She remembers a line from Virginia Woolf about such experiences.  Woolf referred to them as “moments of being.” Right now she feels just as Woolf described:  content, in synch with something bigger—perhaps the greater good.   She feels in touch with herself.  She feels alive and puts her attention to herself feeling alive.  According to the various holistic arts she practices, the cold makes it easy to locate self and the more you try, she has come to realize, the stronger and tighter you can focus. 

She remembers a line from a book she once read by Alan W. Watts.  She recalls his explanation of an Eastern concept that suggests how somewhere inside the feeling of cold you can locate a feeling of warmth and vice versa.  She has found that place inside herself. And now a rewarding wave of goodness spreads throughout her. She walks briskly about an eighth of a mile as is her habit.   She tries a technique she learned in a breathing lesson years earlier.  She breathes in through her nose to the count of 1-2-3-4.  Then she exhales to the same count.  She puts her attention on the whooshing sound of her breath.  This empties her mind of all but the feeling of goodness and warmth inside.  She loses sense of time and falls into the rhythm and sound of her breathing.  Then she breaks into a light jog.  It begins snowing thickly.  Flakes cling to her eyelashes.  She doesn’t know how long this has been occurring yet when she becomes aware of it, she squints and peeks through her icing lashes to enjoy how they have prisimed the light.  She notices too how the chill (which doesn’t feel chilly to her anymore) has helped rid her of stressors.  She can feel her focus has lightened.  She is confident that, if she wanted to, she could intensely focus on anything yet her mind would remain light, supple, flexible and quick. She has entered what could be defined as a state of flow. And this feeling is one of the main reasons she jogs every other day throughout winter. She likes, as well, that she can sustain this mindset into things she wants to do even late into the day, sometimes even into the next day. And she is getting better turning on the effect at will whenever she needs it, without the jog—even in other seasons. It’s like a mental file she can access whenever she wants.  She won’t go so far as to describe herself as a winter person.  But she has discovered what winter’s energies (in her internal and external environments) are good for and learned to use them well.

What season are you?  Winter begins December 21.  This day is usually associated with winter solstice, what we refer to as the shortest day of the year—or longest night.  In holistic arts, solstice defines this season’s special falling chi (holistic term for life-energy) and a wide range of goals you can attain with it.  The idea is to tap into winter’s unique energy and coordinate it with personal life goals. 

We do tend to prefer and operate from a certain seasonal energy. Holistic arts do, however, suggest not staying in one of these zones for an inordinate length of time. A few thoughts: One way to “tolerate” is to try to look at seasonal energy more objectively—as per what it does to and for you, thereby knowing “when” and “when not” to draw upon it. Similarly, you could dislike aspirin or Advil, yet know when and how these work best for you and use them as necessary.  Or not—blood thinners are discouraged prior to certain medical procedures. Conversely, you may like something, yet not know how to use it functionally—vitamins, alcohol, and so on. Knowing how various things (in this case, seasonal energies) affect our unique performance and goals is the point.

As discussed in my previous post, What Season Are You? Listening to Autumn, we experience energy cycles physically every day as we follow sunrise to sunset and in the waxing and waning of our own body’s energies.  The process is more than poetic. Eastern wisdom, medicine, and holistic arts have known this for millenniums.  It is their basis for living well. 

Holistic arts suggest that the winter season is the time to get in touch with our life-dreams, to embrace and enjoy our life-mystery, to be creative with all that we have cultivated throughout the year, to seek the wisdom and pure potentiality in what we have cultivated, and to actively build our scaffold from the headquarters of self.  As such we can use winter’s energy to correct imbalances such as fear, anxiety, memory loss, poor decision-making, and low self-confidence.

Winter is all about flow.  In Eastern traditions, winter is associated with the element of water which can be soft or hard, still of moving, can flow over, under, or even through things.  It can float things or float atop of things.  It can vaporize or become invisible. Water likes the path of least resistance. 

Winter is about conservation of strength. For some people fear, blue moods, even depression can result in winter.  It is also common time for S.A.D. (Seasonal Affective Disorder), weight gain and carbohydrate cravings.

Try to get yourself to a state of calm.  Get centered.  When you are centered, you are more self-aware and can begin to synchronize who you are on the inside with your external environment.  From this vantage point, make a list of things you can do better in winter. 

Remember not to nitpick anyone else who may be operating from a different phase of the cycle than you.  Keep in mind that although there are aspects of winter that seem common to everyone, how its energy works in you is also somewhat individual. 

Your gift to yourself is in what you receive during each cycle.  Your gift to the world around you is in what you give back, without judgment.

Note:  For a scientific adventure into the world of human attention see my newest book Can I Have Your Attention?: How to Think Fast, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Concentration . 

Image by Alexia Carneiro