Monday Mantra

A new month is here, the last of 2021. A time where some cannot help but reflect on their past year and think of what is yet to come. A reminder to be thankful for what has been achieved, what and who we do have in life but also possibly darker times ahead. 

What do you love about these winter months? For me it’s warm nights in and seeing loved ones, the celebration of life, playing more games and being childlike, the shiny sparkly colours and twinkling lights, all of my favourite tastes, simple things like fire gazing, candlelit baths, writing songs/journalling with my fairy lights on and a Christmas movie playing in the background.

It’s easy to say the cute and cosy things but the reality for some will be the opposite, triggers bringing out crippling anxiety, a reminder or forced reflection of the heart ache for the loved one no longer here next to them, the ex-lover, friend, family, pet they yearn for, (or at least the feeling they felt when they were there), the deafness from the still and silence of being alone – whether in crowds or in the true depths of solitude’s loneliness, the dark shadows creeping up even after a year of healing shadow work, the body feeling more sluggish and harder to move in the cold, the shorter darker days to feel less alive, reminders of neglect, abuse, abandonment, perhaps the comparison to the joy and happiness in everyone else’s homes but theirs, the ‘selfless’ trauma responses like the “gift of giving” others to console their Inner Child who’s festive periods were much different or even quite similar to how they are now, the absence of love felt and faith fallen, so often taken out in over-indulgence, addiction and self-sabotage.