Today is the solstice, the shortest day or the longest night.
In my belief system, Yuletide, our deepest winter, is a sacred time. It’s so deep in my bones I feel lost in it and willingly so. As I get older I only want it more. Ice age sun and bare branches, long shadows and clouds of breath. The sting of cold on my cheeks, is visceral and living.
It is multilayered, multi-storied as so we are. The non-negotiability and truth of darkness and nadir cannot not remind me of my last Day 1 and the subsequent birth of this bit of my soul’s sober journey, now in her 9th year. The darkest night turns to lighter times and if that’s not a metaphor for sobriety, I don’t know what is!
It also shows me my having to learn to rest, unlearn the impulse and learned behaviour of do-do-do. It reminds me I am not invincible, that have I needs. It also loving tells me ‘You are not just what you do’ and that although I get profound satisfaction from my work, I am not my work and that I too am allowed to rest, not just when I am on my knees with exhaustion having served everyone else, but as my right, in my day, in my life. Mother, woman, wife, coach, yoga teacher, friend or not. Our self worth is not measured by our service to others. It’s mirrored so beautifully by our connections and those ripples of course, but we are more in essence. Rest is about belonging to group and to self, not just doing. And, if we are are all connected, we must know on some level we all need and deserve rest.
‘You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.’
Mary Oliver
We are nature and by re-attuning to her rhythms and enlivening our senses rather than blunting them with alcohol, we feel better, not just because of the absence of hangovers but throughout all the layers of the self. The twinkly fairy lights and the muddy carpets of mulching leaves are making magic and all we need to do is not numb the edges that play with the magic and listen to the ‘soft animal of your body.’ I know it seems impossible at this time of year, and when we are hosting and preeping and socialising and hat’s exactly why we need to carve out this time.
So, here is a Yoga Nidra, a little Sober Nidra, that I have recorded as a gift to you in the hopes it helps you carve out a little rest this week. It’s 15 minutes long, give or take; a little pause in this busy time of year when our soft animal bodies need rest and yet so much is demanded of us, especially if we are carers.
Yoga Nidra is sometimes called Yogic Sleep and is a kind of guided meditation with the intention of to helping us drift into a liminal state, between waking and sleeping. There is lots of research now about it reducing inflammation and boosting dopamine levels, lowering cortisol and all that good stuff.
We also know that all these tools are potent for sobriety: the rest, the calming of the nervous system, the super power of being able to better regulate, and come out of a triggered state. The pause is the power. The moment between stimulus and response.
My sobriety enabled and enables me to be more awake to my life and this combination of waking-ness and deep winter, light and darkness seems so right at this time of year - the perfect time to make a little nest of blankets, pillows, on the floor, sofa or bed and rest.
So please, if you would like a little rest or need to retreat a little over the next few days, get cosy, make yourself comfortable and quiet and I hope this recording of Yoga Nidra helps you find that pause, sacred dark and a moment to ground yourself before re-entering the Christmas arena with all it’s bright lights and familial sounds.
Rest up, little one.
Welcome home to rest.
Love Kate x
If you are struggling or feeling lonely do join us in the Love Sober Community. We are online at 6pm every evening up to and including Christmas Eve and have two online meetings a week at 7pm other times and yoga on a Friday at 12.30pm. Details are here:
https://www.lovesober.com/membershipcommunity
If you find this time of year hard and need to talk, The Samaritans can be contacted here :
https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help/contact-samaritan/talk-us-phone/
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