On rest and why we should embrace wintering

Slowing down, resting and being radical.

Winter hit with full force this week. We had the shortest day of the year in Australia, and Canberra reached its lowest June temperature since 1986, falling to -7.2C!

I love winter, the cool crisp air, the bright blue winter skies, and pulling a beanie on top of unbrushed hair saves precious minutes in the morning getting kids out the door to school.

But I also love that winter brings with it a natural slowing down in life’s rhythm. We don’t go out as much, family board game afternoons are a mainstay of the weekend, and curling up under a cat and a blanket with a book is my idea of a perfect afternoon.

I first came across the term ‘wintering’ in Katherine May’s book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. By winter, she doesn’t just mean frosty temps, but rather a period of ‘fallow’ time where you might feel out of sorts, blocked, stuck, or overwhelmed.

May believes that wintering is a way to get through tough times by chilling, hibernating, healing, re-grouping. She says that "doing these deeply unfashionable things — slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting — is a radical act now, but it is essential."

It is an ongoing battle to slow down, to say no, to rest, to miss out. Becoming ‘un-busy’ has been a serious life quest for me since having a third child and going back to work when he was 5 months old. Life has been overwhelming. It is only now that he is almost 2 that I feel able to fully embrace a season of wintering. As any parent of toddlers know ‘slowing down, spare time expansion, sleep, and resting’ are not necessarily common parlance within your household or among fellow parents in the trenches.

Whenever I have had a spare moment over the last few weeks, whether it be a day off, or being home with a sick child, or during toddler nap time, I have felt a deep calling to embrace the being side of life, rather than the doing side.

I will sit and read in every spare moment, devouring page after page of book after book (follow me on goodreads if you need any book recommendations!). I could be doing any number of more productive things (pulling out the tomato plants that should have been heaved out weeks ago, cleaning out the freezer, doing laundry, catching up on work, doing something with my older kids or husband, exercising… the list is eternal). But I don’t. I just sit, and I read. It’s as restorative as it is rejuvenating. Reading a good book is the perfect salve for my exhausted soul.

Sometimes I wonder if I would feel more energetic if I didn’t spend a couple of hours on the couch with a book. But then I remember that wintering is about slowing down and embracing a radical shift in perspective – doing away with the ‘shoulds’ and getting lost as you let time expand around you.

May argues that “We must stop believing that these times in our lives are somehow silly, a failure of nerve, a lack of willpower.” She writes, “They are real, and they are asking something of us. We must learn to invite the winter in. We may never choose to winter, but we can choose how.”

While May writes that we may not choose to winter, I have decided to choose how I winter before winter chooses me.

I am lucky enough to be staring down the barrel of a month of long service leave as I move between jobs.

I am tired.

Work is tiring. Being a parent to 3 children is tiring. Having cats wake you up in the middle of the night wanting to play fetch is tiring. The cost of living crisis is tiring. The constant bombardment of news and media is tiring. Life, as you know, is sometimes just tiring.

Everyone has asked what I will do with all of this time. I have thought a lot about it as I don’t want to ‘waste’ time.

My definition of wasting time might be quite radical though. To me, wasting time is spending time unintentionally. Wasting time is getting on your phone to quickly check email and then 30 mins later you wonder why you are on Instagram. Wasting time is agreeing to do things not in service of your values or higher goals.

Staring out the window at the wind moving through the trees with a steaming cup of tea is not a waste of time, nor is curling up with a book or one episode of your favourite TV show. As long as you do it with intention.

So when asked what I will do on my month off, I tell people I am going on retreat with myself, and will use the time to welcome wintering. I will rest and sleep and move through my days slowly and with intention. It will be a radical act of care that all too often we don’t prioritise.

While I appreciate that I am in a very fortunate position to have a month off be in ‘self-retreat’, I don’t think it takes a huge amount of time to start building in elements of wintering to your weekly rhythm.

Can you go out for a brisk walk during the day to feel an icy blast on your cheeks?

Can you make time on the weekend to carve out 30 minutes of uninterrupted time to sit solo with a cup of tea to read, write or meditate?

Can you do less rather than do more?

Can you become more unscheduled?

Through slowing down and getting ‘radical’ we can all start to change the culture around busy and resting. The next time someone asks ‘how are you?’, bite your tongue before ‘BUSY’ comes tumbling out, and perhaps tell them that you are enjoying wintering.

Be well,

Alicia