Restlessness Is Not a Crisis — Navigating Early Spring Energy Without Blowing Up Your Life - Podcast Transcript

You can listen to this full episode here: Listen to Ep 18: Restlessness Is Not a Crisis

If you’ve felt unusually restless, irritable, impulsive, or full of big ideas in early spring — you’re not unstable. You’re activating.

As daylight increases and winter begins to loosen its grip, your nervous system starts to wake up. Energy rises before clarity organizes. That friction can feel like something in your life needs to change immediately.

In this episode of Anchored & Alive, Blaze explores why early spring restlessness is biologically normal, how to avoid common seasonal traps, and how to channel rising energy without making reactive decisions you’ll regret later.

This is a conversation about discernment, micro-commitments, and letting inspiration mature before you act on it.

Hi friends, if you have reorganized your closet, reconsider your entire career and felt inexplicably irritated all before 3 p.m.

Congratulations, it's early spring and we're all in these vibes.

And let's talk about it this week because I think that this kind of rising irritation and restlessness is so common in early spring and we all think that it's coming directly from us and that it's our personal failing or fault in the world.

And I'm here to give you a huge hug and, you know, just cheer you on and say, "Absolutely not. I think this is just part of what it is to be human as the thaw is coming."

So there's a lot of things that are simultaneously happening at this point in March where we're feeling really pent up. We all know what it is to be stir crazy from being stuck inside all winter. And we all really want to get outside and finally start doing things and being out with our friends and clearing everything up and cleaning. And yet we're also simultaneously dealing with a backlog of exhaustion. We didn't get the rest that we needed or we're actually still in that wintering phase. And spring actually isn't here yet. It's almost here.

In a few weeks, but for some reason society and our minds and bodies are playing a little bit of tricks on us, telling us that it's time to get going when actually it's time to just be aware that going is a possibility.

You know it's funny, it's making me think back to Groundhog Day and how we have this whole ritual around deciding whether we actually have more weeks of winter or whether spring is coming or not.

And I think it's hilarious because every single time we're all hoping for an earlier spring.

We all want more daylight. We're all ready. We're ready to get out there. We're ready to have this energy.

And yet, we're also craving just a little bit more time to get whatever we haven't gotten done, done. We want more time to rest and be sleepy and drink all of the tea and coffee and not have to do so much.

So there's a real push and pull in how we feel and what we want and what we think we need and what we think we want.

Well, it can be so messy. So I'm gonna back up a little bit and start talking about what's really going on so that we can kind of soothe ourselves and be okay with the experience that we're having.

Which is, in all honesty, a little bit irritated. So here is what's happening in our bodies. So biologically,

Light exposure is actually increasing now, particularly, I don't know about you, but there's like so much snow that's just been here forever, but that's all reflecting extra light as well. So this light exposure increases the cortisol in our bodies earlier in the day.

Which activates us. And dopamine is ticking upward, and like all of these hormones and brain stuff is happening.

Our body is sensing that there's more movement. We're noticing that people are driving faster. They're cutting us off more.

All of that's happening, but our reserves are still possibly winter low. I know for me...

I'm going to be honest. I never feel like I got enough rest. So even in the middle of the summer, I'll still be like, but naps though. Right now, especially.

If you feel like your energy is depleted or you feel like your hope is a little bit dimmed or you're more irritable than usual, or you feel like you have this sense of clarity about what you want to do next, but you're simultaneously overwhelmed by it.

All of that friction feels like it's a problem, and most of us take it as though it's a problem.

So we think, oh, I have contradictory inputs and feelings. I feel hopeful about the future, but I feel really irritated that it's not here yet.

I feel like I have so much that I want to do, but I don't have the energy to do it.

I have so much insight about what I want to do, but I'm overwhelmed and don't know where to start. What I want to say is that friction isn't actually a problem. It's just a moment in time and it's information.

So it's okay. Here's the thing. Restlessness is activation without having a direction yet.

So it's not that you're failing. It's not actually impatience. It isn't instability.

It's not a sign that you need to blow up something to make everything better. It's actually just a thaw.

And thaws are messy. Think about how gross and disgusting it is outside. I think it's kind of a perfect echo of what's going on internally for us, is that there's been so much coming down on us, and then it iced over, and then it got dirty, and then it snowed some more, and then ice again, and then dust and ash and all these things, there's a lot of debris. Let's call it debris.

All around us. And the urge at this stage is that we want to clean it up.

And there's so much of it, we're not sure how it's going to happen. Here's what I also want to say is look to nature and know that it always does get cleaned up.

And it doesn't really require us doing a ton in order for that to happen.

If we are able to calm ourselves or slow down or move with the cycle that's actually happening.

things are going to clear up and they're going to move with their own energy without us having to use our energy.

So think about the snow when it's out there and it's melting. It may feel like it's taking an exceptionally long time to go away.

But with every day that it warms up, every day that there's extra daylight, it is slowly melting, it is slowly going where it needs to go, and we don't actually have to do anything to make that happen.

It is the same with us and all of the things that we want to push for right now.

I also can say, just through lived experience and my own,

I don't know, it's almost comical when you look back at your life and how often you hit the same exact things.

