The weather is changing yet again. I woke up on Sunday and was greeted with yet another day where it felt like the weather forgot to remember that it was still winter. Instead of being greeted by the season of hibernation, all things gray, and the bones of trees, I was beginning to be met with green sprouts of grass in our neighborhood lawns.
I’m not ready for spring. I love winter. The bite of the cool air. Having to wear more layers than I ever want to. It entrances me in a particular way.
However, there is something that I revel in about this time of year. At the edge of winter and the eager presence of spring, there is a coming promise of new life that is about to erupt from the dead of winter. We are all approaching a precipice that our world beacons us to enter.
Spring always delivers on its promise—to bring life from a season of hibernation. It is enticing to focus on what’s to come but that can often come at the expense of where we are presently. By wishing for and expecting the new season to deliver me from the season of retreat and rest, I forget what is right in front of me—the door that bridges the gap between.
Managing Our Emotional Winters
The nature of the earth’s seasons necessitates the seasons they follow and proceed. Winter is contingent on autumn as much as it is on spring. Spring is equally contingent on summer. I think the same is true of our emotional, spiritual, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and physical seasons. These personal seasons also may or may not be synced with one another. Our personal seasons each follow a celestial clock of their own.
I wonder which of our personal states are still in a period of winter?
Have we checked in with ourselves long enough to acknowledge the parts that might be in the thick of winter?
Winter has this innate power to drive us into isolation. Whether that is our physical homes or secret places inside of us, it is a season of retreat that requires a particular kind of acknowledgment and due deference. Our periods of sadness or depression, disconnection from self and others, apathy, and lethargy are important on the pure merit that they are a part of us. For many of us, this is a foreign notion.
Are the parts of myself I see as undesirable important to acknowledge just because they are part of me?
I frequently fall for the lie that these periods of winter are bad or undesirable. I can quickly come to see my depression as something to be defeated before I allow myself to acknowledge and address the root of what I’m depressing about. In these moments when I disregard a part of myself, I discredit core pieces that deserve radical acknowledgment and acceptance.
I wonder if these parts of ourselves that are experiencing winter are serving us in a particular way. They may be ushering in our growth. There are particular circumstances when we may have fallen in love with all that winter and our melancholy brings. This is another matter and might require its own post to discuss. The one offering that I will put out there presently is that when we subconsciously work to artificially preserve our winters, we are not being congruent to our needs and wounds.
One thing that I need to be clear on for my skeptics—I am by no means advocating for staying in particularly abusive, traumatic, or unhealthy places. If you find yourself in one of these spaces, reach out to people and local resources that can support you in receiving help.
Moving into an Emotional Spring
When we are congruent with our personal winters, transformation comes steadily closer to us. Sometimes that means crying it out, expressing our anger, acknowledging and experiencing our fears, sleeping, periods of restlessness, or allowing ourselves to “fall apart.”
There’s a line of a Real Friends song that puts it best: “If you never break, you never know how to put yourself back together.” This is the hope of our personal season of spring. Our winter must come for spring to arrive.
The cycle of nature’s seasons reminds us that our own seasons can and ought to be met with periods of hope and new life from our periods of despair or desperation. All of nature points to life being more like a circle than that of a line. The powerful affirmation that is embedded in this notion is that both my periods of sadness and happiness are equally important for my growth and improvement.
Here are some questions that I have come to appreciate when I find myself in a period of winter. They have helped me change the way I relate to myself and find opportunities for new growth and congruent expression with how I am feeling.
What am I avoiding about myself?
How can I be more congruent with what I’m feeling?
What is my experience inviting me to approach?
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Erich Campbell, MS, LAC, LAMFT
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Erich Campbell, MS, LAC, LAMFT received his Masters in Marriage, Couple, and Family Counseling from Harding University of Searcy, AR. He is a licensed associate counselor and licensed associate marriage and family therapist in the state of Arkansas, USA. His clinical work centers on individuals, couples, and families with a wide range of presenting issues. Erich finds enjoyment in providing hypnotherapy to his clients as well. He runs his blog through his website erichcampbellcounseling.com
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