Every year I go kicking and screaming into fall….not because I don’t love fall….I do. Fall in New England is a magnificent thing to behold. It’s just that I LOVE summer and all that it encompasses. There’s nothing better than the lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer…..warm sun on your skin, sitting on a beach letting the waves wash all your cares away, backyard barbecues, festivals, fireworks……I could go on and on. So each year as the dog days of August tick away, I throw myself into draining every last drop out of my favorite season before September comes. I know that soon our outdoor lifestyle will cease, we will lose the daylight earlier, need to turn the heat on and live many more grey days isolated indoors.

While I have often said that if New England had one more month of summer and one less of winter, it would truly be the perfect place to live, I know that unless I move I don’t have much hope of getting the endless summer I which I dream. There is no sense letting the inevitable depress and paralyze you. We each have responsibility for the way we choose to think, feel and react to the stimuli around us. So….here’s a mental game I play with myself that you too can use to turn those negatives in your life into positives. Using summer as an example, when I am bemoaning the cooler air and shorter days, I diligently remind myself of all the things I love about fall…..the scents of Macintosh apples and spiced pumpkin, warm comfort foods like savory pork roast, crisps and butternut squash soup, the rainbow of brilliant leaves, apple cider, craft fairs, fires, etc. By consciously remembering all the good things about what I am not necessarily looking forward to, I am able to turn my thinking to more pleasant expectations. I find this is a far better strategy than climbing under the covers and refusing to come out until the next summer.

 We are the masters of our mental thought processes. No one, including ourselves, can make us feel anything we refuse to accept. This is the power of positive perceptions. I hope you will give my exercise a try the next time you are dreading something…..and do let me know how it works!

 This year’s beautiful, warm fall was a gift that my summer soul is particularly thankful for. Now I just need to work on mentally embracing the fact that Christmas is only a month away…..whoa! Where does the time go?