Autumn Meditation for Moving Forward & Letting Go

This Autumn Meditation is perfect for inviting the crisp, warm, cozy feeling of autumn into your life. With a focus on letting go and making room for new growth, it will help you slow down and consider which direction you want to go with your life.

Autumn is a season of opposites. As the weather begins to cool down outside, we bring the warmth inside with the warm scents of cinnamon, apple, pumpkin, and cozy wood fires. You can feel both the warmth of the sun and the whisper of frost in the air.

Before and after you practice this autumn guided meditation script, you may find it helpful to consider some of the opposites in your own life; places of tension and of relaxation that exist in harmony. You might also find it helpful to ponder on how letting go of some things gives you more room to grow.

Autumn is not about letting go of everything, and neither is this Autumn Meditation. Rather, it is about allowing the world to move forward in continual progression–about accepting the way our lives move forward and change.

Try this meditation for autumn to help you move towards acceptance, rather than pushing against it. Life brings change, just like time brings new seasons. The more we accept forward movement, the further we can go.

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Autumn Meditation

Guided Imagery Preparation

Wherever you are, sitting, standing, lying down, settle in. Close your eyes to limit visual distractions, or fix them on a point on the wall or ceiling if you would rather.

If you can straighten your spine, do so. Let your hands rest easy on your lap or by your side. If your legs are crossed, uncross them.

Breathe easy. In and out, in and out, noticing the way your diaphragm moves just below your sternum as your lungs intake and release air.

When you are ready, begin your Autumn Meditation.

Begin Your Autumn Leaves Meditation

Envision yourself standing inside a room, with a door that leads outside ahead of you. Pull a key from your pocket to unlock it, turn the latch, and step outside.

In front of you is a colorful autumn landscape, with hundreds of trees with leaves in brilliant reds and golds. Some are green, not yet changed, while others have become crisp and brown on the edges.

A little further ahead, water babbles down a shallow stream. Only a foot or so deep in the deepest part, you can see the stones and sediment that the water travels over. Leaves that have floated down into it collect on the edges where the water ripples toward shore, creating a golden lining on either side.

You sit on a perfectly sized sitting rock on the edge, comfortable and content as the water runs by. Breathe in the crisp autumn air, filling your lungs with the scent of water, leaves, and the grasses that are yellowing around you.

Feel the warmth of the afternoon sun on your face. The heat of summer is gone and in its place is this wonderfully pleasant day, just warm enough for comfort and cool enough to invigorate.

Deepen

As the breeze blows around you, notice the way that it coaxes leaves to let go of their branches to float to the ground below. Some take a more direct path, while others drift and sway in the wind, spinning and twirling as they make their way down.

Others still do not fall at all, but rather continue to hold onto the branches they grew from, refusing to take flight. They have allowed themselves to change colors alongside their fellows, but refuse to give in to the descent ahead.

“Just a little longer,” they protest to the breeze. “We’re not yet ready to fall.” So they hold on a little longer, even as the world changes around them.

The yellows become orange, the oranges red, and the leaves on the ground become brown. But still, the leaves on the trees hold on, hoping to evade the relentless movement of time.

Visualize the changing world of fall around you as you continue to breathe crisp autumn air, in and out, leaning into this moment.

Internalize

As you breathe in and out, bring to mind something that you have been holding onto. Something that no longer serves you, that you would like to let go of but have not done so yet.

Imagine this thing as a leaf on a tree, clinging to a branch high above the ground, refusing to give in to the change of the season. Once it had a place in your life, as every leaf has its place in a tree.

It might even be a blossom that you cherished in the spring of its existence, that you have watched unfurl and grow, and that has now exchanged its green for gold.

This leaf is not a bad leaf. This thing is not a bad thing. And yet, the time has come for it to fall from the branch. The time has come for you to let it go.

Take a deep breath, the deepest breath you have taken thus far, and visualize the leaf letting go. It releases the branch and drifts gently to join the other leaves of red and gold below.

Just like the leaf has not entirely disappeared, neither has the thing you are letting go of. It has just joined all of the other things that you have grown with and learned from, and are now ready to let go of.

End

For a moment longer, enjoy the autumn world around you. Experiencing again the warmth of the sun, the chill of the breeze, and the distinct scent of leaves and earth.

When you are ready, leave the side of the river and return to the door you entered this world through. Step back inside, taking care to pull the key from your pocket to lock the door once more.

This door is always available to you. You can always return to the autumn world by the river, with the trees of red and gold. The key will always be in your pocket.

Return your focus to your breath, breathing in and out, in and out, soft and slow, experiencing the way your lungs also release the old to bring in the new.

And finally, when you are ready, end your meditation and return to your day.