Winter Blues 🌬️ A Contemplation of Nature's Way [Bonus: A song from the archives]

Seasonal depression.. Stillness.. Acceptance

“Don't surrender your loneliness so quickly. Let it cut you more deep. Let it ferment and season you as few humans and even divine ingredients can. Something missing in my heart tonight has made my eyes so soft, my voice so tender, my need for God absolutely clear.”

Hafiz

We have come to that time of year here in the northern hemisphere, just passing the longest darkest 10 weeks of Winter, but here in the north of Scotland, we’re far from warmth and signs of spring yet.

These long dark nights have has given me so much ‘dreaming’ time. Clarity of where I want to put my energy moving forwards.. and there’s the urge to push on with those dreams. And that’s when the depression hits, as my energy levels simply can’t match the momentum of output right now.

I’ve struggled with the winter blues for as long as I’ve lived in these colder climates. It’s no stranger to me, so I speak here today of it as an old friend, one I have build relationship with, give space to, allow, observe. Today I speak of seasonal depression not as something ‘wrong’ with me, but as something experienced that is completely natural.

It is natural to want to rise with the sun, this time of year the sun rises at 9:00am. As it is also natural to want to sleep not long after the sun sets, so we find ourselves tired, exhausted, staying up beyond our natural rhythm’s with blue lights and things to be done.

It’s the natural feeling of winter, as all things contract, freeze, and wait for the conditions to flourish return. It’s an acknowledgment of the cycles, that all things shall pass, and as the world turns on its axis we turn with it.

I have always held so much shame around it, as the modern patriarchal worldview urges a perpetual state of ‘well-being’ at all costs. Capitalising on anything it can to sell you back to happiness.

Last year it hit me the hardest, as I struggled with winter blues, single-parenting and a relatively new romantic relationship.. the aforementioned ex-partner, riding a wave of self-righteousness through his white-man dogmatic wellness lens of yoga, continually gaslit me into believing I was ‘mentally ill’ because I’d break down crying once a month. We ended up breaking up at the end of winter because of these challenges.

I don’t want to cater to a puritanical western colonial idea of ‘wellness’. I don’t want to preach that just doing more yoga will improve your mental health, because that is a lie, in fact at a time that I was doing the most yoga in my life, my depression was at it’s worst. Yes, moving your body can be beneficial, but pushing yourself beyond your nervous system’s capacity is even more detrimental.

Because what’s not being addressed is how normal it is to feel this way. Rather than labelling it a mental illness and to do this 8 step process to get you to wellness again, can’t we drop the shame around it and speak about it openly?

The times I’ve felt my worst, I haven’t dared said a word online, I’ve barely even reached out to friends. There’s an inclination to not want to burden someone with your darkness.

But it’s in the darkness that we grow in a way that nobody can see. Like the unborn child growing in the darkness of the womb.

As a Creative, we are so much more sensitive to these rhythms. Our intuitive understanding of the world is reflected in our art, in our work.

The darkness is a beautiful fertile place for me to create, to write, to dream.

Let us not be quick to ‘fix’ our seasonal lows with an unnatural urge to continue to work to do better, be better. As all the growth and progress will happen in it’s season if we have honoured the period of deep rest ‘deep-rest-ion/depression’ for the cultivation of our creative nature.

This is a time of year to be gentle to yourself, be kinder in your thoughts and practice radical self-acceptance. This too shall pass. ♡

All of the above images included are by Oda Iselin sourced through Pinterest.
I really feel like they encapsulate the ‘wild in the darkness’ feeling I have at this time of year.

Below, I have included one of my acoustic unreleased original songs previously named ‘Bedroom Blues’. I am re-working this song for a new release this year, but I’m happy to share this one from the archives for my paid subscriber community. ♥︎