In winter, we rest.

In the northern hemisphere, we’re nearing the winter solstice, the longest night of the year. Our bodies know that in winter, we rest. It’s time for more sleep to get through the cold night, and more food to prepare for the potentially hungry months to come. If we were living close to the land, our lives would match these internal and external cycles. 

Yet our institutions hardly blink, school starts before the sun rises, and rent is still due. The old urge to celebrate lives on in holiday festivities, but how many of us are actually finding peace and feeling restored from these gatherings? 

The body has a deeply wise knowing that the mind alone can’t perceive. When we push past our body’s requests and signals for rest (or no), the body eventually demands rest through illness and injury. 

How do we create the conditions to rest within the world of responsibilities that slouches onward? 

We can expand our somatic awareness, our ability to sense and feel those signals before we blow past them. 

We can practice making requests, like “Can we work out a schedule where we each cook dinner 3 nights a week?”, and set and reinforce boundaries where needed. 

We can practice making authentic offers of what we’re actually able and willing to provide, instead of habitual over-extensions beyond our body’s boundaries. There may be work that goes undone, because we finally stop taking on what’s not ours. 

These are specific somatic practices that I offer my clients. 

The good news is that all of these relational skills are crucial not only for us to live well under the current unnatural, inhumane system we find ourselves in, but they also help us coordinate our actions to realize collective visions of more loving and sustainable ways of being. 

Let’s practice together.