ART OF RETREAT
Along with the cold, winter can bring loneliness, low motivation and social withdrawal. Cass Hogan of Fontein Coaching offers advice on how to support yourself through it.
PHOTO CASEY VAN LIEFDE
There’s a particular feeling that settles in around now. The mornings are darker, the harbour is grey, the calendar is suddenly less crowded, and something in us pulls inward. We sleep a little later. We say no to things we'd usually say yes to. The text we meant to send sits idle for three days.
If that’s where you find yourself this winter, I want to start by saying it’s not a failure. The natural world slows down in winter for a reason, and we’re part of the natural world. The pull toward quiet is real, and it can be a beautiful thing if we move with it intentionally, rather than letting it carry us somewhere we didn't choose to go.
In my coaching practice, I see this distinction every winter. There’s intentional retreat, which might mean slower mornings, deeper conversations and early nights. Then there’s unintentional withdrawal, like motivation that disappears, relief sought through cancelled plans, a slow drift away from the people and practices that keep us well. The first restores us; the second costs us. The tricky part is that they can look identical from the outside, and even from the inside for a while.
The question I find most useful during the cooler months is a gentle one: Am I choosing this or am I hiding in it? If the honest answer is the latter, you don’t need a five-step plan or a burst of new-year energy, you need anchors that look like small, consistent points of contact that keep you from drifting.
Here are three I come back to again and again with my clients.
Light, every day. Even 10 minutes of natural light in the morning can help your sleep, your mood and your sense of being awake to your own life. Coffee on the deck counts. A walk to the letterbox counts.
One real conversation a week. Not a “We should catch up” text – an actual coffee, an actual phone call, an actual “How are you, really?”. Connection isn’t a luxury we earn when we feel better; it’s often what helps us feel better.
One small thing that's just yours. A book, a class, a Sunday ritual, a project underway. Winter has a way of shrinking our worlds down to work and obligation. A small claim on your own joy is an act of self-respect. Winter will do what winter does. The grey will come and go, but you get to decide whether this is a season you move through asleep, or one you move through with your eyes open, with purpose.
That’s the difference, and it’s a difference worth choosing.
