Anna Maria Locke

winter

5 signs you might be in an inner winter phase of life

2023Anna Locke

We enter an inner season of winter many times in our life, including but not limited to the menstrual phase of our monthly cycle, actual winter if you live in the north, pregnancy or postpartum, or after a really intense period of big change or expansion in your life or work.

Our society tells us we have to be constantly “on” and productive, so it’s hard for us to listen to our bodies but we’re part of nature and our bodies are cyclical. We have to go through winter in order to bloom again.

**make sure to be in touch with your medical provider to rule out any mood disorders, vitamin deficiencies etc.

But if you’re doing all the self care, mental health support, and taking all the supplements and you still feel like you’re not your typical go-getter achieving self, maybe your body and soul just need a break!

Signs you might be in a winter phase

  1. You lack clarity and motivation

  2. You feel disconnected from your purpose and it’s challenging to give a shit about things that you know are important to you

  3. You’re extra tired and have low stamina when you do have energy

  4. It’s hard to focus

  5. You’re feeling a strong pull to retreat, hibernate, and surrender any expectations and pressure you’ve been putting on yourself

Take a break from the goal chasing and give yourself permission to simply be.

“In the Reflective phase we can be so lacking in motivation and enthusiasm that we become disconnected from our own wants and needs...Nothing seems important, even our own goals and ambitions...The ‘whatever’ attitude makes it an optimum time to prioritize our lives, as nothing really has much priority. If something is really important it will be worth the effort...so we realize very quickly what is a ‘must’ action and what is a ‘should...this can actually become a resourceful tool for self-development and goal achievement...Suddenly this phase forces us to release the drive, but more importantly it forces us to drop our fear and anxieties...and simply accept the here and now.”

-Miranda Gray, The Optimized Woman

Winter is the best time to:

  • Rest!

  • Indulge in being as deliciously lazy and unproductive as possible

  • Reconnect with yourself

  • Identify any unnecessary “should’s” or pressure you’ve been placing on yourself, and let them go

  • Surrender, and surrender some more. Go inward!

  • Connect to your intuition and receive guidance from Divine Energy/Source/Universe/God

  • Journal

  • Meditate

  • Take a break from your workouts

  • Reflect, reconnect to your goals and intentions, access deep insights and intuitive hits.

  • Evaluate biz progress and make course corrections.

  • Nurture yourself

  • Order takeout or have your partner cook

  • Let go of as many responsibilities as possible for at least 2-3 days

  • Unplug from social media and go offline

  • Practice RECEIVING (over doing)

In nature, we always know that winter will end eventually.

Even if it takes forever if you live in the upper Midwest like me.

We trust that spring will come.

We make plans. We book trips. We update our wardrobes.

What if we could extend that same level of trust and assurance to ourselves, when we’re feeling bogged down in an inner winter?

If you have a regular menstrual cycle, you can practice leaning back into the low energy states and let yourself experience that regular boost of energy to remind yourself every single month that your body is on a regular pattern just like the earth.

But maybe your winter season is more Game of Thrones style, and you can’t see the end or how long it will take to make it through.

Spring will come again for you too. And the signs will be unmistakeable.

xo Anna

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Navigating a season of "not yet"

2023Anna Locke

Right now snow is falling in west Michigan, we’ve barely seen a glimpse of sun in weeks, and it’s like nature is sending the very clear message to rest, hibernate, be still.

At the same time, I’m having a personal inner spring awakening thanks to second trimester energy and what feels like 18 months of pent up ideas and dreams and goals sensing they have free rein to finally emerge from the surface and be free to grow.

It’s an interesting juxtaposition but I’m fully enjoying having this down time to retreat from the world and get to work.

Spring is far away but deep beneath the earth seeds are sprouting, and new beginnings are on the horizon.

I always love looking at life through a seasonal or cyclical lens, because things never unfold in a linear pattern, despite what the thinking side of our brain expects.

We always circle back to the same lessons, mistakes, or growth moments over and over in a cosmic whirlpool of dejavu, but at the same time gaining experience, perspective, wisdom, and the opportunity to choose differently.

Life does not move in a straight line, or even a perfect circle with happy closure at every thread of our paths. Sometimes it feels more like a hot mess that is completely out of our control.

Menstrual cycle awareness is a fabulous built in way to honor your body’s need for different things at different times, but sometimes we go through energetic seasons that last beyond a month.

It seems like all the conversations I’ve been having lately with other moms, coaches, and business owners have had a similar theme, like we’ve all been going through this personal extended winter ala Game of Thrones.

And it’s freaking hard to be in the middle of a seemingly endless phase and not being able to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Especially if it’s something you’ve never experienced before, like going through the newborn stage or a sleep regression or mental health crisis.

You’re inside something new, and you don’t know where the end is. In hindsight things move fast, but when you’re IN IT, it seems forever.

All we can do is lean back into our inner knowing that all things pass in time, trust that we’ll make it through to the other side, and in the meantime surrender and let go of our brain’s expectations or timeline.

My season of “not yet”

When it comes to my major areas of career, home, and family, it’s felt like for the last 12-18 months I was inside this limbo phase of “not yet, not yet, not yet.”

