Blog Post - The power of acceptance

On my page about the causes of SAD I explain my philosophy as to why we find it so difficult in the winter. One of the things I think we SAD people forget is that everyone does, and to an extent should, feel different in the winter to how they feel in the summer.

Winter is about slowing down and drawing in from the world. In history, going back to the cave times, and forward up until only a few centuaries ago, people did much less in the winter. It was too cold and too dark to do the things that they did in the summer, so it became a time to sit round the camp fire telling stories, learning new crafts or simply resting.

In thinking that our summer persona is our "normal" we make our winter self wrong. We fight against our need to slow down and rest thinking there is something wrong with us. Of course, as people with SAD there are symptoms that other people don't experience that make winter harder, but not everything is SAD, some of what we feel is as it should be. In learning to accept this we are more able to tailor our lives to the time of year.

In recognising that it is ok for life to take on a slower pace we can start to find ways of making winter more pleasurable. We can accept that sitting reading a book on a Sunday afternoon is ok and then start to enjoy it. Yes, we me be out in the garden or having a picnic at this time in the summer, but that is for the summer. If we learn to change with the cycles of the seasons and resist them less we find it easier to go with the flow and find times in the winter that we actually enjoy.

Of course this is not the only way that acceptance can help us deal with SAD. If we are able to accept that we have SAD we can take our focus off of how unfair it is and how we just want to be normal and look more into what can be done to make things better.

As harsh as it sounds, if you are here you probably have SAD. If you do, try to learn to accept it so you can move onto the next stage of working to find answers. Once you can manage to do this you will find winter gets easier.

#blogpost