And suddenly you see the pattern and go, "Why can't I stop doing it?" So I'm there with you.

Every year, I hit this phase and this week, where suddenly I have so many ideas and it's incredible and it's brilliant.

And it's taking like all of that February energy and me wanting to go. Now it's time. It's time to do it all.

and realize that we're actually not that far into the year, and it's okay. And I don't have enough time.

Like, time is actually the limiting factor. It's not even energy so much, although sometimes it is right now.

It's me thinking that just because I had the idea doesn't mean that I have to do it all in one quick week. I have learned that it's okay to trust my inspiration and trust these cycles of creativity and energy as they arise.

And what I've found is more appropriate at this stage of the year for me anyway is channeling all that into a spot where I'm collecting it rather than acting on it just yet. When I'm able to take all of those creative ideas and crystallize them, which is actually like the exact energy that we're in right now,

is having all of those ideas and all the things that we want to do. This is exactly the season of clarity.

Or suddenly you go, "Oh, I have a bigger picture. I understand what I want to let go of from last year or last month or whatever I was starting to do." Suddenly, I understand exactly where I'm going next and what might need to happen.

This is when it's a good time for planning and writing things down and having a container to put it in that doesn't require you to do everything like all of the steps one through 100 today. It's you writing down what those steps might be because you're clear enough to see where you want to go.

And then you can look at it and go, "Okay, now I can see clearly what these next steps might be." And I can see the trajectory and I can start gently moving towards it rather than aggressively moving towards it. So let's talk about the early spring traps that we all fall into.

The first one is overcorrecting. I was just talking about that where you think, "I've been slow and now I need to sprint."

I haven't gotten anything done, but now I have all the ideas so it's time to just run full course towards it.

That really just sets you up to stumble. It sets you up to start really hard and then run out of energy really quickly.

And then freak out a little bit and be right back where you were. So that is the energy that we're in. So I'm just going to point it out. That might be happening. Certainly has happened to me.

The other one is over-committing. So you start to go, "Oh, the light is here. I'm feeling better. Spring is coming."

I must be ready to do all of the things. And this is about the season when suddenly you're invited to everything and you want to say yes to everything.

And lots of opportunities come up and you think, oh, it must be the time to say yes to all of this. Overcommitting right now is going to again set you up to run out of energy before you've even finished gathering it from this season.

So it's okay to look out at the calendar and receive all of these invitations with love and care.

Take a hot minute to decide whether you actually want to do everything right now or not.

You might actually really prefer to slow it the heck down and say, you know what?

I love being invited. I'm so excited about this. Let me get back to you. You might want to practice saying like, I have to take a look at my calendar and see. And it's so awesome when you hit a stage in your life where you can look at your calendar.

or any week or any year and say, "There's a certain level of commitment where I feel like I'm able to do it."

And once I hit a tipping point, I start getting resentful and frustrated and like, I don't have enough wiggle room to do something spontaneous anymore.

That comes through living and lived knowledge so wherever you're at in your life. Trust that. Trust that you've gotten the feedback and you know how actually busy you enjoy and thrive being.

It's okay to feel the urge to do more and question it.

Just right now and say maybe not all the things, maybe most of the things are some of the things, but maybe not all of the things.

All right, so then there's one final trap that happens particularly in this season and it's over-interpreting.

And it's making a lot of meaning out of temporary and fleeting emotions because they tend to be really strong and big at this season.

So if you notice like, oh, I feel irritated all the time and you jump to making meaning out of it, like something must be wrong with my life or my work or my relationship or whatever.

It's okay to look at all of that and go, "Wait, is this actual? Is this real meaningful interpreting?" Or is it me automatically reaching for any way to describe why I might be feeling this way because all of these feelings, like they come on strong and fast?

And often we want to really quickly react to it rather than respond to it.

So here we go. Let's figure out how we can move through this season with a little bit more calm and without making this restlessness that we're all feeling into a crisis.

Because honestly, there's no need to blow up your life. You don't need to redo everything.

But you might want to do some of the things and all of it, you know, wherever you're at is fine. I don't think that any of you are out there going to make like, "Oh no, a terrible mistake. I cut my hair and got a new thing." Like that's fine.

Have fun, hair grows back. This is more about realizing that sometimes

In this season because we have so much energy that's pent up or we just actually feel like we have so much energy and we don't yet. It just feels like so much compared to what we had a few weeks ago.

We want to overuse it. So it is completely normal for you to be in this week wanting change, but not sure what you want that change to be.

Perfectly normal to feel irritable, but at the same time really hopeful and excited about what's coming.

It is actually also completely normal to be fantasizing right now about quitting your job or moving across the country or changing your entire wardrobe or starting over.

It's also completely normal to feel like you're kind of behind on everything you wanted to do, but you're also simultaneously like really motivated about everything that you're about to do and you can't wait.

And it's also normal to have incredibly low patients for everything that you've been tolerating all winter long.

So just seeing gray clouds, super irritated, people driving slow or fast or whatever, super irritated.

