RE:MIND – RECLAIMING THE SEASON: What if everything we thought we knew about winter is wrong?

I keep seeing posts and memes online about how “all things in nature hibernate or die back during the winter,” or how “winter is a time of rest, and therefore we need to refrain from activities and social events so we can reset.” And while I absolutely agree that we need to allow ourselves more time and space for rest, I can’t help but feel like we’re missing the point.

If growing up in the temperate rain forest of the Pacific Northwest has taught me anything, it’s that winter isn’t about dormancy – it’s about depth.

Pacific Northwest winters are anything but dead or dormant; they are vibrant and alive with a kind of quiet energy that tends to go unnoticed. The rain-soaked ground we walk on generally remains soft, not frozen or sealed. Mushrooms explode from the earth. Moss thickens and brightens. Evergreen canopies remain defiantly vivid against our cloudy gray skies. And our rivers and creeks swell and churn with every new rain. Life and color are everywhere. We’re not surrounded by stillness or barrenness; we’re surrounded by steady, rooted growth. And that changes the metaphor.

Nature isn’t shutting down. It’s shifting where its energy goes. Winter isn’t asking us to hibernate. It’s asking us to shift – to turn inward, from outward expansion to inner grounding; to root in.

Our ancestors understood this. When the harvest was over and the nights grew long, they didn’t shut themselves away in their homes and sleep until the sun returned. They honored the winter as a time for taking stock – for reflecting on what worked and what didn’t during the last growing season, and for reading, learning, and making plans for the next.

They shifted their focus away from the physical labor of tending the fields to the social-emotional work of being indoors together – sharing meals, telling stories, mending clothing and tools, and repairing relationships that had been frayed by the busyness of the previous months.

They celebrated with laughter, food, and music, and thus winter brought people closer together, not farther away.

Most of us aren’t tending crops or mending our tools and clothes anymore, but the rhythm of the season still affects us.

We live in a world that constantly asks us to speed up and do more, while winter triggers our nervous systems to do the opposite.

Shorter days naturally draw us inward. Dreary skies, early sunsets, and relentless rain shape our moods more than most of us realize. And things that we could easily ignore or power through during the sunnier months suddenly feel nearly impossible to bear – not as a sign of weakness or failure, but as a built-in demand for recalibration, for balance and alignment.

Winter encourages us to listen to ourselves more closely, to honor our energy rather than override it, and to root our attention in what actually sustains us. It doesn’t ask us to withdraw from life or check out of our responsibilities. It invites us to soften a little – to slow the way we move from one task to the next, to choose warm lights over harsh blue glare, or to simply notice how good a cup of coffee tastes when we actually allow ourselves the presence of mind to experience it.

Winter invites us to pull our energy in closer, to focus on what’s nourishing, grounding, or steadying. It’s a season that asks us to strip away the nonessential, to tend what has been neglected, and to reconnect with the rhythms and relationships that actually sustain us.

Humans are not meant to hibernate, just as nature in the Pacific Northwest is not meant to be dormant. But with winter, the energies do shift – from outward expansion, to strengthening and root growth; from spending and expending to storing and replenishing. Winter is about healing and anchoring our foundations. So, if we stop trying to outrun the season and allow ourselves to move with it, we may finally experience a winter that is less of a burden and more of a guide.

Winter has never been about stopping. It’s about deepening and strengthening. It’s about rooting in. And if we let it, winter will help root us in, too. 

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About This Column: Re:Mind with Jennifer Childers explores the intersections between student life, mental health, and regenerative living – offering space to pause, reflect, and design a life that nourishes you, your community, and the world around you.