When Winter Comes Inside
Surrendering to the energy of winter as a regenerative and decolonising process breaking free from capitalist practices (within and outside you). And hopefully, nurturing your well-being too.
If you have Mediterranean blood like me, you probably get overly excited when you see snow and struggle to judge how many layers of clothing are enough on a cold day.
Winter in the northern hemisphere was unfamiliar to me until I started living in Germany.
And it took on a completely new meaning when I felt it inside my body, regardless of the season outside.
Inner and outer seasons
A moment for the science to speak: Life on Earth evolved in response to the changing conditions created by the equinoxes and solstices, which occur as the planet orbits the Sun. These seasonal shifts are due to Earth’s axial tilt of 23.5 degrees, which remains stable because of the gravitational influence of the Moon (she’s also a main character in the story of how the Earth got this tilt).
No seasons, no life as we know it.
Even in tropical and equatorial regions, where the four seasons aren’t distinct, our evolution as a species is deeply intertwined with natural cycles. So recognising that we experience winter, spring, summer, and autumn in our inner world should feel natural—shouldn’t it?
Hmmm, not quite…
Because in my (almost) 39 years on Earth, I only learned about this idea two years ago, when I joined the Regenerative Leadership Journey by Laura Storm and Regenerators. I know it’s exactly two years ago because, being now part of the team co-hosting the Journey, winter is the season we’re currently deep in.
Nowadays, I use seasonal vocabulary in conversations about self-development, leadership, and workplace well-being, and I often catch the ‘wait, what?’ look on people’s faces.
We’re not used to applying words from nature to our day-to-day lives because many still haven’t computed that humans are nature.
The inner capitalist who always lives in spring and summer
More than just the relief of finding new words to express my energy levels and continue speaking about systemic change, connecting to the seasons within has helped me understand winter better and surrender to its energy.
I’m Mediterranean, extroverted, and a workaholic in recovery, so I naturally click with my inner spring and summer.
Actioning, doing, moving forward, creating, kicking things off, activating, blooming… The inner capitalist in my mind thrives on action. And it turns into a bully the moment I even consider taking a break—reaching abusive levels when my body says enough.
“What is wrong with you? Are you seriously telling me you can’t even finish this little task? No fucking way you need another break—you already rested last week. Come on, you know you can push more.”
I never needed a boss to say these things to me because I’ve told myself all of them whenever my productivity dropped.
As Dr. Rocío Rosales Meza says, colonial exploitation is normalised and rewarded in our capitalist societies; we’ve been programmed in oppressive ways—our minds are colonised.
It’s our bodies and souls that know the cycle of the inner seasons, while our minds try to reason their way out of it with arguments of progress, perfectionism, and constant growth.
Years after leaving business-as-usual and the traditional workplace, I still catch myself engaging in capitalist self-talk, pushing for the sake of ‘success’ at the cost of my well-being—going against the natural cycles that my mind disregards while my body and intuition keep sending red flags.
Unsolicited warning: Stepping out of the corporate world and becoming a freelancer can be a dangerous trap if you’re not aware of the inner capitalist in your head.
Deepening into (inner) winter
Surrendering to the energy of winter is the most healing, transformative, and uncomfortable regenerative practice I engage in.
The not-doing, the stillness, the darkness, the waiting, the death. And most importantly, being with all of this without trying to fix it or find a solution.
Winter teaches us that there’s nothing to fix because this isn’t a matter of ‘bad’ that needs to be made ‘good.’
Winter belongs in the cycle of the (inner and outer) seasons.
Cycles break binaries—they acknowledge time and rhythm. And cycles don’t always take the shape of perfect circles; they move as spirals or waves, representing the dynamism of a journey where two truths remain unshakable: change and repetition. A season will end—and it will return.
Winter always comes to an end.
Outer winter finishes with the equinox, marking the moment when life has rested, released what no longer serves, and prepared itself for rebirth. Inner winter works the same way.
If we try to run away from our inner winters, deny them, or rush through them, we’re not ready for spring.
The blooming of spring is a promise that only fulfills when we honour the fruits of winter.
A winter tale
Today, I’m still navigating my last winter.
It started at the end of January, and it’s been already 8 weeks.
I knew it arrived because my body collapsed in sadness, low energy, the flu, and fever. Full stop of the system. Paired with an intense month and a half ahead that I had been planning for a while—being away from home, travelling across all of Europe, starting new education, keeping on working, and holidays.
My body said from day 1 ‘You don’t need all this now, just go back home’.
I listened and still kept the plan going.
I engineered a longer winter because there was going to be too much (outer) loss if I didn’t follow through with the plan for the following weeks. In fact, loss is intrinsic to winter, so there was no way of avoiding it.
I asked my body for too much in the first weeks, pushing through the sickness and sadness to be there for everything and everyone on my agenda. A bitter, dark winter that I had made worse by not having shelter and almost no quiet mental or physical space, seeing anxiety and stress snowballing, turning everything into ice in my relationships. With others and with myself.
The two weeks in the middle that were for holidays and slowing down turned into a mild winter, when solitude, having less on the calendar, and swimming in the sea smoothed my body.
I had fantasised with joyful, chill, sunny holidays to escape the Berlin winter, and they turned into quiet, deep, and reflective days to soothe the winter in me.
Tears, silence, and long walks in a small Turkish summer village during the off-season, with its life suspended in stillness and a subtle yet constant heartbeat. The sun that touched my skin wasn’t giving me energy but slowly melting the ice inside. It was the last day of holidays when I felt the anxiety that had been captured in the ice, making its way to my neck in the shape of little crystals.
These last weeks, I can feel the winter fading.
I’m moving slowly, as if gently waking up, because the anxiety is still trapped in parts of my body and can still hit. Back at home, I’m practising deep listening. I have a sense of what has died during these winter days, and I feel ready to let go. But there’s still some composting going on in the background, and what is dead doesn’t feel ready to name or point at yet.
Maybe the equinox on Thursday 20th marks the end of my inner winter and the outer winter in the northern hemisphere.
Or maybe the first one still needs a few more days or weeks.
Either way, I’m not in a rush. It will come to an end when it’s the right time for spring to start.
The body will tell.
Love this reflection Judit ❤️. I move with the seasons most of the time, though sometimes it feels like I’m naturally wired to go against the cycle and it feels good. I guess it's more about following your inner seasons than the outer ones.