Wintering in West
Along with my position at the BC Construction Association (BCCA) where I assist with administrative work for BCCA’s Builders Code Program, I am a certified Yoga teacher, focusing my study and teaching on the 5 Elements of Chinese Yin. In the spirit of Builders Code values, which include appreciation of diversity and learning from different cultures, it’s fitting to start the New Year with valuable lessons from the Chinese 5 Elements philosophy.
Before I began learning about the 5 Elements, I would set a New Year’s Resolution following the fad, “New Year, New You” with new workout plans and the latest healthy food trends resulting in more doing and less being. With that came stress to keep up with society’s expectations. But the success of a New Year’s resolution goes deeper than just following the trend. It’s also about considering what these changes mean and how you’re incorporating them into your already busy life.
As I study and learn more about the 5 Elements philosophy and the Chinese Lunar calendar (celebrating the New Year on Jan. 29th), the connection between the elements and their correspondence with the seasons allowed me to embrace that connection with nature. Each element represents a season, wood-spring, fire-summer, earth-late summer, metal-autumn, and water-winter. In the Lunar calendar, spring ignites at the end of January. Nature in January is still hibernating, and human beings are a part of nature which is what made it easy to let go of the concept of a New Year’s resolution that pushes us to do more. January is not the time for more; it is the time to recharge, reflect, and rest.
Winter: The Season for Rest & Reflection
In western culture, there’s a lot of pressure to make New Year’s resolutions and set goals for the year ahead, but January follows what is typically a busy time of year for most, and many people are tired. What if you allowed yourself to be tired, and instead of continuing to be busy, you gave yourself time to rest? What if you followed the subtle calling of nature that says, it’s winter, time to hibernate, reflect, and recharge. As with nature, you are wintering.
Water is the element that represents winter in Chinese medicine. The colour is blue-black, the climactic factor is cold, and the energy quality is conserving. Winter is the most Yin time of year. Yin and Yang are important concepts in the Chinese 5 Elements philosophy as well as in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). While Yin is about conserving energy, Yang is about movement, light, and activity, which is why it is at its highest peak in summer. Trying to burn through Yang energy when nature is telling us to conserve can lead to burn out.
During the winter months, my classes are slower to allow students to find stillness and rest – that same connection to what is happening in nature. It’s a time for personal reflection, allowing the seeds of our intentions that we are planting for the year ahead to soak up the water and rejuvenate in preparation for Spring. We’re in the darkest time of the year. It is cold, damp, and our primal instinct is to find a cozy setting. Whether that be spending more time at home, recharging alone or with family, taking gentle walks in the woods or by water, or maybe booking a warm, sunny vacation. Give yourself permission to nourish your body and mind.
By honouring the pause that darkness brings, releasing the pressures of “New Year, New You”, there comes freedom and peace within. By conserving energy through winter and taking time to ponder on the past year, you gain awareness and create space in your schedule for what you want when the Yang energy of Spring arrives.
“One should refrain from overusing the yang energy. Retire early and get up with the sunrise, which is later in winter. Desires and mental activity should be kept quiet and subdued. Stay warm, avoid the cold, keep the pores closed. The philosophy of the winter season is one of conservation and storage” (Maoshing, Ni. The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine. Boston: Shambhala, 1995. Print.6).
In our western world, we may not be able to get up with the sunrise, but we can find more nights to retire early, allowing ourselves to recharge under warm blankets to conserve our energy and make room for the goals and aspirations we have for the coming year. Give yourself permission to be still, to breathe, and to connect with the water element – washing away what no longer serves you, preparing the foundation for new developments in spring.
Blue Monday
January 20th, 2025 marks the 20th anniversary of UK Sky Travel’s press release coining the third Monday of January as “Blue Monday” the most depressing day of the year. In doing so, they considered numerous variables on why humans are so negatively affected by “Blue Monday”. Maybe their equation is correct, or maybe it’s pseudoscience, but the fact remains that by the third week of January we have been in the darkest days of the year for two months.
For all those who celebrated these recent holidays in December, it’s likely that your energy was overextended with what the holidays bring. If you haven’t been supplementing, your vitamin D is most likely deficient because of the lack of natural light. People may be struggling to maintain those resolutions because they continued to push themselves through the beginning of January. Now the exhaustion from the last two months and the disappointment of not being able to maintain that resolution catches up all at the same time.
In Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM), you cannot heal the physical body without connecting your mind and emotions for complete healing. Our mental/emotional health and physical health are so deeply intertwined that it is difficult to start something new without considering the “whole-self.”
If you are a regular gym enthusiast or yoga practitioner such as me; the first few weeks of January can feel a little crowded with all the “resolutioners” starting their new healthy routine. But by the third week of January, you notice the crowd thinning because what lots of “resolutioners” forgot to do was make space in their life and schedule for this type of change. Altering your regular routine doesn’t happen overnight – preparation is key.
The top three New Year’s resolutions, which vary in order depending on demographics, are exercising more, improving one’s diet or losing weight, and improving finances. These intentions all take planning, time, and energy. They are all healthy goals if you’ve been mindful to realistically work them into your schedule. Lots of people get the winter blues or seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Some of those blues come from “I should.” I should be doing this, and I should be doing that, and I should be pushing myself. Don’t “should” all over yourself. Winter is not the time to push yourself; it’s a time to go inward and reflect. Embrace the dark season of winter, knowing the light is slowly building towards the Yang energy of the wood element for spring. Change and new routines are a beautiful thing, when you make room for them in your life and in your mind.
Our Builders Code program supports safety and well-being within the workplace for all. This includes finding ways to take care of our own physical and mental/emotional health. Anytime we start something new, it’s good to consider the emotional challenges and how to ease those challenges so we can be successful. We must give ourselves time and patience when we create a fresh start. Just as with the birth of spring, our own roots have been deeply planted and nourished from a winter rest.
Reference Links:
- The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine :A New Translation of the Neijing Suwen with Commentary By Maoshing Ni
- Settling into Stillness: Taoist Winter Wisdom for Yin Yoga | Teachers – Nyk Danu Yoga
- Blue Monday (January 20th, 2025) | Days Of The Year
- New Year’s Resolution Statistics By Age and Facts [2024*]
