A winter of the soul is a time of feeling heavy, contracted, or closed. It may last only a few minutes during a stressful moment in your day or stretch across months during trauma or loss.
Winter is a time of suffering, stress, and struggle.
One of the greatest inner obstacles during a winter of the soul is the tendency to over-personalize it. Yes, our choices, blind spots, or behaviours can lead to painful consequences. Yes, avoiding responsibility, refusing to see ourselves honestly, indulging in self-destructive thinking, or expressing emotion without wisdom can have consequences. Yes, there is some truth in the idea that our energy and resonance can call matching, tuning fork-like songs from life.
And yet, we can think “summer, summer, summer,” while winter remains part of a much bigger reality.
When you are experiencing a winter of suffering, discern how to meet it as best you can, with courage and dignity. Draw on your wisdom well for insight and inner guidance. And recognize that there are tidal movements in collective reality that are genuinely larger than us.
When winter is not your fault, you lift the added suffering that comes from carrying guilt and fear.
When a small wave touches your foot as you stand on the beach, what is the original cause of that wave? You could point to the wind, but then you must consider deeper weather patterns. Then you must include the movement of the planet, the pull of the moon, the dynamics of the solar system, the galaxy, and ultimately the vast unfolding of the entire universe.
The wave is not caused by one separate thing. It is the expression of the whole.
In the same way, winters of the soul arise from countless variables. Genetics, personal history, collective consciousness, and even intergenerational family patterns all play a role.
Winters are part of what it means to be human.
We would never walk up to an apple tree in winter and blame it. Saying, “your negative thoughts created this winter,” would be both cruel and untrue.
Winter is part of the tree’s journey. Humans have been learning how to suffer, struggle, and die with dignity for eons. Can we meet our own soul winters with more dignity and kindness? I believe we can.
During one of the most challenging experiences of my own path, after surviving a home invasion armed robbery, a friend casually asked me what negative thoughts I had that attracted the crime into my life. The question felt like a punch to the gut, leaving me with fear and doubt.
Days later, when I was able to sit quietly and meditate, I turned inward and built my wisdom well. I asked a courageous question, like lowering a bucket into deep water. Did I truly create this? Did my negative thoughts attract this crime?
The clearest seeing that brought sanctuary and peace was simple and profound.
Winter is not your fault.
I saw how the criminals were living in their own winters of anger, desperation, and ignorance. I saw that I was not being punished or taught a lesson. I could choose to harvest wisdom from the experience, and I chose to do so.
This clarity allowed me to give my body, mind, and heart what they needed to heal.
During the winters of the soul, the most loving response is often to create an inner sanctuary. To slow down. To soften self-judgment. To allow grief, fear, and exhaustion without trying to transcend them. Without trying to be spiritual.
Winter asks for compassion. It asks for patience. It asks us to endure with dignity, trusting that this, too, shall pass.
Visit www.colleen-joy.com for her free PDF Test and Teachings to discover the Season of your Soul.
