End of summer sadness
Late August: the Sunday of the Summer. With the flowers fading and the sunshine diminishing comes a tricky seasonal transition, but there are ways of coping with, and even embracing, the August blues.
Technically summer ends in the northern hemisphere (where I live) at the Autumn Equinox - this year that’s Sunday 22nd September, but it’s demise begins gradually weeks beforehand. Some common signs are faded flowers, noticeably earlier sunsets, a drop in temperature (which may rise again for an ‘Indian summer’) the first yellow leaves and the unavoidable mass of ‘back to school’ supplies in the shops.
“August rain: the best of the summer gone, and the new fall not yet born. The odd uneven time.”
Why do we feel sad at the end of August?
The end of summer can drift into awareness gently, in a series of small, loss tinged moments, or suddenly in an unexpected tummy punch of seasonal grief. It doesn’t matter if you actually love Autumn, there is something about this seasonal shift that evokes melancholy and even anxiety in many of us.
What provokes these feelings are of course unique to each individual, but here are 3 common causes:
1.Back To Schoolitis (or the ghost of)
The end of August means the end of the school summer holidays, which can bring a host of emotions - anxiety about the new academic year, sadness at the end of summer freedom, relief at the return of structure, excitement at the fresh start a new season brings…sometimes all these things at once. If you have kids or work in education, these feelings will be more strongly felt, but even if term times aren’t relevant in your life, the association of this time of year will always be to the end of the holidays.
Reflection: what did ‘back to school’ mean to you as a child?
2. Endings are hard
It’s normal to find endings and transitions unsettling. The sensory signs of summer ending can connect us with existential thoughts - sometimes just subconsciously - about endings in general, and those who feel end of summer sadness more keenly are often those who are deep thinkers, empaths or familiar with grief.
Time moving forward can be painful if you are bereaved as it can feel like moving away from a departed loved one, creating another wave of loss to crash over you.
“One evening in August, you have an errand outdoors, and all of a sudden, it’s pitch-black. It is still summer, but the summer is no longer alive.”
Just like the sight of new buds in the Spring brings us hope and a sense of renewal, the curling leaves and browning petals of Autumn also remind us of the natural cycle of birth and death. When we look at it this way, sadness is perhaps inevitable. Though, as I explain shortly, this doesn’t have to be depressing or unbearable.
3. Missed opportunities
As a therapist, I’ve had many conversations with people about fear of dying. As mentioned above, August blues can be a milder version of this fear and so I’ll share with you one of things I talk about with clients bothered by this existential worry: fear of dying is heightened when we know, at least on some level, that we are not living fully.
How this applies here is that getting in a funk about the end of summer is going to be more likely, or felt more deeply, when you feel that summer has passed you by without being made the most of. This might be about your circumstances - finances, location, situation etc - preventing you from doing what you’d really like to, or it might be that your expectations of what the ‘perfect’ summer should be were too high, and you’re disappointed as a consequence. Or, maybe you’ve been living on autopilot and the realisation that summer is nearly over is the wake up call you needed to start living more intentionally. Whatever the reason, the feeling that the opportunity for a ‘good summer’ is slipping between your fingers can be upsetting.
How to manage your feelings
Here are 3 ways to support yourself through the Summer to Autumn transition
1.Face the fall
We have a tendency to avoid our difficult feelings (more on this here), which is understandable but also unhelpful, especially with something as inevitable as the change of seasons. So, allow yourself to feel what you feel in order to allow that energy to move through you; a helpful mantra for this is ‘this too shall pass’.
Hopefully reading this blog post has helped you understand why you have these emotions and that often makes it easier to allow them to be there. Know that your feelings make sense and you are not alone in having them. In researching this post I found some great quotes from books, films and poems about this evocative time of year, you can browse them yourself here.
I love these words from author Katherine May on her Instagram feed: “tend to the dying summer” and that is exactly what I suggest you do: break out of avoidance and actively turn towards the subtle hints of autumn that trigger your sadness. Tip no3 will help you with this.
2. Compassion over comparison
The word ‘should’ is a swear word in my therapy room - it’s often the calling card of the inner critic, imposter syndrome, perfectionism or comparison. If you find yourself in a shouda woulda coulda state about summer, regretting how you spent your time or comparing your summer to other people’s, please make an effort to stop this line of thinking as it’s causing damage.
Therapy is the place to unpack your personal story around this, but if you’re feeling sad because you think that your summer wasn’t “good enough”, ask yourself:
what nice things DID I experience this summer? The natural negativity bias of our brains makes us focus on what’s wrong, but we can override this by consciously recalling our happy memories and practicing gratitude for all that we DO have. Maybe get some photos of your holiday printed, or journal about your favourite experiences - big or small - of the summer.
are my expectations realistic? Maybe you didn’t have the perfect “beach body” (what a load of sh*te that concept is anyway), go abroad or take a whole month off work like Susan from accounts but that’s probably because that just isn’t available to you at this moment in time. It’s very easy to get into an ‘everyone has it better than me’ mindset but this sort of comparison isn’t accurate or helpful. It’s likely that you did the best you could with what you had at the time and that your summer will have been similar to lots of other people’s. Sometimes life is just mediocre and that’s OK. The good thing about summer is that there will be another one next year.
3. Connect with seasonal rituals
Embracing this seasonal transition helps us accept, inhabit and enjoy this liminal time. Not many generations ago we lived more in rhythm with the seasons than we do now and end of summer sadness is just one of many ways our disconnection from nature is felt. Practicing seasonal activities and rituals helps give meaning to each time of year. This is harvest time; gathering crops and preparing them to be eaten or stored. Here’s some ideas for how you can ‘tend to the dying summer’ with gratitude:
Seasonal baking - the Celts celebrated Lammas - loaf mass - in August by baking bread with the freshly harvested grain and sharing with their community. If bread isn’t your thing then now is the perfect time for a plum pudding or apple crumble. You can find out what else is in season here.
Go foraging for seasonal goodies like blackberries, which are abundant, tasty and easy to identify, or elderberries to make some delicious and nutritious treats.
Decorate your home with dried flowers from your garden or take a walk in a meadow and collect some grasses. I’m planning to make a dried hydrangea wreath for my front door - if it turns out OK you’ll see it on my instagram soon!
The changing of the seasons reminds us that nothing last forever, ourselves included, and this is difficult but also beautiful; if we let ourselves feel it, the end of summer teaches us to hold the things we love lightly so that we can both enjoy them and let them go.
I hope reading this blog has helped you consider how to mindfully move through this seasonal shift. If you would like more support with this you’d be welcome at my Changing Seasons mini retreat on the Autumn Equinox, you can find the details here.
“It is the glistening autumnal side of summer. I feel a cool vein in the breeze, which braces my thought, and I pass with pleasure over sheltered and sunny portions of the sand where the summer’s heat is undiminished, and I realize what a friend I am losing.”