Everything super irritating. This doesn't mean that you've outgrown your whole life or that anything is wrong. It just means that your nervous system is really waking up in the season.

And that instantly, I don't know, it just means that your nervous system is thawing.

And when you know that that's what's happening and that all of your systems are coming online, you don't need to have a panic about every new sensation that comes to you.

You just get to experience it and not worry about it so much. What I can tell you is that when I think of my experiences over the last few weeks. I can absolutely see that I spike very quickly in feeling like someone just looks at me funny or I think they're going to talk to me and I'm too tired to talk to them and I have so much in my brain that I want to work on that I don't want to be interrupted with.

I can see it happen in real time. The irritation rise. They're talking to me. I almost have this whole other dialogue going on in the back of my head that part of it is like, "Okay, I'm still thinking about my stuff." And then there's another me that pops up who's like, "Why won't they shut up and leave me alone? Can't they see I'm busy?"

And then there's the other me that's like, "Oh my God, could you just have a moment to really engage with your friend or your partner or anyone and really be present?"

It's fascinating and I have learned that it's okay that I have this experience because it doesn't mean that I'm on compassionate. It doesn't mean that I don't care about the people in my life. It doesn't mean any of that stuff.

It means that I'm in this activation phase and my capacity is really low. It's still low from the winter. I'm still building up the capacity to cope. I guess that's what I would say it's called the capacity to cope.

Mmm. Because the reserves aren't at their highest, and because I haven't yet been able to move on all of the things that I want to do,

Of course I'm irritated, of course I'm distracted, of course it's really difficult for me to try and focus on anyone else's problems and of course

My ability to care about that is just, it's diminished. It's not because I don't want to care.

And I'm saying all of this out loud to share it to say, "Of course you feel that way too sometimes."

And it's normal. So restlessness is feeling like you're mobilized but not really able to do anything with it yet. So in this season of spring, our energy is rising before we have complete clarity on what to do next.

Before we've been able to discern, I guess that's what's missing, is the discernment about what to do next.

And that's okay. The key thing to realize here is that your energy will always move before it organizes.

And that's okay. So if you think of your energy as like, wow, it's really building, this is exciting and it's starting to move before I've been able to give it a direction, before I've been able to organize it, that's okay.

Here's what happens when energy starts moving and we don't expect it or know what to do with it yet. Your brain starts looking for what the problem is. Why are we activating?

Is there a problem? Is there a target? What's the story? We're always going to look for the narrative about what's going on and how to interpret it.

So what it quickly does is default to whatever quick explanation it can find that makes sense to it. So it could land on, "Oh, my relationship must be wrong, or my job must be wrong, or my body must be wrong, or I need to reinvent something."

But usually, the urge to burn everything down is really just the urge to feel that movement or give it an outlet.

What if we took all of the energy that's rising right now and allowed it to exist first, but decided that even just a little bit, we're going to give it a space to express that isn't blowing up anything important to us.

So we're like, "Oh, guess what? Maybe it is time to go to the gym. Not because you want to suddenly become a gym rat, but because the energy you want to move and you need an outlet for it. You might think, "Oh, okay, I actually just need to get outside and walk a little bit more. Maybe I do want to go out shopping and give myself an outlet to gather some new things and give myself a little experience of change, like a new outfit.

New makeup something nice for yourself that can be so soothing and regulating and doesn't require you to think anything about yourself or about the situation that you're in. It just lets you exist.

And I think that's so healing in this season, in this moment, and in this time. Something that's really important to do right now too is think about making micro commitments rather than huge declarations.

So you may actually have something huge that you want to declare, and that's great. But instead of shouting it to the rooftops or acting on it in an irrevocable way, the energy of spring says,

Let's plant a seed and see how it does. We're going to do a micro commitment. Let's explore this for a couple of weeks.

Let's think about this for a little bit. So think about any desire that you have right now as an early shoot. Like if you were in a garden, it's like just a little baby growth and it's fragile. And you don't need to build a greenhouse around every single sprout that comes up in your life.

What you want to do is plant a few seeds and then observe what can survive a few cold nights.

This is allowing yourself to be with yourself. Give yourself a chance for expression.

But without thinking that every little decision you make means something very deep about you,

But it is allowing you to express yourself and get that movement in.

Here we are. So here's where I want to leave us is to say, next week is daylight savings. It's another reason that we're all a little bit irritated and excited simultaneously, but also like, ah.

We're going to discuss next week what happens when we kind of artificially accelerate this whole transition through spring.

Because it's painful and I don't think any of us really like it but we're all going to have to go through it anyway.

So truly, I'm sending you all huge hugs and I'm with you in this energy. I'm feeling it. You can hear it in my voice. I find it so fascinating as I listen back to some of the episodes that I record, how different I sound in the different seasons. So in the fall and the winter, I was so chill and we were talking about stuff and now that we're hitting spring energy, I feel sharper and more focused and more intense. It gets better from here, you guys, like you also are going through the exact same energy of the world and season. Embrace it, use it for what it's worth.

Don't judge yourself. Be exactly where you are. And I'm so glad that you're here. All right, I'll see you next week. And we're going to find ways to get through daylight savings together. I'll see you then.