Instead of Fall, It's Cocooning Season for Me

By Erica Ogden | Set Apart Coaching

Fall is my favorite time of year, hands down. Always has been.

I decorate my house in August, yep, I'm her. Here's my reasoning... High school football starts in August. College fall semesters start in August. College football starts, so as far as I'm concerned, fall starts in August too... even if the autumnal equinox doesn't officially arrive until September 22nd. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

It's kinda like how some people put up their Christmas tree in November (I am one of those people too).

I just want to sit in the ambience of it. The amber hues mixed in with the mustard yellows. The smell of spice and pumpkin in the air. The talk of harvests, football, firepits, sweatshirts, and cooler evenings... even though here in Florida, the sweatshirt is mostly aspirational.

Something about it reaches all the way down into my core. I have always been, and will always be, a fall girl. (Don't worry, Christmas and winter, I love you too. Fall just has my whole heart.)

But this year, I'm being honest with you... my heart isn't where it usually is in September. Not at all.

September actually marks one year since a really hard season of my life began. A year ago, this was all brand new to me, and I was grasping at everything I could find to try to fix it and make it stop. There were pressures and struggles and challenges hitting me on so many different levels at once.

And here I am, a year later. Some things have changed. Some things have not. I have developed thicker skin in places. In other places, I wonder whether my heart has simply become harder from carrying what it has carried for so long. I have prayed. I have processed. I have tried to understand. I have tried to help, fix, protect, prevent, encourage, and hold things together.

Eventually, the emotional weight of being the one who continually sees what could happen, and feels responsible for keeping it from happening, just becomes all-consuming.

I would love to tell you that God performed one sweeping miracle over the past twelve months and that the testimony is now pouring from my eyes and mouth, something I can shout from the rooftops.

But that would not be honest. And so, this past August, I found myself entering into something I've started calling a cocooning season.

I did not have the energy to keep reaching outward. Instead, I felt myself being drawn inward. I began cocooning.

What I mean by "cocooning"

If you're not familiar with the term, cocooning is a phrase used in the mental health world to describe a period of intentional withdrawal, a pulling back from external stimulation, obligations, and even relationships in order to rest, process, and heal.

At its healthiest, it's not hiding or avoidance.

Think of it the way a caterpillar retreats into a cocoon before it becomes something new. It's not stuck in there. It's transforming. The outside world doesn't get to see the process, but that doesn't mean the process isn't happening.

For me, cocooning has looked like pulling back from a lot of things and going inward.

And I'll be honest, it hasn't been received well by everyone. I've had friends feel like I'm blowing them off, ignoring them, or that I don't care about them, even after I've explained my reasoning.

And here's what I've learned, maybe more than anything else: people are naturally a little self-focused, so when you tell them you're overstimulated, they often respond by... stimulating you more.

More check-ins. More requests. More "just wanted to see how you're doing."

Which is so nice... please hear my heart. I know it comes from love.

But love that doesn't listen to the space someone is asking for isn't landing the way it's meant to.

Sometimes love sounds like: "I hear you. Take the space you need. You do not have to take care of me and make sure I feel okay while you are trying to take care of yourself."

That kind of love does not make another person's pain about us. It does not demand that someone who is already emotionally exhausted expend more energy proving that we are not the problem. It simply leaves the porch light on without pounding on the door.

But if I'm being fully honest with you, the withdrawal didn't stop at my friendships. As part of my cocooning season, I pulled inside of myself instead of talking to Him. And that's the part I'm least proud of, because I know better. I know where the real help comes from. But sometimes when the ache is deep enough, even the safest place to run feels like one more place we don't have the energy to reach.

When hope feels hard to find

I believe hope is crucial for survival. Proverbs 13:12 says hope deferred makes the heart sick, and that's exactly where my heart was.

And if I'm honest with myself about why this season has been so hard, it's because there are a few different situations in my life where I've lost hope for how they're going to turn out. I think one of the things I've realized is that I was struggling so hard to prevent and protect myself because knowing what God had allowed in my past was making me scared to trust Him with my future.

That is difficult for me to admit.

I am a coach. I help women see what they cannot see. I hear what they cannot yet hear. I encourage them, love them, lift them, and call them forward. I am good at helping other people find hope.

I know what it feels like to need someone to believe in you, so I have made it part of my life to be that person for others. And sometimes those of us who are always the giver need someone to be that "us" in our life, and don't have one. Sometimes we become so focused on serving, encouraging, and caring for everyone else that we lose touch with what we need, or we need someone to lift our arms, but our circle is so used to us being that for them, they can't offer it back to us. And we feel lonely.

