When the wheel of the year calls to us
Shaking off internalised capitalism and looking after ourselves during the colder months.
Finding Sanity got a little bit of a facelift this week. I’ll still be writing the same stuff, but we have a fancier looking ‘logo’ and a new about page! <3
If you live in the northern hemisphere then, despite the unusually warm climate change-induced temperatures, you’ll have noticed the seasonal wheel is beginning to turn and we are entering the colder months of the year.
Whether you’re an autumn- and winter-loving person like me, or you’d prefer to live in a world of perpetual summer, it’s undeniable that as the nights draw in and the temperatures (hopefully) begin to drop, the world is calling us to slow down, turn inside and get some rest. Kind of…
Let’s rewind a bit.
Looking at the natural world, autumn is a time to prepare for the winter in a few ways: increasing food consumption, creating food stores, and growing thicker fur to stay warm. For plants, many of them require cold temperatures to, you know, do their plant thing. Berry bushes and fruit trees need a period of rest to produce fruit at the end of their dormancy period.
Humans would have followed similar practices for millennia. In our agricultural days, after a busy autumn harvest, food is readied for storage for the colder months. In winter, we would turn to a time for rest and reflection, perhaps reviewing plans for the year ahead. We would stay mostly indoors, focusing on simpler tasks such as woodwork or sewing.
Until *drum roll* the Industrial Revolution!
As we began to organise ourselves in new ways, alongside the popularisation of clocks and watches, we were now measured by factory time, work was no longer limited by the seasons or daylight hours, and our entire lives began to shift.
Now, as I spoke about last week, I try to avoid romanticising the past because we can’t move backwards. But that does not mean the capitalist way we have arranged society today is the ultimate or even correct way to do so.
Our capitalist society has created an environment designed in a way that makes it almost impossible to give ourselves the space we need to rest. We need money to survive and to make this money, we must continue to work at the same level throughout the entire year.
If you have experience of the 9-to-5 (or the 8-to-6, in reality) you’re probably used to waking up in the dark and going home in the dark. I remember an office job where I worked in a basement office and, in the depths of winter, seeing the sun for probably only 1 full hour a day.
Whilst many of us no longer have to work 16 hours a day, 6 days a week, we have come back to celebrate the ideal of working all the time: the girl boss, the SheEO, the hustle bro, the weird, productivity-obsessed startup founder we have all met.
The grind. The hustle. Toxic productivity. You know what I’m talking about, everyone has written about it already. But the incessant need to achieve all our goals faster, faster, and faster has led to a society-wide burnout. The stats vary, but one study of 1,500 people found that 75% have experienced burnout at work.
And somehow, society has managed to make us think that we’re the problem–with internalised capitalism, we believe self-worth is directly linked to our productivity. We feel “guilty when [we] rest, undervalue [our] achievements and prioritise work over well-being”.
When we are sick, as my friend
eloquently writes about, it's challenging to even create the space we need for recovery, restoration and repair when we’re so used to looking for quick solutions so we can be back up and running again as soon as possible–to continue working, working, working, as it's intertwined so deeply with our self-worth.
I faced pretty bad burnout last December and have managed to carry this with me throughout 2023 until I realised last month I needed to actually do something about it.
The most obvious solution is to pull back a bit and take some time away from working. Unfortunately, being able to do so has become a privilege in today’s society. Having the capacity to honour our body’s need to rest has become so incredibly unattainable that we’re all fucking exhausted.
And because I hate it when people explain complex issues and leave you stranded without anything to do about it, I’d like to attempt to offer some ways you might provide yourself with rest for these colder months–or anytime you might need it.
I’ve spoken before about how alienated we are from our own ability to create meaning in this world. We are convinced that our work–and the money we receive from it–is where we should derive meaning in our lives. Moving our self-worth away from our jobs and looking for life meaning in different ways can help to heal some of the frayed edges left on our psyche by internalised capitalism.
As I’ve been healing from burnout, I wanted to step away from the more mindless consumption of laying back and watching Netflix (though these activities always have their place in our healing). Instead, I looked for ways to work with my hands more and get out of my head. I’ve found peace in this with baking. It’s not competitive, nor am I looking to gain money from the activity, but there is a clear ‘success’ with it and I can start and finish a whole ‘project’ in just a day, which has brought back some sense of completion and agency to these ever-unusual times.
I’ve also looked for any immediate changes I can make to lighten my load for the colder months. We can’t do all the things all the time. Are there any commitments you can cancel or reschedule? I am a massive people pleaser, so saying no to certain commitments or activities can help me feel less overwhelmed. Do we really need to spend every evening of the week doing a thing, or can we retreat to our beds to get some peace and quiet instead?
Self-care is important–but not the commercialised self-care we see tossed around today. I’m talking about the real, love-yourself kind of activities that will look after your immediate needs. Think ensuring you’re getting enough sleep, eating well, moving your body, getting fresh air, and creating those all-important boundaries.
I’ve also found living more cyclically and in tune with nature can bring a slower pace to my life. Appreciating the fact that it’s winter and we may be wishing to contract can enable us to live a life with more flow and fulfilment. Aligning with our menstrual cycles or lunar phases can also act as a reminder to work with periods of both high and low energy, set boundaries, and give the mind and body the chance to rest every month before we begin anew.
Whatever kind of life we find ourselves in at this moment isn’t important. It’s so unbelievably easy to put off looking after ourselves until we’re at a different job, a different living situation, or a different stage of life.
I am very guilty of believing I will live a certain way once I do something–I will slow down a bit once my workload is lightened, I will connect with nature more once I move house, I will make more time for my loved ones when I’m less tired. It’s always next week, next month, or next year. But to really, truly, look after our health we need to work with the situations we find ourselves in already.
Rest can become an act of resilience and a reclamation of power in our capitalist, always-on society. Moving away from operating at machine levels of productivity enables us to slow down and be more human.
We deserve to rest, to take a break. We don’t need permission to do so, or to earn this time for ourselves. Taking care of ourselves when we need to–when the wheel of the year calls us to–emboldens us with the strength we need to carry on to create a better world.
P.S. If you enjoy my writing, you can buy me a coffee to fuel my work.
I wrote a piece for fellow climate writer
’s substack: . I reflected on the use of protests in the past and why we’re beginning to feel protest-weary—and what we can do about it—as climate activism increases.
Amen to rest being an act of resistance! Giving ourselves permission to do so (and then actually doing it!) is incredibly healing on so many levels. Bravo for you committing to the slow down and acknowledging what you need. 🙌🍂
love the new branding!!!! 🥳 also yes, baking as healing, cookies are therapy 🍪