What your body is trying to tell you about Semester Scaries

You’ve already begun negotiating with your September or October calendar and it might sound like: I’ll get back to _____ when things settle down. Or, of course I have to attend (insert the pile up of meetings and “retreats”).

You’re negotiating with your body in these decisions, too. Your jaw and shoulders are tighter than just a few weeks ago. You’re waking up exhausted. The joy you felt gardening this summer feels far away already. You're more irritable than usual. Your body feels louder somehow, but you translate its language into, "It's just that time of year."

Sometimes the Semester Scaries* are simply new routines or transition anxiety. But more often than not, they’re accumulated costs in your body and soul arriving right on schedule. “Back to School” is a made-up time marker to move us out of Nature’s natural slow season of summer and into a mode of productivity. Summer actually carries on until the equinox on September 22, and with our current climate crisis weather patterns, it could likely feel longer this year for many of us. And all of that matters to your body and soul.

For years I've written about the semester scaries and how intentional practices are antidotes to help move through them. I still believe this. And I don't mean productivity hacks or optimization practices. I mean practices that help you return to yourself, to your body, your core values, your communities, your delight, and your many belongings beyond work.

Our bodies know the cost of institutional belonging long before we cognitively can name it. It starts with whispers that can be easy to dismiss until one day it screams. Ask me how I know.

The Semester Scaries tell you about the cost you’ve paid for institutional belonging.

For the last two weeks, we've been asking difficult questions together. What have we come to believe we owe institutions in exchange for belonging? What is that belonging costing our bodies, our relationships, and our emotional, mental, and spiritual wellbeing? This week, we layer on another question:

What is your body trying to tell you about belonging?

There's a particular kind of embodied exhaustion that arrives earlier and earlier. And if that’s true for you, what shifts in your noticing and naming that now? The old collective agreement that we'll just push through until we find our footing again is toxic and not even working. We're all bracing ourselves in ways both large and small.

Do your body a favor and take some time to listen to what is being whispered (or screamed):

How do you know when the cost of institutional belonging has become too high?

What is your body trying to tell you that we’ve been calling "normal"?

What practices help you return to yourself when life becomes full?

What are you unwilling to sacrifice this next season?

*Note: This is less about whether you have school-aged folks in your home or work in an educational institution, because our social and commercial calendars are organized around a “back to school” cycle.