Wintering: Stop Trying to Act for Summer in Winter
Written by Audrey Hayward
A new year brings a lot of excitement and hope. January 1st means a clean slate; a new you– one that will save more money, eat healthier, and workout more. Everyone has their own list of goals or resolutions, some of which will stick and some forgotten. But this year, I began to ask myself, why does this year feel harder than most to give energy to these new routines or goals? Why do I feel like I’m pushing myself way too much, when I feel I’m not pushing myself at all? Why do I feel like I didn’t get a holiday break at all?
Most of us pretend winter doesn’t exist, we experience this annoyance that the sun rises later in the morning and earlier in the evening. Complaining daily that now our workout classes and our commute home are in the dark. We push back with every fiber of our being, spending our time thinking: when will summer come?
Katherine May touches on this feeling a lot in her book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. Winter, in the natural world, is a time of retreat and hibernation. However May uses this season to also describe moments where life feels a little unreal, where we find ourselves living at a slower pace (almost like on low battery mode, with little energy), a personal winter. Wintering is when our souls and bodies seek rest and recovery, something society discourages. When we observe the world around us, we find that nature doesn’t fight winter, nature embraces it. Plants and animals prepare for winter and eventually adapt to the season. It’s a time of hibernation, transformation, and reflection.
Unlike nature, most of us pretend it’s summer year round. We act as though we have the long days of sunshine; getting up before the sun is up and pushing ourselves to work well past sundown. But this ignorance of winter only hurts us, rather than helping us. So how do we embrace the winter season?
First, we have to recognize that winter is normal, a season and a cycle that happens every year. Our lives are full of good times and bad ones as well, but there's always a way out. May talks about how certain places in the world have to physically prepare for winter, but introduces the idea of mentally preparing for our own personal winters as well. Knowing that a wintering will occur will take care of our mental health in the good times, so it won’t be so bad in the darker times. Reflecting and healing our wounds so new situations thrown at us won’t be so daunting. If one of your resolutions is to take up cold plunging (power to you), this concept should be pretty familiar to you. Cold plunging, a shivering but invigorating exercise, is something where you immerse your body in cold water, which results in many benefits. However, in order to be able to do it regularly, you must develop a tolerance to the cold water, and listen to your body and how long it can withstand the temperature drop. Gradually, you build up tolerance and will be able to withstand the cold water for longer with more ease. This goes back to the idea of listening to our bodies and taking care of ourselves so that we are able to adapt to our own personal winters whenever they may come.
Another issue May discusses is this overwhelming feeling of guilt when it comes to focusing on ourselves. We often feel like we can’t stop our daily lives because others depend on us. Will our friends be okay without our advice? We can’t miss grocery shopping, otherwise how will our spouse eat dinner? We definitely can’t leave our coworkers to work on the project alone, how will they know how to finish it? The reality is - other people will manage without us (something my therapist reminds me of every session, yet somehow everytime I hear this statement it always seems like the first time). As much as we’d like to think we are, we aren’t as crucial and integral to everyone’s lives as we think. Without us, the world still spins, rivers still flow, and birds still fly. We are allowed to step back, we are allowed to rest. In fact everyone will be okay, and time will still pass. Wintering is there to help us reflect, rejuvenate, and ultimately adapt. We come out of winter rested, reset, and healed.
Embrace the season by getting enough rest, reflection, and live through it deliberately. The season will pass and spring will come; accept it with open arms and let winter do its job.
Be well,
Audrey
Resources
May, K. (2021). Wintering: The power of rest and retreat in difficult times. Thorndike Press.
YouTube. (2020, December 11). Katherine May | Wintering: The power of rest and retreat in difficult times. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJydu7rc1aE
