What Season is Your Relationship In?

Jason Lange: Violet Lange: Hello, everyone. It's Violet and Jason. We are so excited to dive deeper with you on your coupledom and asking some questions today about what season is your relationship in? Because contrary to popular belief, relationship is not always sunny and not always easy. But there are lessons in each of the seasons in our relationship. And each aspect of our relationship can be in a different season as well.

Violet Lange: And this episode you can think of a little bit as like a diagnostic. And I think oftentimes because we spend time together as a couple, we think that we're working on the relationship and, and instead we're just kind of inhabiting or living in the relationship. And they talk about this in business and entrepreneurialism all the time. That as you go along and become more seasoned as a manager or an executive or an entrepreneur, you're expected to spend more and more of your time working on the business versus in the business. And I would like us to think about our relationships in that way too. Maybe in the beginning you would just be in the relationship and not really working on the relationship because you still had those sexy hormones flowing and there was a lot of passion and mystery. Because you're getting to know each other, and you probably weren't living together. You probably weren't dealing with things like kids in laws, you know, shared financial stress, all of that. And so as our relationship progresses, similar to as we season in our professional lives, we need to spend more time on the relationship, which simply means just getting tools, support, community guidance, new perspectives about how to make our relationship thrive. And unfortunately, a lot of us don't spend more than maybe an hour a month, sometimes two hours. Or the time that we do spend on our relationship is maybe like, oh, we're gonna, you know, go to the movies or go out for a drink. And that can be nice to relieve stress or connect a little bit. But it's not really the depth that will help your relationship thrive through some of these seasons that we're gonna be talking about, like, winter and. And fall. So anything else before we dive right.

Jason Lange: In, Point being, it takes some intention. That's what we're talking about, right? Working. Putting some attention on the relationship, rather than just being in it, is the reality that sometimes things won't get better or shift unless we put the time and energy in. Sometimes our connection won't build, sometimes our communication won't build unless we're really putting our attention on that. And it's very easy to not and just kind of coast by and get stuck in some of these seasons for a long time. So just know that it does take some effort. It doesn't have to feel like a ton of work all the time, but it does take some effort and intentionality.

Violet Lange: So with that being said, let's start with spring. As I alluded to earlier, usually a relationship kind of starts in the sense of spring. Like, lots of parts, possibility, maybe a little bit messy and muddy sometimes. And days where you're like, oh, everything's glorious, you know, and then days where you're like, oh, I don't know, I haven't heard from them in a few days. Like, are we still doing this thing? And so there's the starts and stops that we sometimes see in early spring as well. And the benefit of this season is that there's so much possibility you're in, like, a new start. And this could be. You could be in a relationship for decades and feel a sense of spring, a sense of newness when you move into a different city or one of you gets a different job, or even on the very simplest level, like, whenever you get a haircut or, you know, makes a change in your health, it's like, oh, something's different here. This is kind of exciting. This is new. The pitfall of spring is that two things. One, we want to kind of hold on to it forever. Two, we think it's more static than it really is. We think like, oh, it was an 80 degree day. So therefore it's just gonna be nice for the rest of the year. And if you've lived anywhere other than like San Diego, you probably realize that an 80 degree day could be followed by a 50 degree rainy, muddy day. So just because there's all this potential doesn't actually mean there's a lot of mastery yet or a lot of depth yet. Um, and so just as we go through the seasons, think about like, oh, yeah, our relationship feels like it's in this season, or this aspect of our relationship feels like it's in this season. I would even say that our. Our sex life is a little bit like in spring now. It's like, okay, you know, we've had a baby, but he's not a newborn anymore. Kind of rediscovering our passion. We have a babysitter. Things we haven't, we didn't really do with our first child. And so to me, there is this kind of like newness and then sometimes awkwardness, but also excitement. And I don't know how you feel about what part of our relationship feels like it might be in spring.

