Winter: A time for slowing down

“All the buried seeds, crack open in the dark the instant they surrender to a process they can’t see.”

—Mark Nepo

It’s not unusual to slow down and feel more lethargic in the winter. This physical hibernation that many of us go through during these months serves as a metaphor for personal growth. It's not unusual to feel a deep sense of unrest when we become aware of an aspect of ourselves or our lives that we hope to change. And so many professionals will tell us that if you aren’t feeling better with the knowledge you’re gaining, you must be doing something wrong! And so we say to ourselves time and time again, “I’m aware of what I need to change but I just can’t make it happen or I just can’t feel that sense of inner peace that other people seem to have”. Or maybe that voice is way less kind and understanding… it just tells us, “You’re broken. You’ll never feel better. Just give up.”

In this constant drive toward productivity, we can end up trying to “workshop“ our emotions. Any sense of sadness or unhappiness feels like an invader we must eliminate.

Maybe we even miss any progress we have made because we only remind ourselves how far we are from where we truly want to be.

But when we can see this “darkness“ as an essential nutrient to self-growth, then these uncomfortable feelings can become lessons in learning to hold ourselves kindly and in validating some very difficult (and oftentimes warranted) feelings. And when we look back at this time, we might just see that this darkness or uncertainty did not actually stop us like we thought it did. We learned to dig deep and trust ourselves, even when unsure what the path would look like.

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