How to Winter Well in a Modern World
February: Week 1
Winter, in the modern world, is a slightly confusing affair.
Outside, everything is clearly slowing down. Trees have given up on productivity altogether. Animals are conserving energy like seasoned economists. Light is rationed. Growth has been postponed without apology.
Inside, however, nothing has got the memo. Emails continue. Targets remain. The subtle cultural hum insists that this is an excellent time to reinvent yourself, ideally before February. The result is that many people feel oddly wrong for struggling at exactly the point when struggling makes the most biological sense.
To winter well now requires a certain amount of psychological disobedience.
Historically, winter came with built-in permissions. In pre-industrial Europe, February was understood as a lean and inward month. Work slowed. Communities gathered closer. Storytelling, reflection and maintenance replaced expansion. Shakespeare captured something of this seasonal mood when he wrote of winter as a time of endurance rather than triumph, a reminder that survival itself can be an achievement. Movement reduced. Work changed. Reflection, repair and waiting were framed as survival strategies rather than shortcomings. Modern life has largely removed those permissions while keeping the season.
Compassion Focused Therapy offers a helpful lens here. It describes three emotional regulation systems. The threat system scans for danger and reacts quickly to uncertainty. The drive system pushes for achievement and progress. The soothing system supports rest, safeness and restoration.
Winter tends to activate threat, which then recruits drive in an attempt to escape discomfort. The soothing system, the one most needed at this time of year, is often sidelined. To winter well is not to silence threat or abandon drive. It is to deliberately make room for soothing.
Winter is not a productivity problem. It is a conservation phase. Trying to solve it with effort alone often increases anxiety rather than easing it.
Wintering well today might mean adjusting expectations before adjusting behaviour, reducing exposure to self-improvement noise and intentionally creating conditions of warmth, familiarity and rest. This season asks a different question than modern culture tends to ask. Not what should I achieve now, but what is reasonable to expect of a human nervous system at this time?
Slowing down is not the opposite of growth. It is often how growth survives.
Wintering well does not mean withdrawing from life completely. It means staying engaged in ways that are proportionate, realistic and kind. It asks for discernment rather than discipline and for listening rather than pushing.
About the Author
Dr. Richard Pomfret
Dr. Richard Pomfret is a HCPC-registered Counselling Psychologist and founder of Therapy On The Hill. He works with adults experiencing a range of emotional and psychological difficulties, offering evidence-based therapy in a compassionate and collaborative way.
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