A February check-in
Do You Want to Build a Snowman? Or do you already have a Spring in your step? A seasonal update plus some journaling prompts.
Hello friend,—
How are you feeling?
Take a second just now to really consider that question for a moment.
Place your hand on your heart if it feels good.
Close your eyes too if you want.
Now, really ask yourself:
How am I feeling?
Allow whatever happens next by simply acknowledging it—it might be calm; it might be sad; it might be excitement; it might be something you don’t even have language for. Try to just let it be seen and heard and known and felt.
Take as much time as you need before reading on.
We’re seven weeks in to our fresh off the press new year. Mid-February. It feels established to me but not quite fully settled in. No feet up yet but it’s arrived. Blustered in, shaking off the cold and the wet. Damp scarf, gloves, boots, tumbled off. Bags set down. Hugs exchanged. Door closed just in time to keep in the cosied warmth. Guided further inside by the soft glow of electric light, towards laughter, chatter—a fireside? In my fantasy, yes. Where an abundance of armchairs softer than freshly baked buns await. A hot chocolate offered before bums even hit seats, cries of ‘yes please’ hollered to a room beyond, as hands reach for nearby bowls readied with overflowing snacks and eyes hungrily devour a walled library of all the books.
I have often thought of February as the darkest hour before the dawn. Spring might be on the horizon but it’s still just out of sight and certainly in England as Winter takes it last breath, it can get brutally cold. During the last few years especially, that cold has lingered well into what we would traditionally call Spring here in the UK. Last year I remember still having to reluctantly surrender to central heating during cold snaps in May. It can be exceptionally hard to get through this time, to see the Springtime light at the end of the tunnel, I have certainly endured that discomfort on occasion. And as an actor this can be a particularly quiet time for work too, typically my work year never really gets going until March or April.
Despite all that, this year it feels as though Spring has surprised us all and come early. Some might say, unseasonably early. It’s definitely mild for February and there are tentative blossoms poking their heads out already, daffodils and crocuses too, the birds are getting in on the action, underscoring it all. It’s beautiful and yet… something does feel ever so slightly, off. Is it the dark mornings still holding their nerve, shrouding this surge of life-giving energy in a mist-curling winter pallor? Is it the sudden stripping of multiple woollen layers mid-walk because I find myself unsuitably overdressed? Is it the birds that I caught warbling at 2am whilst my sleep adjusted from time spent abroad?
I have been growing into a steady flow of Wintering for the past couple of years now—taking heed of my body’s demands to significantly change the pace at which I had been living and taking time to self-reflect for an extended (and long overdue) period of time. That’s manifested in all sorts of ways, mostly a lot of attempts to slow things down until I was forced to but this year along with many others I decided to really honour Winter’s purpose - I noticed all around, a real call from the collective consciousness to stick with the season’s offering - and see what came of it; to really take this time to rest and restore, to conserve energy and withdraw inward as much as possible, to not give in to the modern maelstrom of back to school furore the second Happy New Year was chorused. This has been relatively easy to do given that I was already in that mode (and absolutely exhausted to my bones) but it’s also been revelatory. It’s made me realise how long I have been trying to fend it off but it also begs the question: when else are we supposed to take the time to fully recover from the incessant demands that are made of us the rest of the year?
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“God, I hate Winter”, a friend expounded in January on a particularly mud-soaked icy walk. I posited my newfound theory to her, that I was trying to see Winter through a new lens, experimenting with whether or not I’d been missing the point of this season this whole time. “Do you think you hate it because you feel forced to go out in it? If you were allowed to just be at home, in the snug for its entirety, having a think about the year ahead, or whatever, that you would still feel like that?” She considered for a moment, then laughed, “No,” she said “but what about work?” This seems to be the main issue for most of us. We are so used to going at break neck speed almost constantly with only ever increasing levels of productivity, that the idea that we should ever actively shift down gears or even stop entirely in line with the seasons, seems impossible. Our culture certainly doesn’t allow for it. And sure, perhaps the couple of weeks in the run up to Christmas are a universally accepted write off but what about after that? It’s that period of time that I’m actually really interested in. The time that we’re in right now.
There is a feeling of profound relief unlike any other, completely free of FOMO, responsibility, or of needing to be anywhere or doing anything, that I have only ever experienced in three very specific circumstances: in the early days of lockdown during the pandemic; on planes, particularly long-haul flights; and once a year every year during what I like to refer to as the Bridge of Peace, that blissful handful of days between Christmas and New Year where it is (more or less) socially acceptable to do your own thing without having to make any excuses whatsoever—and for that reason alone, it has become my favourite time of year and one that I guard fiercely.
This year, as part of my seasonal experiment, I have been trying to create more of that feeling as standard for the duration of Winter. What if we were able to take some time to truly weather December into February? What if we didn’t rush back to full pelt before we were ready? I talked about this in my January post A Slow Start so this is really a follow-up to that, a doubling-down that I’m considering making a regular thing out of. Before now I would have thought of Winter as the hardest and harshest of the quartet but now I see it only for its softness. We are granted months to curl up into the powdery frost of its quietitude, in readiness for the buzzing vitality of Spring, the loud trumpeting vivaciousness of Summer, and the abundant harvest of Autumn—why not enjoy it? I know, I know—but what about work?
As the absolute Queen of overcommitting, I know it doesn’t always feel possible to allow for these types of lifestyle changes so next week I will be sharing some really simple tools I’ve been using during the past year to great effect to support slowing things down, as well as to check-in with your current pace of living and how that might be helping or hindering you. This will be for paid subscribers only so if you’re not a member yet, join us below—a friendly reminder that anyone registered as a paid subscriber in February will also receive an extra month added to their subscription on March 1st. 🎈
And wherever you’re at in your own internal seasons, maybe you’re not sure, I’d like to invite you now to consider a handful of journal prompts that I’ve shared below, exploring this theme further. You can just meditate on these too but write down what you discover as well if it feels good—be free with it, do one, do some, do them all, do none. As always, trust your intuition. And of course I’d love it if you shared some of those discoveries in the comments, they will be protected behind the paywall if what you’re sharing feels vulnerable so only members of the Still Space community will be able to see them—for newcomers this is a wonderful, thoughtful community of generous souls so come and get involved if you feel called to. What I’d love to explore here is whether a part of us is in resistance to the current season or not, and also to check in with what our energy is truly craving. Do you still feel the call to rest but feel as though you’re not allowed to? Maybe you already have a spring in your step? Maybe you feel fully revitalised and ready to go, waiting for the rest of the world to catch up? Maybe you’re in wind down mode, wishing we were heading in to Autumn? Apologies to those joining us from the Southern hemisphere for whom this is all in reverse! Either way, have a play with these prompts and let me know how you get on: