Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times Podcast Transcript

Want to listen along?  Listen to the Wintering Episode Here

About this episode (Wintering):

If you’re feeling tired, unmotivated, emotionally raw, or like “the New Year energy” is asking too much of you — this episode is for you. Blaze explores wintering as a real and necessary season of life: a time to slow down, lower expectations, rebuild your reserves, and stop treating rest like a moral failure.

You’ll hear:

• Why January often feels harder than we expect (and why that’s not “what’s wrong with you”)

• How to resist hustle culture and the “New Year sprint” pressure

• What wintering looks like in real life: simpler plans, smaller interactions, more nourishment

• How to build energy now so you have momentum later

• Practical permission to choose the easy-to-find nourishment and let that be enough

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Hello friends. I want to talk this week about Wintering and what that means and why it's so important and why you need it.

Wintering to me is the aspect of life where you need to slow down.

Where life is calling you to just be quiet for a little bit and just expect less of yourself.

To not necessarily do less, although it does tend to work out that way.

But to expect less big pushes from yourself and to be with yourself in a flow that perhaps feels and looks a bit different than it does in the rest of the year.

I think that wintering gets neglected by us, particularly right now, where it's like, "Woo-hoo, it's the new year - New Year, New You! Let's do it! Let's go change how you look and change the way you're dressing and it's time for a new wardrobe and let's do your workout and figure out how you're going to look different."

I don't know, three to six months and weight loss programs and makeovers and sprints in your business to see how many new sales you can get and all this other bullshit that drives me crazy.

What wintering is for me is recognizing that while all of that bustle and stuff is happening, the real pull inside of myself is to reject all of that hardcore.

And to say, "Absolutely not. I have zero desire to be productive right now in the traditional sense."

I don't want to work hard. I don't want to hustle. I think so many people out there right now are thinking, "My God, I also really don't want to work hard and hustle right now."

But it feels like I have to. And I would say that precisely because it feels like we have to so much, it's probably, that's like a symptom of how we feel.

Because we know that we're not meant to be filling these demands constantly all the time in our lives and that it's not humanly possible.

And it's not really sustainable for any of us. There are seasons, like both, you know, out in nature and the world, but in our own lives and in our business cycles and our relationships. And all of that is really hitting the peak right now in January.

So if you're feeling like, "Why am I so tired? Why is everything so hard right now? How come I just can't seem to get started?"

"Why do I feel depressed? Why is the light not enough for me?" Why, why, why? And all of them center around what's wrong with us.

That we're not feeling like the quick fixes that are offered are working.

When in reality, I would argue, well... look around you. Everything around you is not providing right now. Of course, it's hard to get started. Of course, we're not feeling particularly motivated if it's dark out and it's stressful and we just completed five million cycles of entertaining our relatives and dealing with difficult people and also holiday sales and all of the preparation and cleaning and aftermath of that.

None of us have recovered from it, or if we have we've only just recovered from it. Why the heck would we be asking ourselves to do even more right now?

It's just looking at it that way feels so ridiculous and like such a huge ask.

Whereas when we ask ourselves, what is it that feels appropriate?

What could I accomplish right now or what feels the easiest to accomplish right now?

And I want to open that up as a genuine question. If I ask you what feels easy to accomplish right now or the most easy thing for me to do,

What might your answer be? I think for some of us the answer would be, it would be easiest to sleep in.

It would be easiest to hang out with some friends and catch up on some movies that I missed. It would be easiest to maybe drink some coffee.

And maybe just read this article but not necessarily produce a magnum opus or come up with anything hugely ridiculously hard and complicated.

I know that on my weekends anyway, I'm like, man, all I really want to do is sit down and I play this game called Manor Lords where it's basically like you're creating little farm village from, I don't know, the 1700s.

And you're like, "Here's where I want the farm." And I want there to be a mill over here, and I want someone to have like a stable over here. And you can zoom in and watch little people walk around and harvest things.

And I find that so relaxing and non-demanding. It's like just demanding enough because I have to think about where the resources are located and how many people I have in my village, but it's not like I'm deeply worried about any of it.

I'm not worried about the success of my village. I mean, I want them to succeed, but if they don't, I can start the game again.

But I'm looking for things that are very calming, that are grounding. For me, repetitive right now seems nice, something that doesn't require a lot of brain power and thinking and emotional labor. I think that the season for that might not be right now.

It might be in a couple months when I have more capacity. And I really do feel like January is the season where, you know, it's cold and the well has run dry.

And the air is dry and we're just looking for nourishment. And we're having to like scrap it together, right? It's not like there's a lot of nourishment and great abundance right now. We're actually feeling kind of depleted. I mean, I look at it and go, okay, my bank accounts depleted from getting everything and entertaining everyone in gift giving, which is fine. I'm really glad to do it.