Jason Lange: Yeah, I mean, I would say spring. Another way to think about it too, in any relationship, whether it's. Obviously every relationship starts as spring, right? Because it's new and things are growing and building is really the word I'd kind of associate with spring in a large way. It's like things aren't done yet. There's a lot of anticipation, but you can see things moving. You can feel things moving. You can feel things growing. There's a lot of possibility. You don't really know what it's going to quite land and look like yet. Right. It's like, okay, the plants are sprouting, but what are they going to grow into? What's the exact shape? We don't know necessarily yet. So spring has a lot of that kind of fresh energy. We're talking about that. Relationships always do when you begin. We've talked about this before. They have a lot of polarity. There's a lot of difference. There's a lot of novelty, There's a lot of intention in terms of the time you're spending with each other. Not a whole lot's usually on autopilot in. In that season of a. A new relationship. But like she said, you can have spring in long term relationships as well, through big changes or transitions or trying new things, whether that's in the practicalities of where you're living and how you're living, what's going on inside your relationship, different jobs, health, you name it.

Violet Lange: Right.

Jason Lange: It's all possible. And yeah, you know, I'd say for us, we're approaching a spring in that, you know, over the last couple years, we had things we were moving towards very clearly in terms of bringing another child into the world, moving, settling into a house. And that's really settling now. Right. We're not necessarily in that building phase anymore.

Violet Lange: And.

Jason Lange: And that is starting to free up some other kinds of energy, including space for us to reconnect romantically on date night, sexually, etc. And, you know, I would say even our work together is in a lot of ways in spring. Violet and I have done a lot of work independently where I've mostly been working with men, she's mostly been working with women. We've done a few things together, but now that's really starting to blossom in a different way as well, which is exciting.

Violet Lange: Yeah. So then we move into the season of summer, and this is fruiting. Right. Like, this is where not only are there plants, but the plants are growing fruits and there's bees buzzing and it's a time of fullness. So maybe you've kind of worked through some of those messy moments and now you're in what they would call like the honeymoon phase. Okay. Things are just really clicking. Like, I'm so in love with you, and we're really making something out of this. And whether that means, like, you're making an official commitment or you're planning a wedding or you're committing to something, like Jason said with our house or with having another baby, it's a time of. My herbology teacher always says, like, the days are long, there's a lot of sunlight, and that means both a lot of enjoyment and pleasure and enjoying the fruits of your labor. But it also means you got to pull some weeds. Right. Like, you have to still be mindful of. Oh, yeah, that resentment cropped up and I could hold on to that. But if I do, like, I don't want it to create distance or hardness in my body. I'm going to presence that resentment. So there's still kind of weekly or regular things that are really important to do to sustain that season of summer. Jason mentioned earlier. Like, just because you're in a certain season doesn't mean it can't shift and pulling weeds, you know, clearing resentments and making time for your own personal practice. Like for me, it's yoni eggs or self pleasure or hanging out with my girlfriends and, you know, getting held emotionally. So I don't put all of that on my partner. We don't become codependent. Those are just some like, maintenance things that happen during summer that don't take actually like a lot of time. But if you haven't both gone through some of the ups and downs in the spring season and in the early stages, and if you haven't put some of that work on the relationship versus in the relationship, you might miss out on some of these really simple kind of rituals or routines that can keep your relationship thriving. The same way that routine can help our garden to thrive in the season of summer.

Jason Lange: Yeah, summer, right. It's a time of heat. It's just warmer. There tends to be more abundance. Things are just flowing, blossoming, fruiting, et cetera. And it's kind of, you know, when the good times roll, in some sense, there's less worry, I would say. And it does take some maintenance. But in some ways things are just growing, right? Things are going the way that we want them to. Oftentimes in summertime there's less things we have to think about. There also tends to be, you know, obviously it's different around the world, but in terms of the reality, less variance. It's like, okay, the weather's kind of just like this. It's mostly nice, right? It's not going to be a huge drop overnight to that kind of thing. It might get a little warm, a little hot. But hey, you can always take layers off, right? That's one of the easy things about summer that's a little different. And the idea, you know, is we're doing work over the summer, but we're not doing heavy, heavy work, right? In terms of like the processing, I would say everything's already been planted right now. It's just blooming now. It's kind of a maintenance doing. And we're not yet harvesting either, so we haven't begun that huge labor of kind of taking all that back from the earth. So summer, you know, in some sense, oftentimes it is kind of a season where there's maybe a little less.

