Embrace Winter

During the winter season and winter months, the glorious, joyful, fun loving, beauty and festive months of November through March can bring enormous amounts of emotions regardless of the weather.

Stress, anxiety, love, obstacles, happiness, gratification, loneliness, depression, behavioral shifts or changes, situational-communication, failure, change, grief, loss, gain, transitions, weight gain, injury’s, increased care-taking duties or just really all life brings when another year passes into the history books, acquaintances become forgotten and a New Year rings can all be present for an individual during winter.

Let me back up a bit.?I would like my audience today and readers alike to reflect back to winter seasons over the long-term of your life.?What were the positives or negatives or memories that stick out??Maybe you grew up in Wisconsin and now reside in New Mexico or vise-versa.?You get the point with weather now.?

As far as the weather is concerned, is it part of you or your family’s livelihood??Do you become anxious or find yourself stressing about ice, sleet, snow, wind, storms, travel, power outages, windy days or below zero temperatures and wind-chill conditions??

One of my favorite individuals even has a 50-degree rule.?They simply do not watch NFL or college football games outside in the stadium in the late-fall or winter months if the temperature is below 50 degrees.?That boundary works well for that individual, everyone in their circle knows it and plans around it and incorporates both the serious and humorous sides while communicating plans for football games and tailgating activities.

In some cases and extreme, yet serious nature, some individuals become seasonally affected.?Perhaps the cold weather physically affects joints, aches, pains, muscles, movement and mobility, etc.?Emotionally, there could be some mental-health issues that need addressed with one’s doctor or therapist to recommend changes or therapies to assess the differences between health conditions or simply adding a supplement or vitamin or changes in diet and routine.?This part of my post, in my opinion, is how one thinks, processes and behaves over years to time to self and others and loved ones.?

All of this blog should spark reflection of your inner most private feelings, emotions and tips and tricks to shake up how you approach winter and how you perceive or view embracing this season in your personal and professional life.?While embracing winter, apply a positive attitude and mindset all while remembering that you, the individual, are in charge and control of what you feel like sharing with others and what you choose to keep private or secret and that is certainly OK.

Embrace winter for me, began as a saying and in the early days of this approach was often met with “deer in the headlights” responses verbally and non-verbally yet the longer term over the years removed the stigma that winter months of dreary, cold, dark days and nights were going to occur regardless of a positive or negative mindset and approach as the calendar turned.?

Instilling the positive attitude and helping out others along the way began as a promotion and campaign in Central-Iowa and all the great work and leadership from community leaders and citizens alike.?

This specific campaign for me fell at a time in my 30’s.?Ironically, today, many millennial generation folks may find themselves post-college years and still rather young in age and heart so take note on how this generation may utilize technology to implement positive change during winter months that did not exist around 2010.?

Determine boundaries in winter.?What do you like about winter months??What are your personal traditions and family traditions in winter??

Do you embrace winter activities in the cold states doing things like snowshoeing; ice skating, horse and carriage rides, hockey games, making a snowman or snow-woman?

How do your work and play balance and clock adjust after the fallback with the time clock?

Embrace winter is a concept and attitude to remind us all to continue to talk, communicate and begin new traditions or new activities or new recommendations or new ways to have an outlook on these months of winter season.?

I know for certain that the folks and family members I have discussed more about “embrace-winter” that in the last decade or so, we have found ourselves talking, texting or sharing more about the good and positives that became the result or outcome from instilling positive attitudes and mindsets and carrying a positive embrace winter attitude.?

Ben Washburn

Listen to Embrace Winter on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3qwrMISGVM