Spring the season of Wood

Spring is the season of the Wood element in Chinese medicine.

There’s something about this time of year that naturally makes us want to get moving again. The days are getting longer, the sun starts to feel warmer and everything outside seems to be waking up.

It can bring a real sense of optimism. Maybe you've got an idea you've been thinking about, something you want to change, or simply a feeling that you're ready to move forward.

However, having a direction doesn't always mean knowing exactly how you're going to get there. One of the things I like about the Wood element is that it combines vision with flexibility. A tree grows towards the light, but it doesn't grow in a perfectly straight line. Neither do we.

We come up against obstacles. Sometimes we need to work with them. Sometimes they show us where we're getting frustrated or stuck. Sometimes we need to find another way around. And sometimes the answer is to change direction completely.

A plant doesn't keep pushing against something that is stopping it from growing. It adapts, bends, grows around it or, if the conditions really aren't right, it puts down roots somewhere else.

There’s something useful in that idea when we’re feeling stuck. Perhaps the question isn't always: How do I push through this?

Maybe it's: What is this situation asking me to change?

It might be a boundary that needs strengthening. It might be an old plan that no longer fits. Or it might simply be a reminder that there’s more than one way forward. Being flexible doesn't mean giving up on what we want. Sometimes it’s what allows us to keep moving towards it.

Spring is a good time to reconnect with our own sense of direction — our ideas, our hopes, our creativity and the things that make us feel alive.

And sometimes, when we stop insisting that there is only one way things can look, we notice another possibility that we hadn't seen before.

It might have been there all along. We just needed to look a little wider.