But that's a little low. My brain capacity is just not as high right now because I'm tired. It's dark all the time. It's really cold, so I am still going out for walks, but it takes...

Like it both gives me energy, but it drains my energy pretty quick. With the sun coming up late and going down early, I just feel like there's not that many productive hours where I feel energized. Like...

Maybe I'm a little bit like a reptile in that way. I just need the sun to warm me up, or I don't have the energy to keep going.

I think about relationships and how it just takes so much more to get together when it's cold than it does when it's warm.

In that there's more layers of clothing to put on and there's more stuff to pack and I need to make sure the roads are clear and I have to maybe shovel out my driveway and all of these things are like mental load concerns as well as actual time consumers when I think about actually having to prep my vehicle and get all these extra things.

So that also doesn't seem efficient and easy. Everything in my life is screaming at me, "Maybe you don't do so much."

Or if you do it, make sure it's really worth it because it's gonna cost you to do it. And if you look around and you're seeing that in your life as well and go, "Oh yeah, maybe right now is the time of year where it's just hard."

So I know some of you might be listening on the other hemisphere on the other side of the world.

And I would say, come back and re-listen to this episode when it hits Deep Winter for you. So maybe that's going to be more like June.

You'll come back and listen and go, "Oh my God, that seems so true because when it gets cold and it's darker and we're just...hitting capacity, it is not the time that we have all the energy to create, to interact, to go on these major campaigns, or do any of those things."

It is the time actually where we're meant to retreat, treat ourselves with a little bit more quiet and care.

Surround ourselves with what is nourishing and good for us as individuals and for us as communities.

And when we find that we're meeting all of those needs, weirdly, you have more energy, but you're also not expecting yourself to use it all. So I think the power of wintering really is in getting enough rest now that you naturally build up your reserves and then you have it for later.

I am taking a Qigong course right now that's teaching about gathering energy and how that works and how we can store it within our spirit, in our body, in our energetic system. And I think, man, that's such a perfect time of year for me to be doing this.

Because in the dead of winter, that's when I need the most and I want to cultivate the most energy because I really don't have a lot to give.

But if I spend the time now in the quiet where it feels natural and easier for me to do this, where I have lots of time where I actually want to be sitting by myself peacefully cultivating energy thinking about things. That seems like pretty doable. I think I could do that. When I do that, it does gather.

I start to have all of my good ideas. I'm able to write them down and think about what's going to come next and start to get excited.

And I absolutely know from experience that by the time I hit February and March, I'm going to be really excited and have a lot of energy built up towards an exciting new project that I want to build.

And then it'll naturally be like, you know, you've gained enough of a snowball at the top of the hill that it just rolls down the hill so easily at that point.

And it doesn't take from you, it actually builds off of you, if that makes sense. So it's no longer...

You spilling your energy out into the world, but rather like you providing the catalyst for the energy to just go do its own thing because you set it in motion.

That's really what I care about this time of year and I highly think it's relevant to all of us.

To say, "Man, if we took the time to just gain energy, to gain some perspective and back off and not interact when we're raw, so that might also be something that's happening."

If you're feeling raw right now, this is the time where it's absolutely appropriate to retreat and to take some space and to say, you know, maybe more interaction isn't the medicine that I need right now. Maybe I need smaller interactions or interactions with specific people that really bring out qualities in me that help me feel better, that help me offload some of my feelings, that help me make sense of what's happened over the past year, in the past few months.

Maybe I need to interact with some people in a smaller capacity, not describing exactly what I want to do or I'm going to do.

But to come up with cool ideas about what's happening next. I love the dreaming aspect of this time of year to be able to allow myself the gift of time.

The gift of being able to think about what might be next to observe what's happened before.

To witness and give time to see what's happening now.

If I can look at all of the projects that I have out in the world and say, "How are they going and what can I observe?" and really take enough time to observe it.

then I can get a sense of where things are going or what feels right next. But if I don't take that moment to really observe and feel and witness my own projects and things,

How can I know what I want to do next? I feel like when I rush through the winter, I kind of go into the spring blind.

And I find that I end up saying yes to a lot of things that I don't really want to say yes to.

So if you are also in the general feeling of "I want to say no to everything right now," please honor that in yourself.

It's so hard, I know it is, to feel like you're turning people away that you care about.

It's something that I've struggled with and do a little bit right now too, where I feel like if I'm turning down gatherings at this point that it feels like I'm rejecting people that I care about or that I do really want in my life.

What I've come to realize though is that saying no right now if I'm truly not having the energy to do stuff. Most of the time is not taken as a rejection by my friends and family. Most of the time they're like, "Oh God, thank goodness we're canceling. I also was too tired to do this."

Or, I didn't want to have to do the event in such a big way.

