Winter

My husband and I have just returned from a month of caravanning in Tasmania in winter, spending a lot of time in the great outdoors. I also took a break from blogging, having drafted the series about the Woman on the Tightrope before we took ourselves across Bass Strait.

Winter is often used as a metaphor for the more challenging or bleak times of our lives, but there can be lots of beauty in the winters of our lives.

Beauty can come from:

• The caring and compassion of others

• The chance for us to grow and increase resilience

• Getting in touch with deeper feelings

• Experiencing the poignancy of life

• The overlapping of the seasons – autumn leaves still lingering on trees and jonquils decorating the landscape and heralding the promise of spring 

• Connecting with others who are also in winter

Some ways to survive winter:

• Immersing ourselves in it instead of trying to escape it

• Arming ourselves with survival strategies and learning new ones

• Using problem solving skills

• Placing ourselves in less testing places

• Having the courage to engage with the darkness and cold

We found lots of beauty in winter. How about you?