Letting Go: What the Trees Teach Us About Midlife, Menopause, and Change

In this reflective episode, Carly explores what the trees, and the rhythm of autumn can teach us about navigating change in midlife and menopause.

Drawing from personal stories of burnout, breathwork, and renewal, she explores how the natural cycles of nourishment, release, and rest mirror our own seasons of transition; especially through menopause and other midlife shifts.

You’ll hear about:
 🍂 Why slowing down doesn’t mean giving up
 🌳 How to stay grounded when everything feels uncertain
 🌿 What nature can teach us about protecting what matters most
 ✨ Simple practices to stay rooted through change

This episode is a gentle invitation to trust your own rhythm, to find steadiness in the season you’re in, and to remember, letting go is not the end, it’s part of the cycle of becoming.

Thanks for listening to Rooted In Presence

If you’d like to get in touch with a question about today’s episode or find out how I can support you with coaching, here’s how to reach me:
📧 Email: carlykillenpt@gmail.com
📱 Instagram: @thestrongbonescoach

Do you crave unshakable confidence in your strength from midlife and beyond? Would you love to achieve your goals without sacrificing family time or self-care?

Ready to take your strength to the next level? Start building a stronger body and healthier bones with my Strong Bones Starter Kit—your step-by-step guide to safe and effective strength training at home.
👉 Click here to learn more and access today

🌟 Stay connected and inspired with daily wellness tips on Instagram @thestrongbonescoach.
🌟 For tailored advice or personal queries, email me at carlykillenpt@gmail.com

Thank you for being here, and I look forward to supporting you on your journey to strength, health, and confidence! 💪🦴✨

