New Year, New You?
Not today
No. I don’t think so.
I’ve spent too long in this body to betray it by believing it’s not enough. I’ve worked so long and so very hard to achieve the peace and acceptance I’m beginning to feel to abandon it now. I’ve read the books, done the courses, had the therapy and learnt the buzz words.
I don’t have to “earn” anything – especially rest. I am enough because I exist, I live, I breathe, I am.
Rest is a right not a privilege and for now, it is my priority.
I’m far enough down the road to know that I am enough. I want to maintain who and what I am right now. I don’t need to be “new and improved”.
I don’t need to be my best self, (I don’t even want that – who decides what your best self even is?) I can’t optimise or hack my way to anything.
I’m not interested in perfection or slog or hustle. I want peace, contentment, calm, clarity and softness. I want to be my favourite self, my calmest self, my safest self.
I want to be my favourite self, my calmest self, my safest self.
When you have a low-capacity body you have to learn to listen to it and work with it, not against it.
Safety is the most important thing to me right now. When my body hurts and aches and my mind wavers and feels uncertain, I need to feel safe, I want to feel safe. When I feel safe, I can take steps and make brave choices.
I want to feel seen and recognised for who I am – not what I could be or who I used to be. I crave to be understood, seen and accepted in a way I have only been by a very small number of people.
I crave softness and safety and peace and warmth. I flinch from hard edges and harshness I cocoon myself in blankets, light candles and nourish myself with good food and warm drinks. I am grateful for the good things and people in my life. This is the time to just be.
I have often thought, naively perhaps, that it was a smart move by the early church to latch onto existing pagan festivals – Christmas piggybacking on Yule and Saturnalia and Easter latching onto Ostara to make the new church more acceptable but the more I learn, the more I learn that the church worked hard to eliminate the ancient festivals and were very destructive in the way they did so.
As Christmas becomes more and more commercial and commodified so does New Year – everything has to be optimised and profit worthy. Rest is seen as wasteful or something to be earned when in fact rest is required for survival and growth.
I have always felt that January is the wrong time for new regimes, resolutions and hard things – but this year more than previous ones I feel it very strongly and intend to listen to Mother Earth.
We are in winter and we should be wintering.
I am Wintering.
There will be time later for newness and growth and energy but that time is not now.
Were it not for my daughter’s birthday I would happily hibernate through January but my darling girl is always the brightest spark in any grey day and a day that celebrates her is to be embraced and enjoyed to the fullest.
However, the fact remains though that January is not a time for new beginnings, it is a time for rest, restoration and peace. The coldest weather is often in January – we even have snow here today!
The earth is resting, animals are hibernating and following the rhythms of the earth and I intend to do the same.
This below piece really resonated with me.
I would also like to recommend this wonderful book – Wintering by Katherine May which I revisit every year and every time I do, I find something new. Katherine has a wonderful Substack too
Thanks for reading, I wish you peace and contentment in your Wintering.
A x