Embracing Your Personal Winter

How you respond will be the blueprint for how you emerge

I used to hate the cold. Like, seriously HATE it.

So much so that in my twenties, I never bought any jumpers or thick socks, much to my friends amusement. My wardrobe was in denial of the winter.

Maybe you’re like me, and you’re all about summer — the blazing hot days where you can walk around freely without a coat, the warm glow of the sun nourishing your bones. On holiday, I was always the first person out sunbathing, desperate for my skin to turn a coveted shade of brown.

I used to believe the experience of summer was inherently positive, and going through winter was negative. Yucky, cold, dull and boring weather.

Until I read the book Wintering.

The gifts of the cold

Maybe you have embraced the cold recently in your life, Wim Hof style. Perhaps you’ve experimented with cold showers, or decided to go wild swimming in the subzero temperatures of a winter lake.

Wintering tells a story about how we can be plunged into psychological coldness, too.

Perhaps we lose a job or a loved one, perhaps we have an accident or illness. We were once flourishing; now we have shrunken, our souls…