The Garden Way: Cultivating Intentionality in a Fast-Paced World.

Forcing Ourselves to Rest

For so many of us, holidays bring a certain level of stress: pressure to have the cleanest, most exquisitely decorated house (because of that ONE judge-y auntie), the urgency to get the perfect gift for everyone on your list, even if your finances are telling you to scale things back or you just don’t have a clue what to get someone who has everything. There just isn’t much time between Thanksgiving and Christmas for most of us. Then, it’s a whirlwind of getting our lives back in order, just in time to return to school and work at the start of the New Year.

Sadly, many of us only rest when our bodies give in to illness. And even as we call out sick on those days, inside, we feel guilty for not performing. We still try to keep the laundry done, check a few critical work emails, show up for a Zoom meeting or two, and cook dinner for our families. I think women feel this pressure most acutely – it seems that the simple act of returning to an upright position signals to our families that we are back at our posts.

When I was I’ll earlier this fall, I experienced all of these things. It was only when I heard myself saying to sick staff, over and over again, that their health was more important than writing a report that wasn’t due for weeks, that I realized the irony of opening my work emails while ordering others to do the opposite. So, when I felt myself falling ill with the flu recently, I made the deliberate choice to call out and go offline completely – even at home. I shut myself in my room, with a box of tissues, cold medicine, a thermometer, some hot tea, bottles of juice, and a few pieces of fruit. And there I stayed for four days. When I reemerged, I set clear boundaries. Yes, I know it’s 8:00 pm, and I’m going to bed. No, I don’t plan on cooking anything tonight (and why would you want ME to touch your food right now, anyway?). It felt liberating and scary, and I’m glad I did it.

A Season of Restoration and Replenishment

At the hinge between darkness and light, the Winter Solstice and the days that follow are a time of liminality, that moment of stasis where the pendulum of the year has moved out of the past but is not yet moving into the future. This moment is vibrant and alive, even as it is still and motionless. It represents the loud pause before the music rises in a concert, the crossroads on a lonely road, the mental stillness right before you make a critical decision, the willingness to sit in the fog until clarity comes.

Illness, darkness, the cold weather, winter storms – all are opportunities to stop and reassess, to take the chance to recharge ourselves. I had a friend who was placed on leave from her job as a nurse due to a drinking problem. Her response was not to lament her unemployment. She decided to go to as many AA meetings as she could until she was well and ready to go back to work. She took advantage of a dark time to reevaluate her life, decide what to shed, rekindle the light within, and move forward into a new season.

At this transitional point, don’t rush anything. Let the darkness reveal what you can do without, the spark that you want to fan, and the treasure that has been hidden from view by so many distractions. Channel your reversed Two of Swords energy. The darkness you are experiencing isn’t an absence of light. It is a revelation.

Pressing Pause This Season

As you move through the coming days, what has the darkness of the season revealed to you? What do you need to prune away from your life? What spark has remained within you, despite the challenges of the past year? What lessons has the darkness revealed to you about yourself, your relationships, your actions? Where do you want to shine more brightly in the coming year?

At The Garden Way, we would love to hear your intentions for the coming year – drop a line in the comments below. Or, for more journaling ideas, download The 12 Nights of Yule.

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