Surviving the bleak mid-winter

Another year is coming to an end.

A couple of days ago, I went to a sing-a-long in the bar of a local hotel. It was a grim, cold day and I didn’t feeling like going out at all. But I was so glad I did.

We’re lucky to have a thriving music scene in our small town on the Kent coast, and this event mixed world-class session musicians with skilled amateurs, playing to a packed house who were only too happy to join in on The Pogues’ Fairytale of New York or Wham’s Last Christmas. 

Cash was collected for the food bank, mulled wine and mince pies consumed, news was shared, get-togethers arranged.. and I realised how much I’d missed this, over the past few years.

It felt like coming home, after a long and arduous journey. Even though I’ve travelled far less in the past three years than ever before.

This has been a challenging few years, for most of us.

We all had our own journeys through the pandemic. And we’ve had to find our own path through the crises that followed. After the stress of the lockdowns, most of us longed to get back to normal, whatever that meant to us.

Instead, we’ve had war. Refugees. Prices rising at a terrifying rate. Strikes from public service workers who have finally reached breaking point. Climate change and increasingly extreme weather events. Frightened, threatened humans lashing out in fear and spite and making social media toxic. 

In the UK, we’ve had three prime ministers this year. Two monarchs. And a pervasive sense that the infrastructure we neglected and took for granted for so long is crumbling around us. 

We’ve all been carrying a heavy load. 

We’ve coped with a lot. The pandemic might seem a long while ago now, but few of us have been able to take the time we needed to recover, to regroup, to reconnect. 

We’re adjusting instead to suddenly touring and performing after a long break. To producing our art in the middle of a cost of living crisis, when even major arts institutions are struggling with brutal funding cuts. To a new normal that is too worn and threadbare for any of us to pretend that we’re back to business as usual. Many of us are surviving, more than thriving. 

There is good news, too.

It’s not all bleak! There are new platforms and outlets, and more ways than ever of getting your work in front of an audience, with or without gatekeepers.

Many of my clients this year have signed new book and record deals, got films and TV series into production, launched successful podcasts, businesses, fashion collections, art exhibitions. Others have found new and exciting ways of making an income from what they do.

Though it’s easy to fall prey to compare and despair (especially when social media allows us all to curate perfect-looking lives and careers), the creatives who have succeeded in this challenging time show us all what is possible.

But in coaching sessions, even my most successful clients have also talked about how challenging it can be to make work when their children are struggling to adjust to being back at school, when older relatives are quite rightly demanding time and attention after so long alone, when even everyday things like catching a train, getting through to your bank on the phone, or getting a doctor’s appointment are suddenly so damn hard. 

So let’s just take a beat to acknowledge this.

The last few years have been really, really tough. And we’re all feeling crushed by it, even if we’re not fully aware of why we’re feeling so depleted.

There are no easy answers, no one-size-fits-all solutions to all of this. But I think it starts with old-fashioned words, with values shared by every faith and tradition at this time of year. Love. Kindness. Compassion. Community. 

I say this a lot, but I don’t always hear it myself. So perhaps you need it repeated, too.

You don’t need to earn a rest, or deserve a break.

You just need to take it.  You’re not behind, and you don’t need to catch up. We’re all where we are, right now. And and we can’t be anywhere else. 

It is OK to be tired, weary, worried, angry, restless, despairing, touchy, tetchy, exhausted. You’re not alone in this, even though it might feel that way.

Reach out. Ask for help or support. Go see the people you love, even when you don’t feel like it. 

We need to be kinder.

We need to be kinder to others, certainly. But also to ourselves. You can’t be generous, creative or inspiring when you’re running on empty.

So take a break, if you can. Rest, recharge, replenish. Let go of needing the holiday season to be perfect, this year especially. Just focus on what might be fun. 

Enjoy the food and the gifts you have, and don’t worry about the ones you can’t afford. Keep your friends and family close. Play music, enjoy bad TV, read good books, laugh as much as possible. Wrap up and go for walks. Connect, create time together. 

It’s not about consuming.

When I look back at fond seasonal memories, they’re rarely about the gifts, the food, the stuff.

They’re about my mum playing Slade full blast to get her hungover teens out of bed because she can’t wait for the day to start. They’re about Diwali lights making dark and rainy Birmingham streets look magical way before Christmas. About terrible dad dancing, post-dinner snoozing, playing board games together and going for long walks in the park with friends, our dragon-breaths visible in the crisp, cold air. 

We’re in the bleak mid-winter now.

And we should act accordingly. This is not the time for pushing harder, for trying to do more and more. It’s the season for rest and renewal. For healing and perhaps even a short hibernation.

This year, being kind to myself means taking a proper break from writing and coaching. It means keeping the holiday catering simple, so I don’t replace one kind of work with another. It means taking time to breathe, pause, and just be. To acknowledge how depleted I am. How exhausted we all are. 

The days are cold and dark. But soon they will start to get lighter. And spring will come again, with new growth, ideas, and opportunities. 

In the meantime, how will you be kind to others? And to yourself?