Life Lessons From The Autumn Trees

Note from Elizabeth

As autumn paints the landscape around us, I’m delighted to welcome my sister, Sarah C. Albritton, as this week’s guest at Heartspoken.com. Sarah is a gifted intuitive executive coach who has spent her career helping leaders uncover their deepest truth and lead from that authentic place.

In this lovely reflection, she captures two themes dear to Heartspoken: Connection with Nature and Connection with Self.

I hope you’ll pause with her message, perhaps under a canopy of changing leaves, and ask yourself the questions she poses at the end. I’d love to hear any insights you discover in the comments below.

---

The Chlorophyll Hustle

In the quiet transformation of fall, trees reveal a truth we can carry into our own lives: sometimes we’re hiding the most beautiful parts of ourselves beneath what I call the “chlorophyll hustle”—going green to photosynthesize, produce, and blend in with every other tree on the block like we think the world demands. But those trees are full of vibrant reds, yellows, and oranges the whole time, just waiting beneath the mask. We’re like that too—full of colors that only come forward when we have the courage to let them.

There’s a reason we call someone “still green” when they’re new to a school, job, team, or community, regardless of age. They’re figuring out the chlorophyll hustle of that particular forest. And here’s where it gets interesting: no matter where we are in the overarching season of our life, we can be in different mini-seasons all at once. Golden and experienced in your career while simultaneously green and striving in a new relationship. Authentic voice dialed in at work but over-performing “green” when joining a new board. One part blazing color, another still learning which way the light comes through.

In our early seasons, focusing on growth and fitting in makes sense—doing the photosynthesis of life, achieving, stretching toward the sun. We love a green forest, don’t we? All seasons have their beauty. But as we settle into deeper self-knowing, we feel that tug to relax the green and let our true colors emerge. The most magnetic leaders I know stopped trying to lead like someone else and started leading like themselves—quirks, unconventional approaches, and all.

The invitation of Autumn

Every autumn is a fresh invitation from our tree elders to check in:

• Where am I still hustling green when I could be blazing gold?

• Where am I leading from someone else’s playbook instead of my own?

What lies beneath is often where the real beauty lives. Be green when you must, but don’t forget the true prize happens when you let your unique colors shine through.

About Sarah C. Albritton

Website: www.sarahcalbritton.com

Instagram and Linkedin: @sarahcalbritton

PHOTO CREDITS

Top photo: John A. Cottrell, Jr., M.D., Shenandoah Valley, Virginia.

Bottom photo created in Canva using stock photography