It’s Freezing Cold, but are You WINTERING?

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Happy 2024! The year of all things infinite 🙌

Why you ask? (2+2+4=8) 8 turned on it’s side is the infinity symbol ♾️

Numbers. Symbols. Nature. All the fun in 2024!

I hope your holiday season was all that you desired it to be. 

Busy. Quiet. Or a combination of both. I hope that on this side (of what can be a busy and overwhelming time) you are feeling full of joy and love, not depleted of your valuable energy.

Have you asked yourself how you’re feeling? We can forget to. So I invite you to pause, inhale, exhale, and ask yourself if you haven’t asked recently, How Am I?

In talking to friends around the holidays I was feeling exhausted just listening to their long “to do” lists of “all the traditions” they lovingly keep for their families.  Are you a tradition-keeper in your immediate or extended family? If so, I’d invite you to also inquire of your deepest truest self, on this side of the holiday season, if keeping those traditions feels good and filling for you in that moment and now OR does it feel depleting, overwhelming, and like you just want to hop into bed on Christmas Eve and not get up 'til January 2? 

Seasonal Reflection Exercise

I use this simple exercise to close out seasons in my life, and I'm sharing it here for you to try it in your life if you wish to. I take a short amount of time to pause and quietly reflect back on how I lived that season and if there was anything I would and could change going forward.

For example: Summertime for me was lovely but in reflecting back on it I felt I didn’t have enough kayak rides and for the last week of August our neighbours' dock was full of noisy, frolicking kiddos (because their grandkids' daycare is always closed that week). Great for all of them but crazy noisy for us. And in my favourite season of Fall, although I hiked, in reflecting back I felt I didn’t hike enough in the beautiful changing leaves of my forest.

So here’s my invitation for you, while it’s all still fresh in your mind, body, and soul, look back on your holiday season at the things you just did and experienced to see what things you would do again and what things you would not. 

What can you shift and change going forward to get better aligned in your joy and energy for future holidays? 

How can you plan ahead to create a more easeful holiday or season? 

Then make a note of the NOT’s in a calendar, ahead of when you begin your planning for December 2024 (or really any season). The note acts as a reminder for you and knowing in your heart that you’re not going to do “that” again because it didn’t feel good for YOU. It also gives you time to let others know things will be different next season! For example I have a note on June 1, 2024 to ensure we are booked to be away elsewhere the last week of August. So it will be ✨

Summering, Wintering, and What it Means for Your Self Care

Speaking of ease, have you checked in with yourself to see how your January is feeling for you? 

As I write this it’s freezing cold (because it’s winter in the Northern Hemisphere where I live) and we are halfway through January (which already feels like it’s going quickly for me and is causing me a feeling of mild anxiety 🤷‍♀️).

I recently learned why I feel anxious and why it feels like time is passing quickly for me and it’s really mind blowing so - you guessed it - I’m sharing more about it here. 

I learned that I’ve been following the prescribed “societal norms” and I’ve been Summering, NOT Wintering, in winter.

I recently listened to the new Gut and Ground Podcast and it left me looking inward with new awareness and knowledge at how I live my one audacious life. I’ve gotta tell you the more I learn about living IN nature and living WITH nature the more mind blowing the opposition and polarity of society and nature seems to be. 

If you live in the Northern Hemisphere (like me) you know you are currently living in meteorological winter. A season of cold, hibernating, dead, quiet, and stillness. 

The trees have all shed their leaves and are dormant. The animals have either migrated or are holed up in nests, burrows or dens rarely coming out to see the very limited light of the wintering days. 

Like the animals, our long ago ancestors lived IN and aligned WITH winter, too. In winter they ate heavier, slow cooked seasonal, warm, nutritious meals (and lots of them). They rested and they slept more. They spent the dark, quiet hours of winter looking inward and reflecting. They did things that nourished their mind, body, and soul and prepared them for spring. They were aligned with the season they were living within. They were wintering. 

Yet if you look around in society you will see that all of society is shouting at us to start new things, set new goals, work out, lose weight, cut back, cut out, beat the blues and survive winter with busyness and new, new, new. New year. New you. New goals. New, new, new everything 😫

We are being screamed at from every direction to live life like it’s late spring or summer. Busying, doing, sprouting, "new"ing. But it’s winter and our body knows it. 

The podcast wondered (and it now has me wondering too) does society create this busy, doing, losing, "new"ing culture in winter so that we will fail? Work out regimens, diet plans, goal setting, New Year’s resolutions. All of the things. Are we being set-up to behave like it’s spring and summer when our minds, bodies, and souls are programmed for winter? Are we being set-up for up-set and failure because we are summering in winter?

How did we become so misaligned with the nature that we live IN and live WITH?

I don’t know the answers. But I’ll tell you, this podcast has me looking so much more closely at my life and asking myself is what I’m doing deeply nourishing or depleting for my mind, body, and soul? Am I Wintering or Summering in this now moment? How can I live more aligned with the cycles of nature and in the nature that I live within? 

If this wintering wonderment speaks to you I invite you to look at your life, too and make the same inquiry. Is how you are living your one audacious life deeply nourishing your mind, body, and soul? 

Asking and reflecting regularly will have you stepping into greater alignment with yourself and the natural flow of this season of your life. Which (in my opinion) is how we were created and physiologically programmed to live - in alignment with the cycles that we are living in.

If you are desiring to connect with yourself more deeply, to learn more and live in greater alignment with your mind, body, and soul and live your deepest soul desires, I would also invite you to reach out and connect with me about all the ways I can support you in doing just that. It’s my deepest soul’s desire to support you in living your most audacious life through 2024 and beyond.

Below you’ll see the various ways I have available to support you. Take a peek. Connect. And 'til next time,

Audaciously,

Sharon xo

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Upcoming Ways to Work with Me

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