Wintering in the midst of spring

Spring certainly burst into full force this week, with bright blossoms showing off their beauty against blue skies. While for many of us this energy can lift our spirits and bring joy to our hearts, there will no doubt also be those of us, for whom this shift brings mixed emotions. 

Emotional challenges, pain, illness, loss can hit us at any point in the year. While the world bursts into spring, we may be feeling in the midst of our own personal winter.

While the energy of spring may still touch our hearts, it can also bring with it an awareness and sadness at the contrast between how the world appears - bright and full of life, and how we are feeling inwardly. 

This last week I've been aware of a few people I know going through their own personal 'winter' - times in life when life is challenging and the world needs to get a little smaller, held more tightly and focused rather than open, spacious and joyous. 

And I found myself too, noticing my own sense of sadness, as I walked through the blue skies and blossoms and held these people (and the preciousness and precariousness of life) in my own heart. It can be helpful in such moments to remember how natural these feelings are, how they don't need to be pushed away (however much we might like to), how we can create a caring space for them, and how we are not alone. 

If this resonates with you, or with people that you know, you might be interested in Katherine May's book Wintering: the power of rest and retreat in difficult times.  An aspect of the book is about helping us embrace the season of winter, but it is also about helping us understand and create space for our own personal times of wintering, at whatever time of year they arise.

So if you are in the midst of your own wintering, you might remind yourself that you are not failing if you feel sad, dull or anxious as the world appears to be joyful, vibrant and at ease. You can rest assured that we are not alone in feeling as you do. You might remind yourself of the power of creating the conditions for rest, refuge, care and connection during these difficult times - reaching outwardly to others, and tenderly inwards toward yourself. 

As Katharine May reminds us: 

 “Some winters happen in the sun.”

 “We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again.”
 "If happiness is a skill, then sadness is, too. Perhaps through all those years at school, or perhaps through other terrors, we are taught to ignore sadness, to stuff it down into our satchels and pretend it isn’t there. As adults, we often have to learn to hear the clarity of its call. That is wintering. It is the active acceptance of sadness. It is the practice of allowing ourselves to feel it as a need. It is the courage to stare down the worst parts of our experience and to commit to healing them the best we can. Wintering is a moment of intuition, our true needs felt keenly as a knife.”