Winter Stillness & Other Small Permissions

Dear reader,

I hope the new year met you gently. Perhaps it arrived in the clink of a martini glass and the weight of velvet on your shoulders, or perhaps in fuzzy socks, a good book, and the quiet comfort of staying in. However you welcomed it, I hope it was exactly what you needed.

The beginning of a year can feel strangely heavy, can’t it? As if January arrives carrying a long list of expectations: resolutions to set, goals to define, momentum to gather. I feel it too, that subtle pressure humming beneath the surface. But this year, I’m choosing to meet January differently…

For me, January is not for rushing forward. It is for gaining consciousness rather than productivity, for sketching out systems without demanding that they immediately function perfectly. It is a time to notice what feels nourishing for both mind and body, to make space before filling it. Implementation can come later, when the light has returned a little more generously.

We are, after all, still deep in winter. We have already lived through months of darkness, of inwardness, of moving slowly whether we intended to or not. January, I think, asks us to honour that rather than resist it, to rest inside the season instead of trying to outpace it.

If you feel called to, I invite you to try this gentler approach too. Let January be a soft pencil draft rather than a final version. There is time. And there will be light.