So wintering can also mean modifying your plans to be more realistic for the energy level that everyone has currently. So rather than thinking there's going to be an extravagant get together where there's lots of planning and for us, like we're a board gaming family and role-playing family and we get together with our friends and we have these amazing campaigns and they're fun.

Those take a lot of planning and mental, and for us, like emotional, if you're getting into the character kind of involvement. And sometimes...

we're too tired to host or my husband's the one who's often running the games.

If we're just kind of at capacity and we can't really come up with a good game right now.

Sometimes we reach out and say, "Hey guys, we're just a little tired or sick or we just don't, we don't have the story ready yet."

Almost always we're met with the response, "Oh thank goodness, like, don't worry, I'm overwhelmed too." Like a lot's going on in work and I'm tired and the kid's sick and whatever.

Most of the time we're all going through this, kind of simultaneously as a community.

So remember that while it feels so often like we're alone, like we're the only person experiencing this or that our needs are the inconvenient thing that stops everyone else...

What if you could start to look at yourself as part of a tribe in a community and to realize that they're also probably experiencing in some capacity the feelings and the general energy that you're picking up on as well?

I think that's true, and I think if you start to look outward from yourself and go, "Well, what is my family feeling? What are my closest companions and my friendships going through right now?"

And if I was to actually share my true thoughts and feelings about my capacity right now, which is pretty low,

Would that be met with acceptance? And I almost guarantee you the answer is yes. And sometimes it'll even be met with incredible relief of, oh, thank goodness. And here's what I found happens in my life is suddenly I find instead of us getting together to do so many things.

I'm now having gatherings with the same people to not do so many things. So now we get together.

And we are having tea. Like our big get together is like, could we just get together for tea? And if it turns out that it's warm enough, like go out for a tiny walk in the snow and then come back in and have cocoa.

That sounds really nice. Or we think, oh, we used to be getting together to actively play games and use our brains and do stuff like that, which is really fun.

But right now we want to get together to just binge movies that one of us hasn't seen that we wanted to share with the other. And it still feels like this giving from the heart, but it's in a...

Much more slow roll kind of capacity. It feels very chill. That is exactly what I need and want and what every aspect of my life reinforces right now.

So if you're looking outside and it's doom and gloomy and it's gray and it's quiet or it's like snowing or whatever and there's just a lot on your plate.

Look at that as nature just reflecting to you. Well, what should I do now?

And I always, always, I'm thinking of like all of the animals that live in my yard that come through and I love them and they're all funny and they have their own personalities.

But I think that they're not out there doing very active things right now because it's cold.

And the big flurries of activities that I see in footprints and snow and stuff is always about gathering whatever food just happened to plop out there or be available. Not hunting hard and looking for things that weren't easy to find. It's always they're going for the easy-to-find stuff.

So I think to myself, well, maybe I should also be going for the easy-to-find stuff right now and not trying to, you know, start a mining operation and figure out where all the good stuff is. Now is the time to rely on my past wisdom and just do the easy thing.

And there definitely is a time where doing the hard thing will feel great and I will have energy for it and it's just around the corner and it is for you too.

You have no need to push to get there. It will find you. So you can feel safe and secure, just relaxing, just a little bit right now.

Hmm. How would it feel to take lots of extra naps? To take a walk instead of produce another...

I don't know, email, article, report.

What would it feel like to say no to a big gathering that requires you to get dressed up and be fancy if you don't have the energy for it and instead say,

"Let's just meet up and watch a movie and eat food that no one had to really make that we just kind of had or we picked up."

I love that right now this time of year and I love that for all of you. I hope that we all get it. I think there's an energizing that comes out of that and a delight that comes out of that.

It's an alignment with the season rather than working against it. And as with all things, it is naturally moving and shifting.

So remember that right now we are in the deep of winter. I know...

Personally here, it's going to get even colder and more brutal for the rest of this month into February.

And then there's going to be this breathing moment where I go, "It's getting warmer." And I start to notice usually in February that it's getting brighter and there's more daylight and I get so excited around then.

But right now, the thing I'm most excited for is curling up in my cozy chair and reading all these books and wonderful treasures that people have shared with me, maybe doing some sketching and drawing, and doing all the quiet things that really contribute to my feeling well, like actual well-being.

Enjoyment. I wish that for all of you as well. Enjoy yourself, find the things that really resonate this week, and I will see you next time.

Related Episodes

If the pressure to hit the ground running feels awful right now, you might want to listen to The Myth of the New Year Sprint too — it pairs really well with this idea of wintering.

If slowing down feels unfamiliar or hard to allow, you might also appreciate the episode Permission to Pause, which explores what it means to rest without guilt and listen to your own rhythm.

If this conversation resonates and you’ve been wondering why everything feels so hard lately, you might want to listen to What If You’re Not Broken — Just Tired? It offers a compassionate reframe that pairs beautifully with wintering.