Tending the Fire - On Honoring our Seasons
IT’S SPRING!!!!! 🌼🌸🌷
Officially, like on the northern hemisphere calendar, and also within myself.
Sometimes it's helpful to think of our internal ebb and flow as seasons. My internal seasons don’t always align with that of our climate, but recently they have.
When we learned in 2023 that our final IVF embryo transfer was unsuccessful, we were devastated. Over the next few weeks I moved through several expressions of acute grief including lots of tears, rage, and my least favorite, numbness.
After some time had passed, the acuteness softened: the tears became less frequent, the rage began to quell, and my spirit stirred, but I still didn’t feel like “myself”. When we experience recurrent loss, our sense of safety wavers; the world feels less stable and it can require more effort to feel rooted. During this time, I didn't have the capacity to “stretch my comfort zone” or embrace adventures. Instead, I felt a calling to turn inwards. I needed to cocoon. I needed cozy. I needed to winter.
As Katharine May, author of Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, says:
“We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again.”
The leaves had fallen and I embraced the bare bones. Instead of trying to rush through or “fix” the experience of internal wintering, I leaned in, seeking to appreciate the season, and asking myself “what do I need to feel safe and cozy during this winter?”
This looked like rest over production, comfort over expansion, boundaries over pleasing. This wasn’t about detaching or neglecting responsibilities; I wanted to continue working and meeting with all my lovely clients, I simply did so from a place of gentleness and slowing down. I embraced slow walks over running, dragon books and rom-coms, grief counseling sessions, and ASMR facials (Jocie’s my favorite!).
This was a learning process, one where I was exploring how to more deeply connect with the winter version of myself. I had met her before, but this winter was different. This wasn’t a depression or even a “funk” that I was trying to get out of, it was an intentional slowing down, a hibernation, a way of being that had a purpose and deserved to be given space. In a society that celebrates productivity and the “bounce back”, I’m proud of myself for honoring that.
Over the last few days I’ve been feeling like the lilacs in my backyard– thawed and on the edge of blooming. Like the grass that turned from taupe to green seemingly overnight, my internal season is shifting. There are stirrings of creativity and possibility; my good friends, Playfulness and Levity, are beckoning. Connecting to the wintering version of myself has helped me notice the subtle changes as I move towards spring.
A beauty of spring is that it’s both/and. Spring allows us to wade out of winter gently. There will be days when it’s warm and bright, and days with flurries and a cool breeze– all of it is welcome.
I’m curious, dear reader, what season best represents your internal climate? What does honoring that look like and feel like? These questions and more are in the Invitation section below if you feel called to explore.
With warmth from my season to yours,
Shannah 🤍
Nurtured Founder & Coach
Your turn! Let’s check in. The following questions are here as a way to tend your fire.
Remember, this doesn’t have to be a big time commitment to be helpful. If it feels good, put on a song, pick one question from the list, and noodle until the song ends.
What are some ways that I experience various seasons within?
What season best describes my current internal climate?
What are the characteristics of that season?
What are ways that I can honor and nurture this current internal season?
What might be indicators that I’m not honoring this internal season?
ONE action that I will do TODAY that nurtures this season is: ______
Looking for more? HERE is a meditation by Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Professor Jon Kabat-Zin that explores being the mountain through the seasons. I particularly appreciate the passage at 6:40: “and through it all, the mountain just sits; experiencing change in each moment, constantly changing, yet always just being itself.”
Big bravo for taking a moment to explore, check in, and tend your own fire. If you would like to have your responses witnessed, I would be delighted to receive them! Email me anytime at shannah@gonurtured.com
Would some support be helpful as you wade through the season? Know that I’m here and would be honored to journey alongside you, whatever the weather.
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