The trees sense when it is time to rest, to go dormant, and patiently await the arrival of spring. There is no striving to make the fall linger. There is no demand to wait, as though there was more to do before winter’s arrival. There was simply preparation, acceptance, and stillness. Waiting wordlessly for the arrival of spring. Can we learn something about patience, and stillness, and finding serenity in the peaceful passing of time?

The saying, hope springs eternal, is from Alexander Pope’s (1688-1744) poem, Essay on Man. The full poem communicates Pope’s view that while people are naturally uneasy, unsure, and uncertain, hope appears in the most unlikely of places, rising unexpectedly like a spring rising up from the earth in surprising locations. Great rivers often begin humbly as a modest spring, gurgling to the surface of the land, and beginning their flowing journey to the sea. Like the delicate maple blossoms captured above, my focus in this blog post offers a different view of the word spring. Living in Minnesota, our winter, the season where much of my world is frozen beneath a sparkling blanket of white, spring brings the great thaw. Ice becomes water. Solid gives way to flow. And out of this flow state emerge the signs of the blooming of new life - buds, shoots, and sprouts, in all shapes, sizes, and colors, each representing the blooming of new opportunities for the various expression of life’s possibilities.

Informal conversations with professional colleagues I’ve had for many years appear to agree: for most of the clients we’ve seen, their pasts are believed to over-determine their futures. In other words, most clients - and people, in general - tend to believe that the best predictor of their future lives involves what has happened to them in their past. I was neglected, so I will be neglected in the future. I have had digestive system pain, so I will continue to have it going forward. I was divorced, so I will continue to struggle to establish durable intimacy in the future. I was abused, so I will most likely be victimized again in the future.

This blog deconstructs this myth and offers a different path forward.

While I may complain about the bitter cold of winter, the truth is that I love Minnesota’s four seasons. One of the most endearing qualities of the seasons involving the transition from winter to spring. Throughout the long winter months, stillness and silence often reigned supreme. A blanket of snow and ice covered the land and lakes. When in nature in the winter, I often had to patient sit and wait before signs of life - a bird, a rabbit in a white winter parka, the occasional deer - appears.

Now, as spring approaches, the silence and stillness are giving way to both movement and a cacophony of sound. With the thaw, the quality of movement returns to the landscape, even as the burst of spring’s colors is still weeks away.

Looking back, viewing health as a process of integrating mind, brain, body, and social connections may have been inevitable. As the son of a neurologist and a teacher, I learned early on that while the physical brain was endlessly fascinating, the mind - the name for our capacity for conscious awareness, focused attention, intention, and choice - is where we “live” each day. Mind is what describes our self-conscious “I”. Without mind, there is only tissue. Mind is necessary to animate us and fully become who we are.

It all begins with an idea.

On a recent trip (October 2020) to the Boundary Waters of northern Minnesota that hugs the border with Canada, I witnessed winter arrive. The new season arrived stealthily, with little warning beyond a change in the skies color and the cold breath of winter on the air. Winter was not “scheduled” to arrive until December 21. That is the winter solstice. It is the shortest day of the year and, according to astronomical calculations, is the official start to the winter season.

I was impressed with how little regard the Boundary Waters had for the astronomical calendar. When the time was right, winter arrived. The clouds covered the sun, dropping the predicted temperature by 10-15 degrees. The wind changed direction. Just like the Banks’ children in Mary Poppins, the change in the wind meant something different was brewing. And that something different was a fresh blanket of snow that silently floated down while painting the aspens, birches, pines, cedars, and spruces with a layer of white.

It all begins with an idea.