Finding Peace in the Stillness

“The plants and the earth are resting. Maybe we should too. The long days will be here soon enough.” – Rebecca Raiden

Hello Dear Friend,

I have friends, coworkers, and acquaintances that will quickly tell you that they detest everything about Winter. The cold, the shorter days, the snow, having to bundle up every day - they hate it all. But I myself have always been partial to Winter. I love the snow! It instantly brings me joy, offers a “all is right with the world” kind of peace, and puts a smile on my face. I love having an excuse to get cozy and do nothing, I love the colder weather, and I even love the shorter days. But as the latest Winter storm swept across North Carolina on Friday while I was attempting to get home, I was quickly losing sight for my love for fluffy white flakes as well as my love for this time of year. 

The storm began to hit my area of the western side of the state by early mid-morning making a less-than-ideal commute off the mountain on which I work. The route that usually takes me forty minutes took three hours and included being forced to sit at a standstill on the decline of a mountain for over two hours while they shut down the highway to clear and treat the roads to make them more easily passible. As I sat with countless others trapped in the middle of the mountain watching weather conditions getting worse and worse as the temperature continued to drop, it's safe to say that anxiety and short temperament were getting the best of us all.   

A couple of hours after making it safely home, my love for the Winter season and the snow returned. After snowing a majority of the day and into a good portion of the night I awoke to the scene outside my window looking like it did when Lucy Pevensie walked through the wardrobe and into the magical world of Narnia (“The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe” by C.S. Lewis). 

The morning seems to have brought a sense of calm to my corner of the world. Not even the snowplows have tainted the white scene before me. It’s as if everything and everyone have gone into hibernation, including me. This morning as I'm embracing the calmness of the season, I’m attempting to overcome the writer's block that's come over me for the past few months.   

If you haven’t taken the time to listen to the stillness of Winter, I want to encourage you to do so, it sure is a beautiful sound. Yes, I ventured out into the frigid morning temperatures to fully embrace the gift Mother Nature had literally left on my doorstep. No one was up, or maybe they were but if so then they had yet to go aside. So, for a few moments anyway, I had it all to myself. As I stood there taking in the peace of the untouched morning, I listened to the gentle calm of a world standing still. 

Embracing the Calming Stillness

“If you listen carefully, the silence of winter is beautiful.”  – Unknown

The stillness is what I love most about this time of year. I closed out 2024 and entered into 2025 with the Norwegian practice, Hygge (pronounced “hoo-gah") in mind. If you’re unfamiliar with this term that describes the characteristics of Danish culture, it’s referring to the cozy quality that makes an individual feel content and comfortable. This contentment focuses on your well-being by surrounding yourself with things that make your life good – your relationships, laughter, warmth, light, security, food and drink. It’s embracing a slower, stress-free way of living by enjoying the simple pleasures of the moment. 

I often think of the Winter months serving as a reset. January welcomes a new calendar year and with it I’m filled with hope as I welcome the happy thoughts of all the ways I want to improve my life in the next year, all the things I want to put my focus on, what I want to achieve, how I want to grow, and what I want to see come to pass when I find myself here again next year. But at the same time, I want to hunker down in the cold season, slow down and embrace where I’m at right now. 

So here I sit after waking up before dawn to watch the sun awaken. I’ve created my own sense of Hygge with the gas logs turned up in my fireplace, listening to the soft instrumental notes coming through my computer speaker from the “Winter Solstice” playlist I’ve cued up on Spotify, wrapped up in my big fluffy blanket and enjoying a hot cup of coffee on this cold Winter morning. As I steal an occasional glance up from my writing to be greeted by the beautiful snowy scene outside the big bay window in my living room the view has inspired to keep writing this letter. 

I was thrown a very unwelcomed curveball back at this time in 2024 which caused a major plot twist and birthed my “The Goodness of God” post. It shook me pretty good and since then, I feel like I was put on a detour in my own life. Not to say that God wasn’t working in that detour as He has in every other life detour that I’ve found myself in over the years but this one has helped me see what I want for myself this year.

I don’t know what your focus is for 2025 but I’ll tell you mine. This year my focus is to live my best life, the life God has created and always intended for me. My plan for the coming year is to reclaim my joy, learn to love my life, knock down the walls I’ve spent way too much time building and find my inner peace, cross over those boundary lines that I’ve set, be creative and live intentionally embracing and making the most of every moment that God has gifted me with.

Through everything that God has in store for my 2025, my hope is that I’ll always have that gentle reminder to pause and be present for my own life and to show gratitude for everything that it brings. I want to fall in love with the things and the people that make me happy, I want to grow and learn from them even when it’s difficult, I want to embrace all the light and warmth around me and to be that light and warmth in return. 

What do you say? How about we make this year our best one yet?  

With love,

a Poetic Soul