Violet Lange: We.

Jason Lange: We have a lot more time and energy to be in the experiences. Like, okay, this is great, let's do it. We're going to go on that adventure. We're going to do that thing. There's more time together throughout the day just because there's more sun, right? So there's a lot of vitality and experience, I think, available in summer. And this is just when the good times roll, right? I think the. The season of summer, whether it's a new relationship or whether you're cycled there, in any part of your relationship, it's when things are kind of just working, right? Things are working, you're making progress, but the engine is just kind of running, and it's running really well. The connection's there, and. And it's a easy time to grow pretty accustomed to, right? And just assume, okay, it's going to be summer forever, right? This is awesome. This is everything I ever wanted. Or, I can't believe we finally got here after all this. Now it's just easy, right? We fix this or we heal this thing or whatever that might be, can sometimes be the, I think the trick of summer lulling us into, oh, wait, it can't be this way always, can it? And then we kind of gotta remember, wait, there is gonna be another season.

Jason Lange: Falls that time where we start to slow down. Right? That's the main thing. Things start to slow down and we kind of start to reflect on the summer and spring. Okay. We put all this time and energy to these different things. Now where's it going? Right. It's a time of transitions, I would say. And it's a big one in that it can be bittersweet.

Violet Lange: Right.

Jason Lange: We can feel the warmth, the ease, going to be changing, the environment changes. And like, in our family, a time we had that. We've had that a couple times right before our first child. There's the. There's the kind of autumn of, oh, us is just a unit where it's just us, where you can go off and do whatever you want at any time kind of thing. There was an autumn to that.

Violet Lange: Right.

Jason Lange: There was a letting go of that.

Violet Lange: We.

Jason Lange: We had to kind of grieve and enjoy, you know, at the same time. And then even once we had one kid before our second child came, there was a precious couple of months where it's like, wow, this is the last time it's going to be this family unit of just us three. So what does it mean to appreciate and enjoy this and in some sense grieve that it's going to be different, not that it's going to be worse, it's just going to be different. Oftentimes, that's all fall really kind of means. And It's a time often of great beauty as well, right? As things do start to transition and let go. But the point is we start to slow down and become a little bit more reflective often of, you know, what worked. Right. It's a time to kind of look back, hey, what was really great there. And you know, okay, maybe there's some different things we could do next spring to, you know, line things up. But. But it's often a time of, you know, I would say kind of bittersweetness in a sense of that transition of appreciating what worked and realizing, okay, this can't end forever or last forever and every relationship is going to have cycles of this. And knowing that, okay, winter, it's near, things are going to be different now and we're going to have to move differently and the days aren't going to be as long as and our energy use is going to change. And I think that's a big thing a lot of couples experience as well of just, okay, there's been a certain way we've been in the world. And fall kind of marks the transition of we're going to have to move in a different way now, right? There's just a different type of awareness that's going to need to come in our relationship. Whether that's the long term season of, okay, we're a couple, that's. We've been in it, right? We've been in it long enough that we're past just the summer, right? It's not just building energy. Go, go, go. Hot, hot, hot, sexy, sexy. It's. There's things we have to let go sometimes too, and fall in this sense, I think can be a big time of, oh, there's even things we're gonna have to let go of in our relationship. There's things we're gonna have to let go in ourselves. There's things we're gonna have to let go of. Expectations maybe we even had for that partner coming in that, okay, they're going to be this. Wait, actually, they're a little different. Okay, right. Again, where a lot of people get hung up is that's suddenly a huge problem versus, okay, I just have to let go of certain things and learn to appreciate the other things that are working.

