Tell me, are you as happy as I am that January is over?
Gosh, it really wasn’t the easiest month… With super low degrees (cold as fuck) and winter blues… Jeeez.
Actually, it wasn’t such a bad month… It was a dot on i of the era that started somewhere in October. I knew this is going to happen as I get my dose of it every year. Actually, I was looking forward to it here and there during the wild spring/summer season of 2016.
Or maybe it has started in September already? I’m not sure… I remember before I and my man went for a week of vacation in Croatia I wasn’t sure, if it’s the right idea. For sure, I really deserved a break, but I wasn’t sure how I’m gonna handle not working for a whole week. I was thinking that maybe we should shorten this seaside escape to 4 days.
Haha, it turned out that I can go quite fast from workaholic to a total hedonist. After a week I could easily extend those holidays to a month, haha. But I had to go back to hustle because another trip was waiting for me in a few weeks. Porto.
But I somehow couldn’t go all in and orders were super slow, I almost made no money during those three weeks. I had to borrow some cash so I could go. Which was really disappointing, considering that 2016 was a year when I finally could start saying to all those people who raise their eyebrow after I tell them what I do, (looking at me the way realists look at dreamers) and ask me “But can you live from this?”, that “Yeah, I can.” And I’m doing business on my terms, I’m doing what I believe in and besides working a lot I still have time for reading and hanging out with my friends. And I sleep well at night. Unless I’m so inspired I cannot sleep.
Porto was fantastic. I should make a whole post about it, but I probably won’t. Or maybe I will, we shall see. I was so inspired there that I couldn’t wait to come back home and go back to my business.
But when I came home it started again. That blues…
I noticed this few years in a row now and even more intense in the last year when I decided to flow in tune with cycles of Nature.
When the autumn comes, I fall (pun intended). I fall in me, I start to close down, I go inside. I become a loner. It looks super boring, yet so much is happening. Inside. I travel through my subconscious.
The line between reality and dreams is like the line between field covered with snow and white winter sky on a misty afternoon. Almost non-existent.
I question my life because of intense dreams I have before I wake up.
I am looking at all those zombies inside me, trying not to be scared, trying to remain conscious as they are part of me that became scary because I was ignoring them. I am riding the dragons. I am turning torture devices that I am hurting myself with into shells that protect the pearl. The pearl which I am. I am giving myself love and compassion. I am giving myself attention. I am connecting stars in me into constellations.
Of course, I do something to stay alive. I cook, I go for a walk, I mean, I do normal everyday stuff. I just don’t shower everyday. And I don’t show up.
I loose interest for business. For money making. It makes no sense. Nothing makes sense. Life doesn’t make sense.
And I cry a freaking lot. I wonder, what the fuck is wrong with me? Why can’t I get my shit together? Why can’t I grow up already? Why can’t I get a normal job? (I know why, because after three months I would quit) Where I would get fired, if I wouldn’t show up. I cannot fire myself.
I mean, I could kill myself, but I won’t (not that I think about it), because I know from the experience that spring always comes and that I’m gonna love life again. And everything will start to burst and life will give me gifts on every corner.
And I’m gonna be so grateful for the winter time again. I’m gonna be grateful, I went down down low.
Oh, January. Two years ago I remember that my January theme was guilt. I felt so guilty about everything, jeez. Last year was the fear of the unknown. Actually, it wasn’t unknown, but fear of the consequences of something I knew I had to do. I had to start living on my own. (And I made it, yey.)
These intense feelings in January help me grow. It’s like I stumble onto something with my emotional body that’s been trapped in there for so long and I couldn’t really see it. It’s like a sensation in my body that I can’t really point at but I feel it in some subtle ways and it’s affecting me. And then I start to notice it and I give it attention and suddenly I burst out into tears or rage. And I remember things that I forgot about or suppressed them.
This January, it was sadness. This deep sadness. I’m not sure if I am already done with it. But I acknowledged so much of it. 26 years, 7 months and a few days of sadness. I was crying for myself, because with limited knowledge I had as a kid, I couldn’t know that things happening around me are shaping my outlook on life and that this outlook on life will shape the life I live, I was crying for every member of my family, because they suffered so much without knowing that life doesn’t have to be so painful, without knowing that they are lovable and there is no need for defensive offensive mode. I was crying for my father who died before he could start making different choices.
And the next day, when I woke up, I felt totally inspired and in love with life again. And even inspired to work! To spread love to my customers, to spread love to the world. And to write!
It was that opposite of depression: expression.
And I noticed that lately, when I talk with my mother on the phone, there’s some mutual understanding and I don’t feel deflated afterwards, but inspired. Which is awesome.
I am almost crying again, this time ’cause of beauty of transformation.
Okay, for my later reference, when I will read this in a few years, I should tell myself that I wasn’t just depressing the whole month. I did my taxes. I bought wood for the first time in my life (felt really grown up). I was planning things. I actually did a few things for my biz. I wrote two blog posts. I read a lot. I started painting on canvas again. I quit smoking. And my diet turned from vegetarian to mostly vegan.
It makes me feel a lot more comfortable, that I’m not the only one who is hibernating. I saw quite a lot of posts around the net about it, even from people I look up to.
But still, I want it to be over soon because I got bills to pay, I have to turn the hustle on.
What about you and winter and hibernation? How are you working through the season?
P.S. I still have some of my eco-friendly accessories on sale in my etsy shop, go get them, because sale ends this Tuesday (7.2.2016).
With Love,
