To the Winter in All of Us

Dear friend,

I know the weight of this season too.

How the air is thick with silence, how the days stretch long and colorless, how the ache of waiting seeps into your bones. The world tells you that winter is only a passageway to spring but I know it doesn’t always feel that way. It can feel like an eternity of bare branches, dark news, and heavy skies, like joy is something that happened to someone else in another lifetime.

But hear me: this winter is not a punishment. It is not proof that you are lost, nor evidence that something within you has failed. It is a sacred pause, a reckoning, a slow unfurling of everything that no longer serves you. And though it may not feel like it, you are becoming more yourself in this stillness. The roots you cannot see are growing deeper, stronger. The parts of you that have been running on borrowed time are finally resting, finally catching up to your own life.

There is something else I want you to know. Winter has a way of sharpening your hearing, not the kind that picks up the noise of the darkened world, but the kind that picks up the whispers within. The ones you have been too busy to hear. Bundle yourself up and step outside in the early morning, when the world is still untouched by the day. Walk beneath the bare trees and listen—not just to the wind moving through the quiet, but to yourself.

What is stirring beneath the stillness?

What truth have you been carrying that’s been waiting to be spoken? Your intuition does not abandon you in winter. If anything, it grows louder in the hush.

Trust what arises in the cold. There is wisdom here.

I won’t tell you to rush through this. I won’t tell you to “just think positive” or “find the lesson.” No. Winter asks for reverence, not resistance. So let yourself be here fully. Let yourself grieve what is cold and barren. Let yourself rage against the gray. Let yourself rest, even when rest feels like inertia.

And when the ache feels unbearable, when you long for the warmth of a sun that refuses to break through—remember this: winter is never the end of the story. The Earth, in all her wisdom, would not strip herself bare if she did not know, without a doubt, that life would return. She does not question the coming of spring. And neither should you.

So for now, gather what warmth you can. Wrap yourself in the quiet knowing that you are being prepared for something you cannot yet see. Hold close the truth that even here, even now, there is something sacred at work. And when the first green bud appears—when the thaw begins—you will know, deep in your soul, that you were never forsaken.

Only made ready.

With you in every season,

Practice Postscript

• The Reflection:

In what ways is this winter season shaping me, rather than breaking me?

• The Everyday Practice:

Step outside in the early morning cold, even just for a few minutes. Walk without distraction. Listen not only to the silence, but to yourself. What nudges arise?

• The Question to Carry Forward:

If I believed, without a doubt, that this winter was preparing me for something beautiful, how would I move through it differently?