Hello,
Good morning,
Good afternoon,
Or good evening.
Please sit or lay down comfortably,
Eyes closed or soft gaze open,
And begin to fill your body with some conscious breaths.
With each breath,
You feel yourself becoming connected to your body.
Notice any tension,
And if you notice any,
Breathe right into that space.
Let your breath be the information your body needs to feel safe and comfortable.
When you start to feel more present,
Begin to allow yourself to breathe naturally as you listen and open up yourself to the concepts you are about to hear.
Aligning with the laws of winter.
The winter can be hard for many people.
Most think this is normal,
But in reality,
It's an illusion.
Some experience many stresses over the season with family,
With money,
With the weather,
With illness,
And even boredom.
Many feel lonely and isolated,
Especially those without a community.
We tend to go indoors more,
Eat more,
Drink more,
Spend more,
And count down the days until the return of the warmth.
The illusional part is that we think winter is hard because of all of these exterior reasons.
Nature follows the universal laws.
It follows its internal programming,
And winter has laws too.
She follows the laws of cause and effect,
The laws of oneness,
And the laws of rhythm.
As much as we like to pretend we humans are above these laws,
We most certainly are not.
The days are shorter and darker,
And slower and deeper.
The snow softens the world,
And everything is frozen in time.
Many living things come to an end or retreat into dormancy.
I imagine if winter had a heartbeat,
It would be a resting heart rate of 10 beats per minute.
Winter's slow rhythm invites us to remove the buzz of distractions,
Which allows us more time for reflection.
And in that reflection,
She points us towards an inner peace.
Within us all,
We can hear winter's invitation,
And in fact,
We yearn for it.
But we often ignore that inner voice as she quietly whispers for us to align with her intentions.
The reality is we either depress the inner knowing with stimulus,
Or become overwhelmed with increasing our actions during what is meant to be a non-actionary time.
Less doing means less distractions,
Which means more seeing,
Seeing ourselves,
And that can feel very uncomfortable.
So I wonder if we could use a reminder about the truth of winter,
As she truly is a gift in disguise.
Let's remember that winter is actually kind and gentle,
And she does not judge.
She peacefully requests you to sit in the quiet of a winter night,
And reflect on your journey,
Your relationships,
Your growth,
And your dreams.
She invites you to speak truthfully to yourself,
To own your mistakes,
To be curious about where you judge yourself and others,
To examine what you have not yet accepted,
To acknowledge lingering grudges,
Angers,
And fears,
And bring them all to a loving and compassionate end.
She asks you to do this in the name of the lightness ahead and the newness that awaits you.
There is no hurry,
Because as you know,
The winter is long,
So there is much time for you to examine these parts that you hide and cast aside.
Just like you can't have the growth and transformation of spring without the depth of winter,
You can't open to the light parts of you without acknowledging the dark.
One is not better than the other.
Winter asks you to look at your life and your story with neutral and eternally loving eyes.
I read a famous quote that said,
"'Owning our story can be hard,
But not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it.
Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of the light.
'" So let's make a commitment during these winter months to open up to exploring the pain that we carry and why it's there and how it began and why we can't seem to let it go.
Let's take a moment to feel where it has been living in the body.
Let's put our hand on that pain and let it know that we are here for it.
Let's put our trust and faith in winter's deep,
Wise,
Darker days,
And let's align with her rhythm of healing.
Let's shift our attention to how wise our emotional pain is,
One tiny layer at a time.
Let's start right now,
For this is a time to take our power back,
To light up the darkness and become open and available for all of the possibilities to come.
Reach one of your hands way up towards the ceiling above you,
And in your mind's eye,
See in your reach just one thing that you're ready to take responsibility for,
Or maybe it's one story you're ready to rewrite,
One person you're ready to love again,
One piece you're ready to hold yourself accountable for,
One fire you're ready to rekindle,
One dream you're ready to revisit,
One acknowledgement of what has really been in the way,
Or one experience you're ready to forgive,
Or one hardship you're ready to be curious about.
Now go ahead and pull that one thing down close to your body and hold it into your heart and let that sink in.
Winter has been waiting for you patiently to align with her intentions and the nature of things.
For now,
The law of oneness has been restored.