We keep pouring because we know how painful it is to feel empty. We keep showing up because we remember what it felt like when someone did not show up for us. We keep trying to save other people from painful outcomes because we can already see where their choices may lead.

But there is an emotional cost to continually trying to protect people from situations we cannot control, especially when the person does not want to change.

Lysa TerKeurst's new book, Making Peace with What I Can't Control, has met me right where I am this season. It's about so much more than releasing our grip on the people or outcomes we're desperate to fix. At its heart, it's about making peace with everything we can't control, and making space for the wonder of God, for the things we will never fully understand this side of heaven. There is a kind of freedom in surrendering to a God who sees what we cannot, and choosing to trust Him even when He doesn't explain Himself.

Her book releases on September 15, and if this is a place where you struggle too, I highly recommend reading it.

I am learning that there is a difference between offering wisdom and believing it is my job to make someone receive it. There is a difference between being responsible to people and assuming responsibility for them.

That line can become painfully blurry when you love deeply.

Sometimes God draws us away

Withdrawal is often treated as though it must always be unhealthy. Sometimes it is. But sometimes the Lord draws us away from the noise because the noise has become louder than His voice.

Jesus Himself withdrew from crowds to pray. He did not remain endlessly accessible simply because people wanted something from Him.

Sometimes God invites us to step back from the world, not because He wants us to stop loving people, but because He wants to remind us that we are not the ones holding everything together.

Cocooning can become a place of surrender. It is an opportunity to detach from the constant stimulation, expectations, opinions, notifications, and obligations that pull our attention away from what matters most, and from the One who matters most.

It is a place to ask:

What am I carrying that God never asked me to carry? Where have I confused love with responsibility? What am I trying to force because I am afraid of what will happen if I let go? What do I need right now? What is God showing me here? What am I leaning on instead of the Lord?

I find myself entering this cocooning season because I need space for inward reflection. I need healing. I need to listen. And I need to figure out where I go from here because there are situations in my life where I genuinely feel lost.

I do not have a polished answer yet for you all... and maybe I am not supposed to.

Your brain may resist what it has never experienced

As women, we are constantly changing. Hormones change us. Age changes us. Relationships change us. Grief, disappointment, motherhood, marriage, business, success, failure, and all the life we have lived change us. We are continually becoming.

We often call these periods "seasons," but when I think of seasons, I think of four predictable categories that arrive in a familiar order. Life is not always that tidy. Sometimes we enter a situation we have never experienced before, and there is no familiar category for it.

From a neurological perspective, unfamiliarity can feel threatening to the brain. The brain is constantly attempting to predict what will happen next so it can protect us. When it cannot rely on a familiar pattern, uncertainty can activate our stress response. Our instinct may be to resist, fix, escape, or return to what feels familiar, even when what is familiar is no longer supportive.

But unfamiliar does not automatically mean unsafe. Sometimes unfamiliar means we are standing at the edge of change. Sometimes we need to stop forcing ourselves to function exactly as we always have and become curious about what this new situation requires from us.

You are allowed to pull back

You are allowed to acknowledge that the season outside your window does not match what is happening inside your heart. You are allowed to go inward. You are allowed to pull back. You are allowed to become less available. You are allowed to stop posting on social media for a month, or three months, even if your business depends on social media. You are allowed to stop explaining yourself to people who are committed to misunderstanding your need for space. You are allowed to rest without first completing everything on your list. You are allowed to grieve what has not changed. And you are allowed to release what was never within your control.

Not everything depends on you. That may be one of the most beautiful invitations cocooning offers us.

A cocoon is not a place where nothing is happening. It is a place where transformation is happening beyond what can be seen from the outside. It is quiet. It is hidden. It is contained. And it cannot be rushed.

Perhaps this is not the fall when everything finally falls into place. Perhaps this is the fall when you loosen your grip. Perhaps this is the fall when you stop trying to carry everyone else into transformation and allow God to begin something quieter within you.

I do not know exactly what will emerge from this time. I only know that I am giving myself permission to enter it.

And if you find yourself needing the same thing, I hope you will give yourself permission too.

Thank you, my sweet friends, for taking time to read my thoughts each month. It would bless my heart if you ever want to reply back to these emails and let me know if they resonate with you or speak to you. Or if there is ever a topic you'd love for me to write on, I would love to know. And please share this with someone you think may benefit from it.

I love you, dear sister. Happy fall.

Erica Ogden

Certified Neuro Coach | Set Apart Coaching

If this resonated and you know you're ready to do the deeper work when the season shifts, I'd love to be in your corner. Learn more at ericaogden.com/