Winter is right around the corner!!!

Living in the Chicago area, winter is no joke!  It can be brutal!  Cold, wind, snow and endless gray days.

Flannel sheets and layering of clothes is the norm for months!

So you would assume I’m not a winter lover, and I’m not.  I don’t like to be cold!  At all!  Sunshine and beaches are my happy place.  I found myself dreading winter every year until I decided to have a new perspective.

It started when I kept hearing people say,” Everything dies in the winter”.  It sounded so depressing.  Does everything really die, or are there lessons to be learned from this season?  The more I thought about it, the more thoughts started to take place in my mind about winter.  Deep Rest… Renew… Growth.  That doesn’t sound depressing, that sounds hopeful!

Here is what you can learn from the winter season that you can apply to our life.

Deep Rest

The holidays will be over in a blink and you have that long stretch until spring.  When was the last time you took a deep rest?  Just like the snow covers everything with a blanket,  deep down in the ground everything is just waiting and deeply resting.  Nature knows when it’s time will come to open up the earth and spring forward with color and beauty.  Until then, nature waits and sleeps until its Creator says, “It’s time”.

Do you hear those words to take some deep rest?  To let some things go and take care of yourself a little more?  To not feel guilty to take a nap or have a few days and do absolutely nothing but rest?  Deeply resting brings health back to your body and peace to your soul. This winter try to find some little spaces of time where you can shut it all out and just rest.  It doesn’t have to be long, you just have to quiet yourself.

Renew

Just like nature is resting so it can be renewed again, so can you.  The things that have kept you stuck and the things that maybe you keep dragging around from season to season, need to be buried once and for all.  A new season is coming, but you have to put in the hard work until then.  Let the past stay in the past and move forward with all the possibilities ahead of you.

Growth

You would be astounded if you could peek at what’s going on under the ground as winter goes on!  Even though everything seems quiet, there is growth happening.  Right underneath your feet! The resting comes before the growth and that takes time.

Time to think more deeply, to plan, to hope.  Maybe something you have been putting off, or dreaming about, you can now take small steps to put some things in place to see some changes.  To see a plan taking shape.  By the time spring comes you will have had growth in that area.  It can be big or small but take those first small steps.

We can’t have the spring without the winter.  The resting, renewing and growth have to happen first before the new comes.

So this winter, rest deeply when you can, have a renewed hope for your future, and be amazed by the growth you will surely have.

Until next time stay warm!

~pat