As the 2025 year begins to draw to a close, we advocate that everyone take time and reflect this solstice on what Winter can bring to you and what you can do to cope with the exhaustion many are feeling. Expectations are running high for 2026 but in the interim that the holiday season provides, what can we do to center ourselves, ground our senses, and pay attention to what is healthiest for us to put our energy into?
Wintering, a recently re-popularized term from the 12th century, emphasizes that Winter is a time for rest and restoration. After the excitement and productivity of the harvest time months we have found ourselves marching steadily along in a culture of perpetual work and productivity that many find exhausting and nearly everyone struggles to have enough resources to comfortably rest. But rest does not need to be a grand period of time off, travel, or expense. Rest can be achieved in the smallest and most regular ways for which any person cultivates gratitude for being, for what they have, and what they hope to cultivate moving forward may find satisfaction, hope, & peace.
Restorative self-care activities that are worth considering at this time can include: napping, taking extra time off for self, attending a yoga or slower paced exercise class, using a sauna, reading a book for pleasure, organizing a room, engaging in a hobby, creating art, or even taking a food break from sugar, booze, or caffeine for a day or more.
Today’s celestial solstice marks the shift for which the sun returns and begins to lengthen out the daylight we have moving forward in the Northern Hemisphere. We find hope in knowing that the world continues to prove to us how to balance the coldest months of winter with the hope and evidence of returning sunlight. Focusing on the sunlight, we can see and appreciate things differently if we only take time to care for self and reflect on what we want to see manifest in the world.
2025 Winter Solstice Office Photo-Shoot:
Blessings!
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