New Year new me?
Every new year, we feel the pressure, don’t we? Do more. Be bigger. Hustle. Thrive! And it starts in November right after the turkey is put away. Motivators start counting down the days remaining in the old year, asking what we plan to do with our leftover time before the new year comes bursting in.
If you’re anything like me, you heard that question and pondered your life as you ate yet another Christmas cookie and turned on that joyfully predictable Hallmark movie. What am I going to do with these last 30+ days of the old year?
I’m going to finish this movie and start the next one.
I’m going to stay in my pajamas all day.
I’m going to listen to the same fifteen songs on repeat.
I’m going to whip up another batch of this sourdough sugar cookie dough and eat sprinkles off of the counter.
I’m going to wear clothes that don’t make my extra winter pounds feel like a bad thing.
And if I’m honest, I don’t feel guilty for being that way… but should I? Am I supposed to want to hustle out with the old year and sprint in with the new? Or is this slower version of this season ok too?
A slow season is necessary for growth
Everything in nature has a slow season, a rest season. Some animals and most plants straight up quit in the winter. They hibernate or go dormant. I know we are not hibernating mammals. Most of us can’t afford to do absolutely nothing in today’s modern society of working forty hours a week year-round. But we can give ourselves permission to take a season of rest.
It’s not a coincidence that all the winter things make us feel cozy and give us the desire to do less. Big blankets, comfy clothes, warm drinks, heavy foods; they are all geared towards the same idea – winter is the season of rest.
Literally and metaphorically, your body can not grow without rest. When you work out, you need rest and recovery days to aid in the growth of muscles. When you make bread, you need to let it rest in order to rise. Creative ideas often come to us in bed or in the shower while we are resting! That’s not a coincidence. That is the design of nature and humans are a part of nature. Our bodies want to work with a cycle a rest.
How to you find the natural cycle?
For me, reconnecting with the cycle of nature was forced upon me when Miles died. It was the first time I felt truly at the mercy of the natural progression of things. I couldn’t control my grief, my emotions, or my healing. I had to learn to listen to my body and let it align with the natural order of the universe.
Geez, that sounds ultra spiritual.
But I don’t have a better way to explain how I got thrown into the desire to find the physiological approach to {mostly} everything. From grief, it went on to menstrual cycle tracking while trying to get pregnant, into a holistic pregnancy and physiological birth, through a slow postpartum, and on to breastfeeding and child-rearing. My intuition and the natural order of things never felt so obvious.
It started to feel louder the more I stopped listening to the noise around me; the noise telling me to hustle, make appointments, do more, achieve more, and focus on accomplishments.
Even with my oldest son now in public school – I don’t feel the need to push him to succeed in a traditional way. We don’t do extra lessons at home but we still learn. We don’t practice schoolwork over a break, we just play. I don’t put pressure on tests and grades, instead, I want to know about the friends he’s making and how he’s observing the world.
It all comes back to allowing our lives to be slow and follow a natural pace; the pace that society shouts over as they say we need to get our test scores up and work harder so we can make more money.
Nature is quiet but society is loud.
With this New Year, while I do have goals that I want to accomplish in 2023, I didn’t set any big expectations on January 1st. I probably won’t make any serious changes for another month or so. I’ll wait for the world to thaw and come back to life before I start looking for growth. I won’t put pressure on myself to start strong or commit to something early, I’ll allow myself to warm up to the ideas with the seasons.
And if that’s how you’re feeling too, welcome to this side of the internet where we believe that our bodies function best when we honor their natural rhythm.