Growing your Winter Leaves
Winter blahs.
We all feel them at one point or another. This last week especially has been feeling its challenges for me in terms of my personal productivity. I’ve been feeling tired and low energy, motivation wanes as the onset of dark comes, and the lack of sunshine has impeded my spirits. I feel like a lazy lost lump of goo. My usual go-to fixes have felt less responsive in changing my mood, and I feel, well, kind of stuck in outer-space…soundlessly floating around in the atmosphere.
My maidenhair fern in seasonal transition…
Not ideal when I know I am coming to the end of my sabbatical and the list of things I wanted to complete this month have not been completed and I don’t seem to have the energy to get the fire going (which can be anxiety-provoking if I let it).
Why am I sharing this?
The challenges of winter are felt by many. We sail and struggle through it in our own way. Talking with others about this lethargy helps; knowing others in my personal circle understand and experience what I am experiencing gives me comfort that I am not alone in this challenging season. And, knowing one’s personal experience is not an isolated experience. Understanding our own individual experiences in fact are frequently communal experiences can help us work through issues that might feel difficult or isolating. There is power in the share.
Said simply, sharing our personal experiences can help us feel more connected to each other and feel understood & validated with our own personal experience.
My own personal challenge to consciously reframe winter requires mindful observation and habitual reframing of old narratives. My most recent reframe is distilled from a real-life example. The image that brought me most to a pause and reassessment this week was my fern. Both of my ferns actually. One which had been stagnant of growth for month, and the other, of which I was ready to throw out because it looked well…dead. For weeks I’ve been trying to revive it, and everything I tried to do to help it revitalize, was without result. Or so I thought. I watered it, misted it, changed location…. more sun, less sun, indirect sun….and still nothing. It was on its way to the outdoor compost but my husband stopped me and reminded me of its winter leaves and to be patient. He told me to let the ferns be, as they are in between cycles and still have to grow their winter leaves.
I was dismissive to him about this, but agreed to leave the dead plant for another week before making a final decision to toss (having dead-looking plants is not very inspiring for my psyche this time of year, but that attitude was about to prove myself wrong).
About a week later, I came up the landing and saw these spindly shoots. The plant had been alive and growing the whole time, I just hadn’t noticed (or been able to notice from the surface). Before my eyes, new life was brewing; budding actually!
And when I examined it closer in detail, underneath all the dead leaves were all these new shoots that had pushed through the soil’s surface. New life was burgeoning. It was doing its own thing, growing, just not at a pace I was comfortable with, which I found this funny because I love plants, but boy, sometimes I am not patient with them at all.
The summer growth couldn’t survive the winter season. With reduced resources in the winter, plants need to adapt to their environment and let go of what they cannot support anymore. In winter conditions, plants need to reallocate resources, conserve energy, and release anything it doesn’t have the framework to support. Conversely, in the spring, reorganization happens again with renewed resources; new shoots abound and robust summer leaves reappear as there is the resources in the environment to support its increased growth.
We could all benefit modelling the cycle of plants: allow yourself to reallocate resources, conserve energy, and release anything that you don’t have the framework to support.
Yes, the fern is smaller and more compact from its summer appearance, but there is still growth. Calculated growth. Slower, deliberate growth that permeates out from its summer structure. And it reminded me that I could do the same.
Calculated growth. Slower, deliberate growth that permeates out from its summer structure. And it reminded me that I could do the same.
I could grow my winter leaves.
There will be times when I feel stagnant, like nothing is happening, like I am unmotivated and lacking in drive to finish tasks and meet goals. My growth may not look like what I see during other periods of the year, but there is still measured growth. The slower tempo allows me to keep a pace I can sustain throughout, and allows me the space to revise, review, rethink, and realign with what is important to me, how I prioritize my time, my work, and where I put my energy.
One piece of wisdom that was given to me from a friend—in this season of conservation, clearing out people, activities, or obligations that he doesn’t have energy or time for provided him an opportunity to reflect and see which things he was spending time on that wasn’t serving him or even enjoying.
By having to make those cuts for self-preservation, it informs us better to where we DO want to put our energy in our ‘summer seasons’ of expansive growth.
photo by Herr Bohn via Squarespace
And my biggest learning? That I need to be compassionate in this time of year. I need to practise more care and self-compassion to the person who is fighting against herself and her nature to produce, perform, and be pro-active in all matters. She needs to take a breather and let her ‘type B’ self take the helm for a while.
Photo by Fabrice Villard via Squarespace
Things still get done. Learning still happens. Tasks will still be completed. It just won’t be at the intensity of my ‘summer schedule’. And I need to give myself that grace. Some days will feel like nothing gets done. And that’s okay. There’s work happening underneath the surface and I need to trust myself and the process. Other days my winter leaves will poke through and continue to grow in the sunlight.
Finally, if some days just making sure I’m safe and healthy are what happen, that’s okay too. The difficulty and challenge of this season also brings fortitude, resilience, and resourcefulness. I am here. Every year I can allow myself to thrive in winter, but in a winter’s pace.
I grow my winter leaves. I work my winter schedule. I give myself my winter respite.
And so it is.
Photo by Szabo Viktor via Squarespace
If you’d like to read more on the value of rest and renewal, check out these articles:
(1) How Resting More Can Boost Your Productivity by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang {author of Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less; Basic Books, 2016). Source: Greater Good Magazine: Science-Based Insights for a Meaningful Life
(2) Why Rest Days are Important for Higher Efficiency at Work by Kenny Kline. Source: Lifehack.org
