SEPTEMBER SABBATICAL
I’m all for trying new things. It’s kind of my jam and as a 6/3 Profile in Human Design my unconscious vehicle Third Line cannot help but to dig in, experiment and figure things out through trial and error. There’s often a lot of error, but such is the path of the Third Line. If this is you, I feel you. We just have to get in there and see for ourselves. We like to get our hands dirty. Everything is an experiment.
As such, I decided about a month or so ago to approach September as one big experiment.
This time of year is, well, weird. There is a lot of anxiety, acting out, and if I am being real, chaos of all sorts. The collective energy is super charged with the transition from summer to fall. Death is not something that humans generally handle well, so the transition from nature being at its most alive to witnessing things grow and shift to a more quiet time, a time that doesn't look as green and bright can feel uneasy. Add in the complicated feelings we all have associated with school and Autumn is a pretty exciting (and by exciting I really mean chaotic) time. We feel it. The earth feels it. Things can seem a bit unhinged.
We are so indoctrinated into the larger school system that whether you are currently in school yourself, work in a school, have a family member in school, or not, most of us have been part of some sort of institutionalized educational system and it has conditioned the hell out of us. We spend a lot of time there. Following a lot of rules, that research shows really only serves about 33% or so of us. So if you fall into that other 67% like I do, there’s most likely a lot of messaging that you received in school that has very little to do with who you really are and what you are actually capable of. It’s a bummer, but alas, it very much is what it is. School is a big deal. Teachers will tell you that sometimes their classroom is calmer in September, as kids are getting used to their new classes, teachers, etc. Only for all hell to break loose in October when the reality sets in that their students will be in this space doing these things 5 days a week from 8-3 until June. The anxiety swells. Ooof.
Our indoctrination into the larger system of school runs so deep that if you actually work at a school you are more likely to play out an adolescent group paradigm than if you are part of another system, say an office, or a retail setting. This looks like a hard rail against authority, really defined lines around belonging and not (exclusion can run rampant) and scapegoating is super common. I’ve been part of psychoanalytic trainings at schools where this revisited behavior is pointed out in real time among the cohort. It’s powerful. A little bit funny. Difficult to prevent. But not impossible to correct.
In short, school is all kinds of powerful and the messaging we receive sticks with us. The anxiety sticks with us. Mostly because it is an experience so many of us share around the world. So if you are feeling the funky chaos right now, I give you full permission to hand it over to school being a hot mess situation even under the best of circumstances. Know you are not who you were and you are not who people decided you were. PS your kids aren’t either.
Yeah, September is hilarious. So why not fuck with it a little then?
September for us is already different. I didn’t head out Tuesday when school started in my county to meet other parents for a freedom coffee. Life stayed pretty much the same this week.
My daughter is one of a handful of kids that during the pandemic when school was shut down and then about to reopen looked at my husband and I and said, “I’m not going back. I’m done.”
We listened (even if at first we didn't really want to). Which I can tell you was really outside of the box, even living in a very outside of the box kind of place. The pressure we received to conform, the pressure that we still receive to conform is tangible. What about college? What about testing? What about doing what everyone else is doing? To be honest, we do not know the answer to those questions. Turns out, opting out of a system is a threat. The questions and pressure felt horrible to start, three years later we all find it kind of funny. What we do know for sure is that my daughter is happy and thriving, and she wasn’t before.
In years past, come September when my daughter starts homeschool and a few on campus classes, I would open my schedule. I’d take on more clients, put projects into action that were in slow motion over the summer, I would hit the ground running. And this never seemed to really work. I would schedule clients during my kiddo’s class time, which turns out in September is like a storm. I was constantly getting pulled away to help with tech onboarding, listen to what was working, what wasn’t, and just be supportive. All of which is where I am really needed and what I actually want to be present for as her mom. I would find myself being angry, exhausted, while being fully confronted with the fact that doing all this, it’s real fucking hard.
This year I decided to flip everything on its head. I love doing this. It drives the people around me crazy, but I find it useless to try the same thing over and over again hoping it will work without being brave enough to change anything yourself. Get out there. Fuck around and find out. So that’s what we are doing this year.
I took a look at my schedule for September, which is intimately tied to my daughter’s, and instead of approaching it from a place of lack and struggle, I’m approaching it from a place of freedom and a curiosity of seeing exactly how little I can do this September outside of supporting my kid through this transition back to school. How easy can this be? For both of us?
Let’s find out.
First, I made the move of scheduling all of my ongoing mentorships clients for Fridays only for the whole month. Is it hairy? Yeah a little bit, but I know I can show up for them in that concentrated way for those short weeks. It’s not forever and the amount of time that it is for, is 100% sustainable for me. And it allows me to be completely present for them and on the other days completely present for my daughter while we work out all the kinks of getting back in the swing of things with school. No more interruptions, no more feeling like I need to be two places at once. I am where I am and that is it.
I’m actually pretty excited.
If my kid is homeschooled, and I work for myself, where’s the glory in that if I am not able to see it as a huge win and make it work for us, how it needs to work for us? And it turns out it wasn’t hard. All my mentorship clients were onboard and those who have been interested in Human Design readings have scheduled out past September. Seriously, zero resistance.
I’m looking forward to seeing how this pans out. I feel more relaxed just knowing that I won’t be battling with my presence. I’ve also been able to take on an art project I’m feeling pretty excited about, which I wouldn't have done otherwise.
Let the September experiment begin.
I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes, wins, chaos, errors and all.
xxx
LAS