Violet Lange: And I feel like as a society we're kind of in this fall moment in terms of relationships. Like, what do we want in our romantic lives? And maybe it can't just be paradise all the time or, wow, people do end up getting divorced. I do need to take this part of my life seriously or post Covid like, I don't want to shelter in place again without a beloved or to go through that amount of stress without a support partner in my life. Another cool aspect about fall is that it's the time of year that the plant sends its energy down into the roots. And in the wintertime, which we'll get to in a moment, you know, there's a lot that's happening underground and it's a time of rest and rejuvenation and that process starts in fall. And so you see everything dying on the outside, but it's in order to support new life as the energy goes down. So this is a great time as a couple and as individuals to do things like shadow work. Jason mentioned earlier the importance of reflection, the time of thinking about, you know, the year that's been behind you. So as a couple, if you're having a fall moment or in fall and in terms of a season in a certain aspect of your relationship, it's a good time to send your energy down a little bit. Like down into your bodies, down into your physical connection, even if it doesn't necessarily mean hot, sexy passion. It's like, are we having touch, are we having time for reflection and shared grieving? In some, some ways, like grieving expectations, like you mentioned, grieving things that just aren't. Aren't working as well as we hope that they would. You know, for us, that was, as we've talked about many times, the fertility journey that we were on and, and other things. And I think in a weird way, in our relationship, we were thrust into a big fall moment in 2018, which was the year after we had gotten married and just a few months after we had gotten married was we got married in late 2017. But that post honeymoon phase, you know, summer is kind of like the honeymoon. Fall is like, whoa, reassessing, bringing our energy downward, getting real about things and letting go. And the harvesting that happens especially in early fall and then is celebrated later in the fall is about gathering. So this is also a time of gathering resources like, oh, shit, we are not going to get through the winter if we don't have a coach or a couples therapist. You know, I don't know if we're going to make it to the next season if we don't talk about these blocks to our sex life or these things that are coming up emotionally. So it's getting real, it's getting grounded, it's getting resourced so that you can get through the winter phase without losing your relationship. Or losing your connection to yourself.

Jason Lange: Yeah. Taking stock is another way to think about it. Taking stock of what has been working, what worked during the summer, what didn't work during the summer. And now how do we need to adjust to likely get through a period of, you know, less resource in some capacity? Because before it can be spring again, we do have to move through winter. So if we're going to have less resources available to us, less ease in that sense, okay, it's gonna take a little bit more intention. It's not that things can't work, but, you know, one of the differences between summer and fall in winter, really is how intentional do you have to be, right. In summertime, you can often just kind of walk out the door, right? And you're gonna find stuff, you're gonna find abundance. You're not gonna have to worry about shelter as much. But in the winter, you're gonna have to be a lot more cautious, right? There's not as much abundance around. And hopefully, you know, you've cultivated enough and harvested enough in the fall to get you through that period of. Okay, it's going to be hard right now. So in some sense, something like when we say winter, it doesn't even mean it's like necessarily dark in a bad way. It's just. It's hard right now. We have to pay attention. Our resources are going to be stressed and strained in some ways. So even just having a child is like that, if you've never had one, right. You kind of learn pretty quick. Okay. That first three months is kind of intense. It's crazy, right? The expectation of ease is something you have to let go of. It's. We're not going to have a lot of sleep. We're going to be stressed. A lot's going to be shifting really fast, and we're going to have to manage our time really carefully, right. With this new life in the world. And so it takes a little bit more intention. Now. The beauty is, you know, if you prepare well and invest in each other, getting these resources, harvesting things, setting up your systems, if you've done good building, you can kind of ride through that, right? We've got some stuff in place to help us weather that storm in. In essence, that's really ideally what you're going into winter with. And then in some sense, if you've built the right structure, it's okay to really slow down and get quiet and go inside with each other and not be so out, but be a lot more introspective.

Violet Lange: Right.

Jason Lange: Meaning, you know, for us over the last year it started to change. But you know, when you have a new kid, what's not energized is going out and being with community.

Violet Lange: Right.

Jason Lange: Like being with friends, being investing in relationships. That was in winter for us for a long time and now it's starting to shift out of that like we've talked about and we knew that was coming so it wasn't a problem and we had resources around us. But now it's enjoyable to kind of shift out of that and other things, you know, will come into winter for us at different times where it's like, okay, this thing has really run its course, whatever that might be. And maybe there's just a pause, right? There was a time where our life on the west coast was in winter. It was like, okay, yeah, this just, it's really not the, the season of abundance anymore in a sense. It's like this is coming to a close now. This is the end of it. It's not working here and we're going to need to adjust that kind of thing.

