I came into winter with one intention: to embrace the essence of the season. I wanted to share in its wonders, witness the magic of its role in our collective renewal, and to simply appreciate all that happens during this sometimes tumultuous season as much as I have been doing during the spring and summer lately.
I didn’t consciously think about what this might bring closer to me in my lived experience. Looking back on it so far, I can already laugh at how silly I was to - yet again - place myself as an observer of life (even my own!) instead of a full participant. I thought I’d observe the magic of renewal and a slowed pace out there and honestly didn’t consider that it would mean I’d more keenly observe and touch on those same things inside myself.
Again and again, the universe presents me (and us!) opportunities to recognize that I’m here, right now, a welcomed and necessary part of this collective endeavor we call life. On this side of January, I can chuckle at the absurdity of my own unconscious expectations to be unruffled by winter.
The feeling of winter came late to Memphis - most of our December days I was appropriately dressed for the weather in simple t-shirts and flip flops. It wasn’t until the final weeks where we started to get colder temperatures, and even those were bookended by sunshine and warmth (even now, as I write this, we’ve just had 3 days of 60+ degree days as we head into a 20 degree night tonight with the promise of snow).
I’ve enjoyed all the weather we’ve had this season so far (while simultaneously worrying about the reality of climate change’s role in it). But as January set in, I was totally stunned by how the role of winter had crept into me. I found myself a stranger among family, spinning around an inquiry about if I’m really up for the work it will take to live my values, unable to focus on any task or idea for longer than five minutes (and sometimes even that felt impossible), and utterly bored, all over again, as if it were May 2020 and I hadn’t spent the last two years fine tuning my capacity to keep myself entertained and stimulated.
At some point, I simply surrendered to what was happening inside me and instead started to attend to it.
Winter will have her way, whether we recognize it as such or not. It turns out, for the astrologically inclined out there, winter was aided in January by Venus in retrograde, which “signals a time of inner-world spelunking, a time to take things slow, a time to ponder the pleasures of life, a time for things to fall apart, a time to experience what separateness and togetherness mean”, as Chani Nicholas recently wrote to her subscribers. Sometimes it’s nice to know there are bigger forces out there, and it’s not just all in my own head.
As I went through experiences in January with family that had me questioning who I am in the world and what I stand for; as I picked up a book to read a sentence and then sit it back down again; as I tried to create a gardening plan for the upcoming growing season only to find myself instead down a beauty product listicle rabbit hole of body lotions containing SPF; as I returned to my meditation practice to find myself restless and subsumed in the thinking content of my brain; as I heard the return of the “question whispers” (my anxiety “tell”, in which endless questions, without any pause, whisper through my brain and body so intensely that I feel my skin tingling and the need to scream is sometimes impossible to avoid); as I found myself simply unable to tend to what was true all around me, I discovered I had nothing left but “I surrender”.
For most of my life, I have believed that to surrender is to yield, to give up, to turn away from, to weaken my position, to put myself in the hands of others. It’s been a terrifying concept for me. I have had this definition reinforced to me nearly everywhere, so perhaps as you read this, that definition resonates.
But Winter has shown me already this season how incomplete - even wrong - I have been.
As I’ve surrendered, I’ve found boundless space around the drama of the stories I’m telling myself (“I don’t belong”, “I’m not capable”, “I’m not smart enough”, “I am lazy”, “I am undisciplined”, “I am alone and always will be” have each been particular friends this past month). In turn, that space has allowed me to deepen the care I feel for the parts of me that generate those stories in the first place. In surrendering, I have found myself clearer, more caring, more committed - to myself, my values, the world I hope to be part of building.
I see surrender now as a clarifying action that expands my commitment. Yes, surrendering has meant I’ve given up or turned away from the endless chatter, any sense of righteousness or simplified or either/or thinking I was holding onto, and the centering of myself and my reactions to any stimuli; but it has given me more power, agency, clarity, and commitment in return.
Angela Davis is often credited for (among many things) reminding us that “radical” simply means to “grasp something by the root”.
In surrendering, I’ve discovered I’ve been able to come to the root of what’s asking to be seen, witnessed, and integrated into myself so that I can grow.
Winter is a time for rest, for death, for turning toward only what is necessary and letting go of what isn’t, and for preparing for the birth, growth, and renewal of spring. Winter has so far had her way with me so that I look at - and begin to really care for and accept - the parts of me that I’ve not been ready before to integrate and see as important, if unskillful, parts of what make me, me.
January felt endless this year and there were days where I truly felt lost and overwhelmed. But here we are, already a couple of days into February, and what enabled that for me wasn’t more effort, more control, more planning. It was repeating the saying and practicing of “I surrender. I surrender. I surrender”. It has meant, as an example, that I go slowly, accept that I’m restless and listless instead of being determined to not be restless and listless, and care for my restlessness and listlessness with compassion instead.
As we all continue through the remaining weeks of winter, may we all practice surrendering; may we all bring care to what we’re facing; may we discover the space around the dramas of our lives so that we may move towards the root of the habits and behaviors that keep getting in our way of being our best selves.
May we all surrender, surrender, surrender.
I really need to read this today. Thank you. For me winter, having grown up in Puerto Rico, is not inevitable. Yet it is inevitable in the life I've chosen in the Midwest. I too have approached it many times as "THIS year will be the year I fully appreciate winter"... but very much as an observer, kind of like holding my breath and avoid all the complaining. I appreciate the push to look inward.