In preparation for Winter

I wonder where we got the idea that "personal growth" equates to constant forward motion.

May I offer a rebuttal to this unhelpful doctrine of the self-help industry?

Or at least, to the industry model that requires exclusive growth, achievement, improvement, optimisation, betterment and productivity.

Because baked into this model is the puritanical premise that you are a problem to be solved, rather than a woman here to have a fully human experience. 

The trope that "work makes you free" seems to necessarily include "working" on yourself in addition to working in every other area of your life. 

But why does it all need to be work? What about play? And frivolity? And mystery? And magic!

What if pausing in the stillness, the waiting, the liminal space and the shadow are just as necessary and even as productive as the force of forward motion?  

And what if the point of any kind of wellness or self-help, including life coaching, is also to unlearn, to be witnessed and known, deconstructed, nourished, challenged, held in community, valued, resourced and liberated again and again and again? The perpetual cycle of life and death - and of becoming.

We see this in the seasons, in our menstrual cycles, in love and grief, in giving birth and in learning to let go. All of the seasons are of equal importance, and each pause within a cycle is essential and purposeful. And yet we don't seem to afford the same privilege for our personal growth, death and rebirth.

And so what goes unacknowledged is the strategic power of deep sustainable growth: the discernment and reflection that comes with slowing down, and concentrating on quality and longevity. 

There is power in the winter. 

Slowing down and "wintering" allow the mental space for introspection, intentionality, innovation and effective action taken from a place of alignment with our values, intentions and instincts. 

Nature doesn't relentlessly push through the seasons but instead allows time for rapid growth, to bloom, to shed and to hibernate.

So why should our personal development be any different?

More to come on incorporating "wintering wellness" amid the "holiday magic".

Until then, what does "falling into freedom" (pun intended) look like for you?