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Wintering Discontent
January/February 2006 |
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Winter brings darkness. Where I live, in the Pacific Northwest, the rain comes down. Morning, night, mid-day in winter, the sound of rain beats us into a dreary stupor. You know the feeling sustained cold brings. Before long, not only is the weather gloomy, but our lives are clouded, murky. And work? You couldn't care less about it, truth be told. In darkness resides chaos. You are working on a team and you are accountable to be "up" and "active" and really in the game. But what do you do when you wake up, your mood is low, your ambition lower, and the work you were passionate about six months ago is flagging, along with its team? Everyone is in the slump, and the deadline is not going anywhere. In chaos lives opportunity. What is the typical response? Buck up! Take supplements, drink coffee… anything to get you back in the game and out of this slump. But did you know that EVERYTHING slows down in winter? Water freezes, fish slow their pace.Our molecules slow down in a natural cycle. Even the highest achiever's molecules on your top performing team slow down in the cold. Too much to do with too little bandwidth means press on, right? Wrong. Despite what this culture of drive and success tells you, the most powerful move you can make is to surrender. The practice. Take five minutes, FIVE minutes, in the middle of your day, and allow the mind and the spirit to slow, relax and breathe. No cigarette break. No reading a book. Five minutes to DO nothing, and to simply BE in silence and breathe. When you do this your subconscious has permission to come out and play, your creativity perks up into new solutions, and believe it or not, your mood will start to lift. Notice where in your life you are resisting. Simply notice it for a day or two. Then, notice what you have been DOING to CHANGE the resistance. Have you been trying to make it different? How much energy has been spent there? Why? Give up the fight. Stop resisting and surrender. Just simply let go. You don't have to fix it. You really don't. Allow your 5 minutes. Don't try to change or fix anything, just SIT with it and BE with yourself and your experience. Is it heavy? Are you ready to run? This practice will offer a gateway to understanding and handling all sorts of chaos and darkness in your life. Notice what begins to shift. Trouble with a colleague, the progress of a project. When you sit in silence, the neo-cortex of the brain rests. The result may come after five minutes or five days, but I assure you the brain, your nervous system and your spirit will be cleansed, refreshed and will have gone through the replenishing cycle that nature does. These seasons happen for a reason and if they are good enough for Mother Nature, consider they might be good enough for you, too. In the spirit of Winter, Regina |
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