How to Pay Attention This Week

We are shifting just like the landscape. It is time to turn our attention to ourselves.

I shared on Instagram this week that I am heading into hibernation for a bit and taking a break from that particular online social space. I have struggled with Instagram for a few years, and it is time to trust this feeling and use that mental space to dig into other places, such as this one. This desire is one of the many ways I am paying attention to myself as the first snowstorm of the year turns up, and my desire to hibernate strengthens.

The desire to find ourselves hibernating is strengthening these days that are shortening, and the light is hidden behind low clouds, even on milder days. The time of year draws us inward, and it is time to pay attention to its pull on our bodies, minds, and souls. It can be hard to tune our ears to the parts of ourselves that can be harder to hear in the height of the warmer months or the noise of transitioning from growth to dormancy.

If, in the last week or so, you have been feeling a call to sink into quieter times, remove yourself from social platforms, cancel social plans, and more, these are signs of your body longing for you to hear yourself more. Being bored and quiet isn’t something our modern world really gives us space or allowance for, yet this is where the greatest thinkers, writers, artists, and more created their greatest works, and even if that isn’t our calling, it tells us about how it allows us to connect to our deeper self more than anything.

Mike and I sat and had some heart-to-heart convos over the weekend about desires for life, what matters most to us, and our chosen paths. These are the sort of convos that are possible in the warmer months, but in the colder ones, we can sit and digest deeper when the nights are long and the days are grayer. These days, when snow descends, the colors of the landscape aren’t as vibrant, and the wind crisps the air is when nature gives us a moment to both mentally and visually reset. Our routines and desires for those routines SHOULD change. We should want to rest and have less time for social life. We should desire warm meals and warm fires. We should want more meaning and intention during this time. We should desire a sense of play and creativity as the hills become like blank canvases, whether that be winter sports or indoor creative pursuits. This is all part of a life that ebbs and flows with the seasons. We are nature, and to not allow ourselves to shift and change with the landscape around us is to miss something important that our body and soul doesn’t just long for but is designed to do.

There should be an undercurrent of longing for certain things in your life right now. A hunger to pursue something, whether it be rest, adventure, silence, creativity, or reorganizing the last year to prepare for a new one. These longings are part of our intuition, and we must honor them this season.

If we think about the wheel of the year and seasons (paid subscribers get a view of this entire wheel), we see that our time in hibernation, aka December to March/April, is a time of grounding ourselves, rejuvenation, tending to self, and renewal. These things give life to what will happen during the height of the growing season ahead, but to understand how to feed ourselves properly in this upcoming season, we must listen now to what we are desiring, questioning, and dreaming about.

Though we can pay attention to nature as our guide, with the earth quieting herself, it gives us space to shift our attention and eyes into our hearts and souls, which is where our greatest desires, intuition, and longings come. This is a time to dream, explore, rest our minds, organize our thoughts and spaces, and reimagine our next year of tending to self and nature. This begins now as we sink into these final weeks of Autumn and the nights lengthen (more on darkness in the Wednesday newsletter).

Below, I will give you a full breakdown of how and why to pay attention to yourself this week and, most importantly, beyond this upcoming season. How and why we pay attention to ourselves will shift again as the days give us more sunlight. For now, though, hearing our own energy and desires is vital in this upcoming shift toward winter.

Read more about how to pay attention this season by becoming a paid subscriber for only $5 a month (even less if you subscribe for the year). You can also access events and the Guide to Autumn in the Member Space.