The call to Winter
It’s been an interesting time. Last weekend I went away on a hobby weekend. I love doing comedy improvisation (Improv for short) and twice a year I love to attend the British Improv Project’s residential weekender. I taught at the last few, but inevitably when I’m teaching I never fully relax even though I love it I always feel “on,” and this time I knew I needed to do less, as it’s been a busy few months. This was reaffirmed when Rachel Blackman asked me how I resourced myself to do the stuff that’s not particularly interesting or enjoyable, but that one just needs to get done. I felt unexpectedly floored by the question; I think I had been coming from such a place of depleted resources it hasn’t occurred to me that it was even possible to resource oneself for such things! It made me double down on my commitment to put my own needs first for a change over the weekend.
The result was that I had a lovely time following what gave me pleasure - how often can we really say that’s what we have been doing? I extended the break to visit a friend where we swapped some Reiki healing and I gave her daughter a riding lesson on her pony. Something odd happened when I got home and tried to pick work back up: my body almost literally made the windows PC shutting down noise and said very clearly NOPE! You know when you’ve been pressing the snooze button on your laptop doing it’s updates until the tech finally comes alive and takes charge and says “LIKE IT OR NOT WE ARE DOING THIS NOW!”? That’s exactly how I felt: my system was installing updates, the battery was low, I had unconsciously been pressing the snooze button and now like it or not I was going to power down for as long as it took for the updates to install and my battery to recharge.
It lasted a week. In that time I really felt and listened to the call to Winter. I’ve cancelled plans that don’t feel in alignment right now. I’m spending winter evenings in my PJs with a hot chocolate and my dog, instead of working late in the office. I’m back in the office today, but I’m still resonating strongly with having a wintering phase. A friend commented that she felt sad seeing me resign from a group we were both in and hoped that I’m okay, but it feels the opposite - sacred, and exactly in alignment.
If you need it, this is your permission slip to have a Winter for yourself.