September Holds So Much

September brings contradictory emotions that coexist within us—the relief of returning routines alongside the grief of what or who is missing. Our ability to simultaneously hold joy and sorrow, gratitude and grief isn't confusion or weakness, but rather the fullness of being human.

In this episode:

• The paradox of September: school routines returning while feeling the emptiness of change
• Why society pressures us to choose between emotions, but our hearts don't work in categories
• A mindful moment to acknowledge all feelings without organizing them
• The Japanese concept of "mono no aware"—the inseparability of beauty and loss
• Permission to experience contradictory emotions as signs of aliveness, not instability
• Finding sacredness in both joy and grief without choosing between them

Visit liftoneself.com for more resources on navigating complex emotions, and please share this episode with someone who might need these words.

Chapters

• 0:04 September's Emotional Paradox
• 1:23 Permission to Hold Complexity
• 2:15 Mono No Aware: Beauty and Loss
• 5:25 Closing Thoughts and Resources

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:04

September always feels like too much, doesn't it? Some of you are breathing easier because school is finally back in Routines. Give your body a rhythm again and you can hear yourself, think, also, get some quietness from all that chaos. And at the exact same time, some of you are standing in a quiet kitchen wondering how the house can feel this empty both at once in your chest. Some of you are scrolling through first day photos while remembering the child who should be here, but isn't. Some of you are carrying Suicide Prevention Month, not as awareness, but as a Tuesday, as a phone call that changed everything, as the chair that stays empty. And some of you are just trying to breathe through. One more season change, one more month where everything keeps moving and you're not sure you want to keep up.

Speaker 1: 1:06

This month doesn't ask permission. It doesn't give you one feeling at a time, neatly packaged. It's relief bleeding into sorrow, joy crashing against guilt, the sweetness of routine wrapped around the ache of who's missing from it. And here's what I need you to hear you are not broken for holding all of it. We live in a world that demands you choose Stay sad or move on, be grateful or grieve. But your nervous system doesn't work in categories. Your heart doesn't file emotions alphabetically. The mother crying in the school pickup line who laughs at her friend's text five minutes later isn't confused. She's human. The father who feels relief that structure is back, while simultaneously missing his daughter's childhood, isn't contradicting himself. He's alive Right here, right now. Let's take a mindful moment. Close your eyes, if you can, and if you can't, just soften your gaze, drop your shoulders. You've been carrying more than you realize. Breathe in through your nose slowly. Breathe out through your mouth slower. Feel what's here the relief, the grief, the mess of it all. Don't try to organize it, don't try to make sense of it. Just let it be what it is. Now. Whisper this to the part of you that's been trying so hard I can miss them and laugh at the same time, and laugh at the same time. I can grieve what was and be grateful for what is. I can hold it all. Let that settle, not as a solution, but as permission. Take another deep breath in and slowly exhale, allowing your body to soften.

Speaker 1: 3:35

September teaches us that endings and beginnings don't take turns. They're braided together inseparable. School starts and childhood passes, routines return and someone's absence gets louder. The calendar moves forward and grief stays right here. This isn't a problem to solve, it's life to be lived.

Speaker 1: 4:01

The Japanese have a word mono, no aware, the bittersweet awareness that everything is impermanent, that beauty and loss are the same thing, just experienced from different angles. September is mono-nowhere. It's the month that shows you beauty and loss holding hands. So if you're crying in a Target parking lot and texting funny memes an hour later, that's not instability, that's aliveness. If you're grateful for routines and aching for what routines can't fix, that's not confusion, that's depth. If you're excited about fall, especially that pumpkin spice, and dreading the holidays that are coming, that's not weakness, that's wisdom. You know what September leads to. You don't have to choose between your joy and your grief. They belong to each other, they belong to you. Both are sacred, both are true, both mean you're still here, still feeling, still alive enough to hold complexity, and maybe, just maybe that's not just enough, maybe that's everything.

Speaker 1: 5:25

I'm Nat, nat, and this has been the Lift One Self podcast. If this, this episode, opens something in you, you can find more of this work at liftoneselfcom. And if you think someone needs these words, please share it out to somebody. This is how we grow the community and allow ourselves to feel human.