Transcript

Carly: 0:46

Hello and welcome back to Rooted in Presence. I'm your host, Carly Killen, breathwork facilitator, midlife coach, and lover of noticing the small seasonal wisdoms that show up all around us if we're paying attention. That is. So this week I've been reflecting on lessons from the leaves. At this time of year, over in the Northern Hemisphere over in the uk, we are heading for a time of slowing down. The trees are starting to drop their leaves, and that's all part of a natural letting go. And I found that this has a lot to teach us about our own seasons of change. So if you find yourself in a time of change in your life, whatever that might be, perhaps this episode has something for you. So keep listening and we'll get started. So I don't know about you, but I can feel autumn arriving in my bones. I actually feel the pull in autumn, so please don't come after me. We are actually in October right now, so I don't think I'm anywhere near premature speaking about this at this point, but we really have noticed, especially here in the uk, the clocks have now gone back and the light is softer. The mornings are feeling a little slower and there's that unmistakable sound of leaves underfoot. I love a crunchy leaf, and it's all a gentle reminder from nature that everything has its season. And I think we find that pretty easy to forget with our fast paced lives these days. And I do know that this time of year can feel really hard for some of us. Those darker days can bring resistance. It can affect our mood. Some of us don't feel so great. Perhaps we still feel that pull to keep going, to stay on it, to fight the slowing down that our bodies and our spirits are craving. So today I want to share with you what the leaves have been teaching me about trusting the process, about honesty, and about how to nourish yourself when the world feels like it's turning inwards. So let's start with the lessons from the leaves then. And something I find incredibly fascinating is the process of how the trees shed their leaves. You might have noticed they don't just drop them suddenly, or perhaps you don't notice them one day. You just see the leaves on the floor. But there's a wHull process that happens underneath the surface. And it all starts with the tree drawing back. Its nourishment from each leaf before it. Lets go. So the leaves are full of chlorophyll. It's how they take in their energy from the sun. But at this time of year, when it notices that that change in light, the, the chlorophyll starts to ebb away and it starts to draw the nutrients, reabsorbing them into the trunk, into the roots to sustain it through winter. It stops giving energy to growth. It knows that we can't grow all year round. Something that has taken me far too long to realize, and that's okay. And then before the leaves actually drop off, it forms a protective layer at the base of each stem. So when the leaf does fall, It's not left with this open wound. And that really struck me. It never occurred to me that the trees produce their own soothing balm. As it starts to let go, it soothes itself and it doesn't rush. It doesn't clinging to the leaves. It doesn't try to bandage them back on it. Okay? The trees can't be putting on special creams to stop. Things changing, but it really doesn't cling. It just lets it happen. It doesn't abandon itself in that process of change. It prepares, it renourish itself and it protects what's next. And this took me back to this time last year. As I celebrated Samhain with my community, it's a Celtic festival that honors the turning of the year, and it's a time when the, the thinning of the veil between life and death, light and dark, it's a time that feels really transitional and we can feel more sensitive and perhaps more open to seeing things differently. And as part of this, we spent the day reflecting and connecting with our ancestors, writing down what we're ready to release, what we feel we've received from our generations past. Not just the things that we feel like been handed down, like the, uh, the tough things, the, the bad habits, the things we wish we hadn't inherited, but also the blessings, the good bits, and what we might want to take forward. As we become our ancestors in our future as well. And we also started a process of sitting with some honesty seeds. Now, for those that don't know, these honesty seeds produce these really beautiful flowers, and the seeds themselves actually look a little bit like pumpkins, which I've only just realized. But for those of you that were around in the eighties, we often had. These big sprigs of them, these dried sprigs of honesty seeds in vases. I remember I used to play with them in the hallway. Um, perhaps I'll put a picture in the show notes for those that you, that can't see them, but I just love that they're called honesty seeds. And I hadn't realized that as a child, as I sat playing with these little seeds. Um, so it's great that they come back into my life now. So sitting with these seeds, these honesty seeds, felt. Quite literally and symbolically important. And yes, we scattered some of them and we also tucked some of them away in an envelope with my reflections and hopes for the new year. And at that time, I didn't realize how aligned that practice was with what I'd been living through was the year prior, which will now be two years ago. I was right at the start of the burnout outs. And I was being forced into stillness because I wasn't going willingly I was forced through illness, exhaustion, those first signs of perimenopause really starting to hit me. But as I sat in that stillness, I sat in the silence and I had to really sit with a kind of deep self-honesty I hadn't known before. I didn't realize that this was the invitation of the season to listen, to tend to what we notice and just to gently let go because we hear about letting go. Also often don't worry about let go of what doesn't serve you and all this. And the way I used to see it was as if we had to tear it apart as if we had to violently let go get rid of things that don't serve us. But. As I say, we always carry everything we need, so these parts that we're letting go, it is not to say goodbye. It's just to stop sending energy to things that we don't want to grow again, taking a lesson from the trees and the leaves here. And this really helped me move from my resistance to change into a kind of rhythm. And since then, I've noticed that same rhythm everywhere in my own life, in my coaching clients and in the cycles of midlife itself. And we often resist slowing down because we equate rest with laziness or letting go with failure. but in truth, these cycles are essential. We can't stay in constant growth mode without exhausting and depleting the soil and what's allowed to leave the leaves that fall, they go into the ground. They actually turn into compost, actual nourishment for the next season. So in midlife and menopause and our life transitions, I feel like they all echo autumn. It's a season of review. Of composting old stories, gathering wisdom for what's next. And just like the trees, we can prepare ourselves so that change doesn't leave us raw or depleted. We can create our own protective layer through boundaries, nourishment, breath, and a lot of compassion, not just for others, but for ourselves too. So what can the trees teach us about supporting ourselves? Well, the trees aren't out there doing this alone. They're part of an ecosystem. The roots are intertwined into the mycelium of the forest or the woodland, or even the nearest tree in the city spaces. And they're all sharing nutrients through the soil, supporting each other in unseen ways. And it's the same with us. We don't have to move through change in isolation through coaching. My group breath works, my strong bones community. These aren't all luxuries. They're forms of mutual rooting, so it often helps to have someone walking alongside you, holding space for that unfolding so you can see your own patterns with kindness. And remember that letting go can be done with gentleness and not force. So if you've been feeling that pull to slow down, please don't mistake that for a sign to stop caring for yourself in nature, rest is not neglect Even in stillness, life continues below the surface. Even the tree trunk when it appears to be dying away is supporting so much life through bugs and little plants that decide to live in the crevices. So yes, for us, lift weights and let that feel grounding. Nourish yourself with real food, with warmth, even the ritual of cooking and caring for yourself. Breathe deeply even though the cold air might make you feel like you want to breathe more shallowly and walk slowly, perhaps enjoy these walks and not just make them back. Getting your steps in. So let these things feel a bit softer, perhaps a bit less performative, maybe more like tending rather than achieving now, let that be okay. You know, we don't need to rush. We don't have to hold onto the energy that you had in summer. It will return, I promise. I know it's hard to believe. There's so many women I speak to are living in an overworked and under-rested state. I totally get it. That was me too, and I still need to keep an eye on that myself. So when you allow yourself to feel these natural shifts, you can trust the steady rhythm of release and renewal. Even just the other morning, sitting in my studio still space Hull, sitting with a nice cup of tea, just watching the autumn sun hitting the mat before a breathwork session. And I was just thinking, this is it. The leaves know this change just doesn't have to be dramatic. Or particularly profound. It just asks for honesty, for awareness, and for a willingness to stay present through the process. So as we move into these darker months, I invite you to notice what you're ready to draw nourishment from, what's asking to be released. What protective layer you might need to carry yourself gently through the season ahead. This is the work I love to hold space for in my group breathwork sessions. It's still space Hull, my one-to-one strength coaching. So if this is resonating with you and you'd like to explore how to stay rooted through your own season of change, you can book a free clarity call via my website, carly killen.com. So that's it for this week. Until next time, may you meet yourself with Compassion, walk With Presence, and remember, you already carry everything you need.