Jason Lange: So winter, yeah, you know, it's something we can learn to make the most of and not just numb out and go on autopilot. Ideally, it's a place to actually rest and restore in the connection with each other and start building that vision that doesn't have to. You don't have to start actually building it yet. But you can start thinking into it, dreaming about it, right? And. And knowing that there'll be a time to hit the gas and start to build again. But right now, let's enjoy what's here and let's just start to feel into what might be next.

Violet Lange: So we would love for you to just be thinking about, maybe even journal about, what season is your relationship in? And which aspects of your relationship are in different seasons? And if you're not listening to this podcast with your partner, which you know most likely or not, forward it to them and see what they think, compare notes. You know, you've been listening and finding out that Jason and I didn't have any of the same answers about what season we thought that our relationship was in and what examples of that. And that's okay, because we're not about trying to get you and your partner to be the exact same. We're about discovery. Like, what can you discover that will enhance your connection? And how can that ripple out to everyone else in your life?

Jason Lange: And just some of these arenas you might want to think about, right, are obviously your physical connection, intimacy, your sex life, your emotional connection. How's that feeling, spiritual connection? If you have one of those, where's community at in your relationship? Are you kind of more of an isolated pod? Are you plugged into other things? If you're a cohabitating couple, you know, where are you at financially? Like, what's the financial season for your family? What's the season of your actual family life with your kids? Like, where are you at with that? There's lots of different ways to kind of track this. And again, you can be in different seasons in different aspects of your relationship, and all it is is a tool to create more awareness, this idea of, okay, what season is this in? What season is this in? And because once we know what season we're in, we can start to really emphasize and put our attention on the gifts of it and know, okay, well, what is this season eventually going to give way to? So how do we start preparing for that as well? That's one of the great useful aspects to doing this kind of audit, in a sense. And, you know, another way you can just think about all of these things, because the. The beauty of seasons and, you know, these bigger, energetic shifts is they're often mirrored in different ways. And we even have it just within the day, right? We have high noon. That's kind of summer. We have the sunset. It's kind of fall. You have the middle of the night. It's dark. That's winter. Then you have spring, the sun is rising, right? Things are starting to warm up. And we go through this cycle every day and then every year. And relationships will often do that too. So a cycle for some things might just be over a couple days and other things be moving at a bigger trajectory as well. So it gets kind of wild to really think about the different ways these energies play, play out. But just knowing that it can't always be summer, right? That's just the simple truth. In any relationship, that doesn't have to be a problem. That can actually be a type of liberation, that, okay, great, we can relax, that it's okay maybe if we're not having as much sex as we used to, it's okay if we're maybe not having as many adventures as we used to because our energy, our resources are somewhere else right now. So this season's here. It's more in fall, winter, and. But there's other things that are, that are really springing into summer, and that's all going to change again at some point anyway. And so it's really just important to have these conversations. And, you know, we're certainly here to help. You can definitely check out our free kind of connection webinar for couples at EvolutionaryCouples US EvolutionOfUs, and you can join any of our programs at EvolutionaryCouples US as well, our evolutionary couples cohorts, or our 12 EPIC dates, which you can just do at home at your own pace.

Violet Lange: Yes, 12 epic dates is kind of perfect for that winter season where you're cozying in, you're dreaming a new dream, you're getting really intentional. And fostering that spiritual connection between the two of you as well is great for wintertime. And our live cohort, Evolutionary Couples, is great also for the fall time where you're like, wow, you know, we need to really reflect on things. We need to retool some things. How's our conflict and repair process going? Or. Or not going? But we also add in a lot of spring and summer type stuff too, because there's a focus on polarity and sexual connection. And if you come to our free webinar Evolution of Us, you will be led through a process where you'll get to do an even kind of deeper cut of diagnostics. And we will support you in some of that fall season, real time or on the replay. And if you come to that, you'll also get a taste of summer because we're going to be doing some embodiment and polarity practices which are going to be really, really fun.

Jason Lange: So definitely check us out. Evolutionarycouples us. If you're interested in working with me around dating, relationships or your masculine presence in the world, just go to Evolutionary men. Apparently.