Winter Slowly Slinks Away
To rest and restore is an evolutionary necessity for human beings. Lazily lamenting the unfairness of life is not. The past year has been a long arcing exercise in understanding the difference and untangling rest and restoration from panic. The pandemic that has killed 540,000 of our fellow Americans and 2.7 million worldwide has been an enlightening experience. Making that statement is a privilege, one I understand well. Much like the view gained from suffering personal traumas a year prior, those of us who have and continue to survive have the choice to frame this as a gigantic positive wrapped in an unfathomable tragedy. This is done not out of selective ignorance, but with the intentful action to heal and move forward.
March 2020 saw us collectively panicking as we were in the dark as to the severity, transmission vehicles, and contagious nature of Covid-19. We were panic buying toilet paper, washing every grocery that came through our doors, and taking every precaution we could to ensure our safety, at least in my home. I think every doorknob in my vintage home is going to need to be replaced soon, as I was likely wearing them away with disinfectant.
Traversing the panic of the unknown as an immunocompromised individual brings a whole host of worries that never entered my mind previously. A mindset that puts my fellow countryfolk’s complacent attitude that has been revealed in the last year into clear focus, and stark contrast. Saying the past two years have held many lessons is an understatement.
As the year trudged on, and science understood and taught us all more about the virus, that sense of complacency only seemed to grow, while my introversion and detachment only grew. We would not be celebrating the holidays with family, for we knew, for the Common Good, it was in our interest to stay home, healthy, and as happy as we could muster.
As the seasons changed I began to follow the seasonal variations in circadian rhythm, I felt the waistline grow, the desire for comfort increase and I allowed myself to follow, mentally. Therein is the potential issue, right? One chooses to follow the natural seasonal patterns, and with it brings the possibility of allowing the negative self-talk, self-judgment laden mind to take the wheel, at least in my case.
I do not speak for everybody and that is understood. Some of you do not battle with this imbalance and should be thankful. For me at least, allowing for a natural slow down breeds a mindset I try to avoid at all costs. So how do we thwart this mindset’s advance. True rest, True restoration. These things are done by not inaction, that is the fuel for negative fixed mindsets.
True rest is an active participation journey, keeping the mind and body nimble is the linchpin to finding peace, which is really what rest is, right? Unplugging from electronics, purposefully staying off social media, limiting external stimuli, reading, writing, journaling are all activities that have a healthy positive effect on us as humans. Add some creativity in there, art, music, cooking, hobbies and you will find your days filled with joy. To restore our batteries’ energy reserves takes action, but will fuel us for the coming year.
Learning and accepting this process is so healthy for us. To fight against the changing of the seasons is a fool’s errand. Limiting negative self-talk, however minuscule is paramount. If you were to make a checkmark on a piece of paper every time you said “Oh I’m just a piece of shit” or whatever self-narrative you use during these months, I am certain you would notice too many on the page for comfort before long. It is in the minuscule choices we make that start to make a big effect on our lives. Rest takes action. Get action.