, wardrobe, house, partner, family, hairstyle, job, house, gym routine, or any one of a number of life features suggests that we are gluttons for change. Yet each of our personal histories suggest that changes can be very hard for us. We struggle to lessen our unhealthy habits and increase the healthy ones; make more fiscally responsible decisions; be kinder to the relative who is so irritating; and recycle more diligently.

How do you make changes last?

• Embrace Spring as a natural starting point

Spring motivation is a wonderful driver of important growth and revolution in our lives, and can power us up for making changes that we’ve been contemplating for a long time. Let Spring inspire you to dream big, explore deeply, and imagine creatively. As adults, many of us rob ourselves of the gift of dreaming because we’ve become lassoed by our awareness of pragmatic factors. Yes, reality matters . . . but it’s not necessarily a helpful starting point when it comes to exploring what moves us. Consider starting a vision board, journaling, or utilizing some other mind-opening activity to flush out the contours of your biggest change desires.

• Toss the idea of willpower and stock up on strategy

If you’ve ever wished for more willpower, you’re not alone. But willpower is a misleading concept, because it suggests that there is some secret sauce that once acquired will keep you on track.

Forget willpower.

Willpower is like the breeze . . . it blows in and blows out and is a highly unreliable tool because you can’t ever depend on it to be there when you need it. What you want is strategy. Strategy will never leave you high and dry. For example, you may or may not feel like being pleasant to your mother-in-law depending on the kind of day you’ve had (willpower, or lack thereof). Alternately, if you have a strategy in place it doesn’t matter how you’re feeling in any given moment. A strategy plan such as, I will count to ten before responding to my mother-in-law’s insane comments about my children ensures you don’t have to worry about how you feel because you’ll base your actions on a predetermined plan that reflects the change you’ve already decided you want.

• Trust in the process

As adults we are constantly in a problem solving and find-a-solution-now mind mode. The change feelings we experience in the throes of Spring may make us a little uncomfortable and seem to be calling for urgent actions. Feeling antsy, impatient, elated, energized, charged up, spirited, and renewed can all drive us to some sort of corresponding, answering behaviors. Yet change is constant, and sometimes it is more helpful to observe these feelings, acknowledge them, and do nothing other than experience them and know that in time they will inevitably pass. Acting on our feelings may result in temporary satisfaction, but when the feeling changes again, we may find ourselves less than enthralled with what briefly seemed like a powerful mandate to change up our lives.