It’s been a bloody long winter here in the UK. We don’t normally get bad winters here – we usually get a cold snap, but also some mild months. This year it’s been fecking cold all the way through…and another cold ‘snap’ is settling in now, bringing snow and brass monkey temperatures.
You may have heard me say in the past that I am not a fan of winter. This is a raging understatement – I believe I was a bear in a previous life and therefore genetically wired to hibernate once temperatures dip. For years I thought I had SAD…I don’t. It’s the cold that makes me depressed and grumpy and want to crawl into my bed until temperatures have the good grace to rise above freezing.
Now, hardier souls in more northern climates will say (and quite rightly) that this is nothing. There are worse winters out there. It’s true – one snowflake in the UK and the whole country grinds to a panicky halt.
But for us (and more specifically for me) this has been a long, and a bad winter. I have been trying my level best to be chirpy and cheery despite the weather – after all, there’s bugger all I can do about it, I may as well enjoy life anyway.
But I don’t want to be chipper and positive. I am grumpy. It’s cold. I can’t leave the house without gloves and earmuffs. I want it to go away. BRING ON SPRING.
And having spent a few months trying to ‘gee myself out of it’ or just get over it and stop being such a snowflake (no pun intended), I’ve realised something.
Self-love means allowing myself to feel how I feel. I don’t have to be cheery and chirpy if I don’t want to be. I don’t have to try to pretend to love winter when I don’t. I don’t have to put a happy face sticker on and lie about how I feel.
I’m allowed to be grumpy and mardy and fed up of being cold (while also being endlessly grateful for heating and gloves and warm clothes). And when I let myself feel how I feel, a lot of the tension and stress caused by denying how I feel or rejecting it goes away.
I begin to notice what I can do to feel better – winter calls for open fires and books and cuddling up in blankets (all stuff I like). It’s a season that invites laziness, rest and early nights (all stuff I like).
My acupuncturist suggested the other day that I get a hot stone massage to warm me up. Excellent plan. Booked.
When you find yourself grumpy and grouchy and fed up…allow yourself to feel it. You’re allowed to hate the cold, or the heat, or whatever it is that’s getting on your nerves. Feel how you feel…then ask what you need, what would make you feel better.
Not because you have to feel good all the time and put a sunny and positive face on even when inside you’re cantankerous and bad tempered, but because feeling better feels good.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve spotted a snowflake…I’m off to wrap myself in a blanket and read my book!
