September: A Season of Change 

Dear Ones,  

I am grateful for this opportunity to address you — the broader CTI community — for the very first time. A warm hello to each and every one of you! If our paths have not yet crossed, my name is Jaron, and I lead CTI’s content team, charged with holding and evolving the learning we lead in the world.   

As I sat down to write this note less than a month before the autumnal equinox (for those of us in the Northern Hemisphere), I had planned on writing about the changing of the seasons. I had quotes from Emily Brontë and Green Day all selected to highlight the impact seasons have on our collective consciousness. I promise it would have been great. But it’s currently 86 degrees Fahrenheit here in California, there’s a “heat dome” extended over much of Europe, and even places like southern Africa and South America (where it’s supposed to be winter) are experiencing record-high temperatures. With all of this heat in the world, writing about autumn approaching just didn’t feel appropriate.   

At CTI, we hold that the cornerstone Dance in This Moment supports our leadership both inside and outside the coaching relationship. Dancing in this moment teaches me to be with what’s in this moment. And in this moment. And in this moment. So, I’m going to lean into that cornerstone and write what’s here now. Heat wave, be my co-leader!  

I believe we are in a season of change.   

It may not be the changing of the seasons as we have known it for much of our lives, but change is occurring all around us. This is not a novel concept, but it is one that we conveniently seem to forget as a species. And we do so because change is rarely easy. Our brains collapse the concepts of stability and consistency with safety. It’s human nature to want to distance ourselves from change, given that it has brought forth a lot of pain to many of us throughout our lifetimes. I think it’s safe to say that we all have complex and complicated relationships with change.   

But change doesn’t seem to be going away, does it? If anything, change seems to be speeding up. Forbes says we’re experiencing an “unprecedented pace of change.” Harvard Business Review says this is the “era of exponential change.” Climate, technology, politics, and economics all seem to be moving at a pace that defies logic. Winter, spring, summer, or fall — this truly is a season of change.  

There is a saying that has been shared at tea ceremonies throughout Japan for hundreds of years: Ichigo Ichie. It was shared with me as meaning “this moment will never come again.” This cup of tea will never come again. Sure, there will be others — hotter, colder, sweeter, more bitter — but this cup of tea will never come again.  

Thinking about all this change takes my breath away. But what if accepting change were as simple as accepting that this cup of tea will never come again? This breath will never come again. And what if each breath reminded us of the importance of this moment. And this moment. And this moment.  

Breathing into change will not solve the climate crisis. Breathing into change will not fix divisive global politics. But what if breathing through change helped us get present with its presence in this moment of our lives?  

What if, rather than running from this season of change, we choose to Dance in This Moment?   

See what I did there? Less running. More dancing. Put down the tea, and cue the music!  

Always yours,  
Jaron Vesely