The best way I could describe it was feeling like a strawberry suspended in a big jiggling vat of jello. Not necessarily stuck and paralyzed, but not free or in my groove. Very much disoriented and disconnected from my inner bold, badass, creative and confident version of myself.

We didn’t have childcare for our first 8 months after moving to Michigan, which forced me to put my coaching business on the back burner (and subsequently feel disconnected from my inner purpose and joy of the work I do) so I could be a full time caregiver and mom.

Once we finally enrolled Thomas in part time preschool, I suffered a miscarriage during our quest to grow our family, which ultimately triggered a mental health breakdown and has forced me to put my mental and physical health first over everything else.

Then we faced so much rejection during our home search, until finally buying a house and moving!

So yeah, lots of exciting things have been happening, but not without trials and long seemingly endless stretches of waiting and surrendering control.

Sometimes you are so ready to move into the next chapter or season of life but you keep getting hitting roadblocks or set backs, like the universe or God keeps telling you “not yet. Not yet. Not yet not yet not yet not yet.”

During those times of freefall, it’s vital to surround ourselves with support because we can’t do everything by ourselves.

Whether that’s mental health support, financial support, childcare, or simply staying up too late to catch up with girlfriends and laugh.

The more we remember that we aren’t alone, the easier it is to take ourselves less seriously and give ourselves permission and space to let go of the frantic pace of the world and surrender into just being still.

So what if you have “nothing” achievement-wise to add to your resume or holiday letter at the end of the year? Maybe you can’t quantify the growth you’ve been experiencing on the inside, but that doesn’t mean it’s worthless, or that nothing is happening to you and for you.

“Rest is the revolution that’s going to power your life”

-Alexandra Pope and Sjanie Hugo Wurlitzer (Wild Power)

And after winter comes a season of transition.

Transformation.

Like a butterfly emerging from the mush.

I don’t have some nicely organized 5 step process to pulling yourself out of a funk or extended winter, but all I can say is that when spring arrives again, you’ll know.

It might be subtle, but unmistakable.

Remaining in a state of inaction or status quo will feel existentially and maybe even physically intolerable.

You’ll have to move.

Trust that you’ll know exactly what to do.

Your next steps will be guided. You’ll start to have little synchronicities or signs or just chance encounters with friends that will give you a little micro-dose or glimpse of fresh energy and life, like a gust of warm air in early spring.

You won’t be ready to completely put yourself out there and bloom, but that’s ok because you don’t have to.

You might start to feel impatient that things aren’t moving faster, or that you don’t have the capacity to take action and do ALL THE THINGS that are suddenly flooding your brain.

But that is ok too.

Pace yourself.

Let your soul seeds germinate and nurture them in the darkness so they don’t get burned by the heat of the sun.

Find someone you trust to share your heart and witness your emergence from the cocoon.

And keep on honoring the pace of your heart.

xo Anna

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end of February in photos

AnnaComment
 
Helloooo. Is February over yet? I wish. Instead we're getting handed another blizzard tonight, yay.
I'm definitely sick of ugly winter, so I bought myself a bouquet of cheap pink garden roses from Trader Joe's. Best idea ever! $4.99 of joy and pretty. I should probably do this on a regular basis.
 
 
 
I'm also really proud of myself for starting a book club! We had our first meeting last Friday. Our first book was Jenny Lawson's Let's Pretend This Never Happened, which as a quirky and expletive filled comedic memoir doesn't really purport itself for deep challenging discussion, so we just ate pizza, drank wine, and read the craziest chapters out loud to each other.
The next day I baked the leftover pizza dough into rolls and made prosciutto mozzarella paninis mmmm.
We never order pizza because it's cheaper and almost just as easy to make it yourself. The trick to yeast bread is letting it rise in a warm oven (turn it on for a few minutes, turn it OFF, put covered dough in for an hour).
 
And since I'm not working this week my mom asked me to come visit for a couple days, using the excuse that I should teach my little sister how to play the trumpet so she can be in jazz band (apparently they don't allow clarinets into upper jazz bands, which seems kind of discriminatory). I played the trumpet for 12 years, and I do sound like a professional compared to Nicole (although she is definitely doing a great job so far and has learned five notes in one day, not too shabby for having woodwind chops). Our cat will be forever traumatized.
 
 
Oh, and since I'm sure you've always wondered what the landscape between Chicago and central Illinois looks like in winter, here it is. MIND NUMBING. Or starkly beautiful? Nope, mind numbing.
 
 
And there in the distance is my home town, population 6,000. My family lives on the outskirts now, behind a few fields of corn/pumpkins/soybeans. You can vaguely make out both of our watertowers in this shot, which incapsulates the entire city. And yeah, it's technically called a city.
 
And finally, here's the line-up of what I've made recently!
 
pretty watercolor thank you cards

fun chunky spring infinity scarves



 
More colors of these cute boho lace knit headbands





And I figured I'd capitalize on having a mini-me around and whipped up a kid and tween size chunky cowl.
 
See the struggling grass in that last picture? Apparently it's about to be buried in up to 8 inches of snow. Le sigh.