Beyond the Binary: Individual Rhythms in Winter.
At this time of year, I’ve seen countless posts critiquing the concept of ‘New Year, New Me’. The idea that we start afresh in the depths of winter is being questioned left, right and centre. How can we be expected to ambitiously create new growth when nature itself is dormant?
While I absolutely value resting, suggesting that winter should be a time of rest for everybody feels just as damaging as the productivity culture it seeks to challenge.
There are often multiple ways to view things, and while pausing might speak to some people, it might not to others. Maybe you don’t want to rest at a time when other people do, and this can feel just as shameful.
I started new projects in December. I’d finally found a tempo and pace that suited me, and I was looking forward to routine and regularity. Cue: Christmas. For me, losing the tempo and structure felt clunky and unwanted. Meanwhile, some people in my life had been striving for the break, while others had no preference either way.
When we oversimplify, we can lose the nuances of how people actually feel. While I find the idea of rest comforting in a society that pushes us to produce, I can’t help but notice the plants in my garden expressing a more complex story.
Yes, some plants lose their leaves in autumn. But something I've noticed this year is that many of the trees have been growing buds all throughout winter. Numerous plants that usually die off have survived and haven't gone into a completely dormant phase. Meanwhile, some bulbs are already coming up, and the snowdrops are pushing through and flowering, at a time when everything else is supposedly resting. And I can’t ignore that every morning the birds are singing in my garden.
How can we be compared to trees, bulbs or plants when many of us function more similarly to animals? The animals keep going. They keep showing up. My garden seems to resist the idea of growth vs. rest, and instead, is a living, breathing thing.
And even the plants themselves challenge simple categorisation. Some of the snowdrops were moved last year, while the large, dormant oak tree has stood there for over 30 years. How can I compare something that has an established root system and been pruned regularly to something that has been recently relocated?
This is where the binary breaks down. The recently transplanted snowdrops and the 30-year-old oak are both plants, yet they have entirely different needs based on their histories and circumstances. When we apply a binary lens (growth or rest, striving or stopping), we miss the subtle variations that create a varied and enriched garden.
For me, this is much like therapy. Just as my garden has space for the dormant oak and the flowering snowdrop without judgement, therapy is about creating space for whatever feels authentic to each person. While one client might be slowing down in January, another might be speeding up. The work is about discovering what you actually need and what feels real to you.
