A winter invitation

Winter and in particular, the solstice, can be an invitation to slow down, to pause, to rest.

Is it possible to embrace winter in all its dismal darkness as a time for conserving energy, listening to yourself and taking time to restore?

In our ‘always on’ culture, the idea of taking a break and slowing down can feel scary, a waste of time or an opportunity missed. As we slip into patterns of describing what we do as ‘productive’ and try to achieve the most we can in the shortest amount of time, our to-do list feels never ending.

Our 21st century machines keep going at the same pace seemingly forever, unaffected by environment, shorter days, the need to rest and recuperate.

Then there’s the notion of time as a scarce commodity – if only we had more of it; ‘I just need a bit more time’. Yet, in our hearts (and even in our heads), we know that time isn’t like that. It stretches and shrinks according to what’s going on. You only have to think about your experience of time when you’re chatting with old friends over good coffee versus how it feels when you’re completing your tax return, to recognise this. If we think of time as how we experience it rather than as something regular, measured in units in a linear way, what would we change? How would we be? What would we choose not to do?

Robert Poynton in ‘Do Pause’, suggests that ‘pause undoes the technology-driven flattening of time and gives it back some depth. It is re-creational’. I have to agree.

So will you join me this winter in taking the opportunity to pause, to breathe and reflect (my new language to replace what previously I might have labelled harshly ‘not doing’ and ‘laziness’)?

Will you set an intention to align yourself with the natural order of things?

Katherine May offers us in ?her short book, ‘Wintering’, ‘in our relentlessly busy contemporary world, we are forever trying to defer the onset of winter. We don’t ever dare to feel its full bite, and we don’t dare to show the way that it ravages us. An occasional sharp wintering would do us good. We must stop believing that these times in our lives are somehow silly, a failure of nerve, a lack of willpower. We must stop trying to ignore them or dispose of them. 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.’

Post-script

I wrote the first version of this post last year after hunkering down with Wintering by Katherine May and Do Pause: you are not a to do list?by Robert Poynton. Thank you to them for showing up at the right time in my life and helping me find the courage to do what I need. In exploring the pause, and being moved by Poynton’s description of it as ‘a portal to other options and choices, giving more dimension to your experience’, I am minded of how coaching itself provides the opportunity for pausing and slowing down, reflecting and potentially changing course. The silence in coaching is simultaneously nothing and everything, empty and regenerative. If you would like to have a chat about how coaching might invite pause into your life, you can contact me here.