If you’ve followed this work for any length of time, you’ll know that I hate January and February. The fun of the holidays is over, and given the fact that I live in the Pacific Northwest, I’m treated to a diet of gray overcast skies, cold damp days and generally weather that makes you want to curl up with a good book, a heavy blanket and a warm drink in your hand.
I tend to live each day of these months trying to remember what blue skies and sunshine feels like.
But it’s not just the physical aspects of the weather, it’s literally the lack of light. As someone who grew up in England, Seasonal Affective Disorder is a real thing in my genetics. I find myself less motivated to do things, and even things that I’ve looked forward to lose some of their excitement. It’s like I come bursting out of the holidays with all of this enjoyment, trying to keep enough inertia to climb up the steep hill that is the following two months.
And this year honestly seems to be worse than most.
I think a lot of us are burned out over the last three years of life. We’ve lived with a greater level of loss, uncertainty, insecurity and contention than I can remember for many a year. As I talk with people every day, they seem to be carrying heavier burdens; struggling for the strength to find joy and happiness in their lives.
But I also get to see those who seem to be doing better.
So being the student of human nature that I am, I try to learn from these people. I don’t claim to have amassed any great knowledge, but what I have seen seems to help a little bit, especially in the cold dark mornings where my brain struggles to see any light in the future. Sometimes this manifests as a desire not to do anything, and sometimes it’s a belief that nothing will ever go right again.
I deal with this every year, so it’s not like I don’t know how the game is played.
But like I said, this year just seems heavier. So I’m trying to keep myself focused on several things. A part of that comes down to a very specific form of mindfulness, where I try to look at this moment right now objectively, rather than how I feel about it. Am I under an immediate threat, do I have options, does the voice in my head that tells me everything is going to fall apart have any validity behind it?
Like I’ve taught many times before, question, question, and then question some more.
But it also helps if I can find some meaning to the situation. True, there are times when the only meaning you can take from a situation is “wow this really sucks”, but often times there’s some kind of a hidden meaning that I can tease out of the experience of life. Which really leads me to my second method of working through the struggles…
If I can find a why, I can tolerate harder things.
As humans, we are meaning creating machines. Somehow difficult times are easier to process and live through if we have some kind of a meaning attached to it. The years of schooling to get my doctorate meant that I could provide for my family. The hours of writing this work are so that I might help you to live a happier life.
So trying to find a meaning even the middle of struggle helps make it easier.
I’ve realized this year that I can find meaning in my struggles if I share them with you. I don’t claim that my life is any better or any worse, or more difficult or any more enlightened, than anybody else’s. But what I have found is that in sharing both the understandings that I’ve reached and the experiences that have shaped me, I’m able to find both a sense of meaning, and also a sense of community.
Your likes and your comments mean more to me than I can tell you.
So my hope today, as we struggle through the rain, the cold, the fog, the overcast skies and the general lack of light, is that we can all find our way back to that spring sunshine having had “a good winter”. Maybe because we hibernated with our family; maybe because we reached out and made friends.
Or maybe, just maybe, because we paid attention to how we felt, and were kind to ourselves.
— Dr. Alan Barnes
@maddrbmusings