Winter Solstice, Collective Anxiety & the Wisdom of Slowing Down

As we move toward the Winter Solstice, nature is inviting us inward. The trees are bare, the days short, and the energy of the Earth is composting, resting, making space.

But in our human world, things often speed up: end-of-year pressure, last-minute obligations, deadlines, expectations. We push to finish. To make things perfect. To make sense of it all.

No wonder our bodies feel pulled in opposite directions.

This is a reminder that you can choose. You can tune-in to stillness and rest, even for short quality moments, instead of following the rush.  

Anxiety is the mind trying to stay safe

Many of us feel anxious about upcoming events, the future, or not having it all done or worked out. The mind runs ahead, trying to control outcomes so we can feel safe. It imagines every scenario, which exhausts our system.

In Buddhism, this is how we create suffering: we attach to how we think things should be.

The relief comes, not from more thinking, but from returning to the present moment and to the deeper well of wisdom inside us.

We don’t need to do everything. We only need to take the next true step.

Tune in to the Season

Winter is a time to slow down. To rest. To let go of what no longer serves and create space for what wants to emerge.

Instead of asking, What do I need to get done? try asking, What is actually essential right now?

Often, it’s less than we think. Often, rest will create the space for more clarity. 

Zoom Out

When things feel intense, it’s easy to turn it into a personal problem: “What’s wrong with me?” - “Why can’t I figure this out?” - “Why is this so hard?”

One of the key shifts of the “wisdom way” is realizing: this isn’t personal. 

We are feeling not only our own lives, but also a collective nervous system going through profound change and uncertainty. Our bodies sense transformation and can react with fear, even when something new and good is trying to emerge.

Zooming out helps us see our experience as part of a much bigger process.

You Are Not Alone

If you’re feeling tired, anxious, or overstretched - it’s not a personal failing. It’s a natural response to living in a time of deep change.

Your body is wise. And right now, it may be asking not for more effort, but for more support and connection. More softness. More trust in something greater.

Asking for support, even when we feel wobbly, is an empowered, wise response in a time when we’re not meant to carry it all alone.

We don’t always need to figure it out. Oftentimes, we need to create the safety and the space to feel more.

Connect to the bigger web of life - a practice

I invite you to sit quietly for a few minutes with your eyes soft or closed.

• Take 3 slow breaths together:

  • In through the nose for a count of 4
  • Out through the mouth for a count of 4

• Bring your attention to a tiny point at the core of your being. Feel it. 

• Then let your breath gently expand into the space around this point.

• Little by little, zoom your awareness out to feel your whole body breathing.

• Zoom out again to sense your body within the space around you (room, home, immediate environment).

• Sense other beings and elements around you also “breathing with you” (plants, animals, people, land).

• Continue to expand your awareness as far as feels safe: neighbourhood → town → country → wider landscape → Earth → Cosmos.

• Pause and feel yourself as one breathing, pulsing part of life in this vast, intelligent web of life.

• Let your body soften a little more, trusting that you are held by something bigger.

• Gently return your attention to the point at the center of your being.

• Rest there for a few breaths, then slowly open your eyes when you’re ready.

From that expanded place, you may sense more spaciousness and possibility, a softening of the need to control, a deeper trust in a greater intelligence moving through all things. 

We don’t have to hold it all with our thinking minds. We are part of something vast, intelligent and alive.

3I Atlas - Solutions will come from outside our known world

At Winter Solstice this December 2025, the interstellar comet 3I Atlas is passing closest to Earth. It's a previously unknown comet from another star system that's just visiting our solar system and then moving out again. 

This phenomenon is showing us that support, insight, and “solutions” can and will come from outside our known world and what our limited minds currently 'know'.

New ways of living and responding may come from unexpected places and people. They won’t always arise from our familiar thinking, but from expanded awareness, deep listening, and coming together (like different star systems that we are).

This is why rest, meditation, and “not working it out” with the mind are so important right now. They are not doing nothing; they are how we open to a different level of wisdom.

A simple invitation for this season

As we move towards the winter solstice

• Let nature set the pace more than the calendar.
• Do the next essential thing, not everything.
• Remember it’s not personal; you are part of a collective nervous system in change.
• Lean into co‑regulation and support.
• Give your mind permission to pause so deeper wisdom can come through.
• You are part of a much larger, loving web of life. Let it hold you, especially now.

I hope we will connect this season.

Sending all my love, 
Georgina