10 Weeks of Winter

Endings…

Abstaining: probably a good post-Thanksgiving topic, but I didn’t select it for that reason. After interventions (adding actions, processes, and activities), my focus for structural changes within my 10 Weeks of Winter project turns to abstinence. What needs to be reduced, removed, or limited to make desired change effective? As I relax my mind, widen my vision, and invoke the experience of the season, I find that winter holds very few, but very stark, insights on abstinence.

What does the winter remove, reduce, or limit? Light, heat, and production or reproduction. The change from more light to less light and from much heat to much cold is apparent. The change from production or reproduction to conditions of dormancy, hibernation, sometimes termination, and sub-terranean development may need some expounding. In spring and summer and into early autumn the northern parts of the planet experience emergence, fertility, and growth in cycles and repetitions. From insects to mammals, trees to wildflowers, and cultivated crops to farm stock the living things are born, they grow leaves, stems, branches, and flowers, mature and mate, pollinate and are pollinated, produce seed and fruit and leaf and root. Eventually the light lessens, and the warmth fades, and by mid-October very little in nature, aside from the fungi, are active in their production and reproduction cycles. Instead they divert their energy elsewhere. They eat what remains of the berries and fish and huntable game. They shed their high cost foliage and drop their remaining fruits. They grow thicker coats and store calories on their bodies in anticipation of scarcity. They seek burrows and shelters. They migrate to where food and protection support them. They complete their lives leaving behind the seeds and offspring of spawning, flowering, fruiting, mating, spreading, laying, and raised up young. The last version of things releases itself completely as an exhale followed by stillness. The cycle, the year, dies. Another version waits to emerge.

Yin…

If the alternative season is light and warm and vital, then the winter season is dark, cold, and at rest. Like the raven that has landed in the oak outside my room and croaked its message to the neighborhood, I sense a heavy philosophical topic at hand. For a season that seems so dead, it’s abundant with meaning both powerful yet complicated to apprehend. I shall give it a gentle treatment for now. Taking away light gives way to the non-visual senses and to interoception (feeling the body from inside the body). Taking away heat again draws the living things in and down, in and down toward the warmth in the body, in the ground, and amongst one another. Taking away vitality leaves us in stillness, at rest.

What is gained from removal is an opposite, a counter position, a balancing force (or lack of force) that can correct (mend and repair), renew, and augment what was, what has been, and what is no longer. Abstinence is often viewed negatively. It is seen as a lack, a “poverty mindset”, a willpower enforced disallowance. I don’t disagree that when applied as a mechanism of restriction, unwanted compulsory behavior, or judgmental avoidance of all things labeled “bad” abstinence becomes punishment and morphs into a creature of resentment, rebellion, and privation. This is tricky territory on which to set a reframe. Nevertheless, I think it’s possible to think of abstinence as devotion, dedication, or faithfulness. A man is dedicated to his wife, so he does not pursue other women. A child is faithful to their dog, and they avert sleeping in to gladly rise early and feed the dog every morning. A woman is devoted to her children, and she lets go of opportunities that come her way so that she may spend her time caring for her family. Choice is inherent in abstinence. It’s an action at the level of consciousness to not act.

Letting go…

Abstinence is about the capacity for delayed gratification, sacrifice, and self-sacrifice. These are valuable qualities to cultivate when done with a happy heart. Sacrifice that is forced or imposed isn’t really sacrifice, it’s being taken advantage of, robbed, over-committing, and otherwise a very negative experience. There’s nothing noble about giving up something you’re not willing or ready to give up. Sacrifice and self-sacrifice that makes you feel used and abused isn’t sacrifice at all, it’s disordered and unwell. Instead, abstinence should come from a place of so deeply wanting the goodness of something that you are willing to give up other things for it. The cycle of life by design so greatly wants to iterate into the new that it dies and is reborn. When you love something it isn’t hard and it doesn’t feel bad to sacrifice for it.

Choosing things to give up, I believe, should be done with exceptional care and consideration. Abstinence should generate from what is wanted first and then the acts and actions to abstain from should clearly follow. For my 10 Weeks of Winter project. I want to experience winter and love winter again as much as I have before (or at least in the best way that I can now). That is what my heart desires, and that is what I am committed to. For me, that means that I need want to refrain from doing things that detract from experiencing life during this season. I’ve given considerable thought to my behaviors that might be at the root of worsening experiences of winter, and the following show up when I really feel into it:

• Screentime – I’ve dedicated a blog post to exploring this behavior. It’s not something I can give up entirely, but it is something I can reduce especially at the bookends of my day with emphasis on reducing screentime in the evening. Avoiding screen usage after 10 PM is my current plan.
• Staying Inside During the Day – Like most people, I want to stay in when it’s cold or rainy, but I’m a creature that really should be doing manual labor outside instead of an office job. I feel better when I’ve been outside for most of the day even when the weather is bad. I have to let go of the temptation to stay inside all day. I have added going outside as an intervention, but it is one that comes with another side, a letting go: abstaining from staying in.
• Sleeping In – Dark cool mornings are like a siren song to me. My bed is so warm and it feels so good and cozy and the world outside my covers is harsh and forbidding and full of things that in-the-moment I don’t want to do. Yet, getting good rest comes from getting up at a regular decently early time and experiencing winter happens mostly outside the coziness of my bed. I’m giving up sleeping in (except for at least one weekend day a week – which, by the way, I’m not likely to sleep in late because that’s just how it works apparently) this winter, because I know I love the winter more than lying in bed no matter how good it feels.

Managing discomfort…

Perhaps these seem like minor forms of abstinence, but in my experience that’s often the best way to approach reduction, limiting, or stopping behaviors. When I take something away that I’m very attached to (for whatever reason) it feels bad. Usually the feeling is fear. I know I will feel fear when I turn the screens off at 10 PM because I’ve experienced it before. It doesn’t matter that the fear is irrational, it feels real. I’m suddenly aware that I’m alone. I feel as though there is nothing to my life, nothing for me to do or be or care about. None of these things are true, but the specter of them shrieks in my ears. 10 PM is pretty close to my bed time. At most it’s about an hour before bed. I start winding down and getting ready to go to sleep around this time anyway. That proximity to the wind down reduces the tension. I will be able to turn toward bedtime activities, like reading, when I turn off the screens. If I set the screen off time to 8 PM I will be desperate. I might be able to handle it eventually, but I may just abandon the whole thing. It’s too much too fast for me and the want of a better winter experience is unlikely to be strong enough in-the-moment to motivate dedication to cause. So much negativity can surround and couple with abstinence such that applying reductions and limitations should be done in ways that manage discomfort. I’m opting for gradual abstinence thought out my 10 Weeks of Winter processes.

That isn’t to say that radical abstinence is never called for. I’ve used that approach too, and effectively, but the want of something has to be enduring and powerful enough to counter the compulsion toward the behavior you’re abstaining from AND it has to stay with you through the negative feelings that always follow not giving into habitual, compulsive, or unconscious behavior.

Abstinence and fear are, for me, interesting and rich topics for consideration and to understand well enough to make change occur effectively and lastingly. I will probably revisit these topics as cleaning and clearing gets underway toward the new year. In the meantime, week 2 of winter is in sight and my interventions are about to be supported by carefully selected abstinence – letting some habits and tendencies go to make way for the experience of something new.