Getting Ready For The Adventure of 2022

Getting Ready for the Adventure that is 2022

It's February. It's cold. It's still winter.

If you live in the cooler climates of the northern hemisphere, then this might be your reality.

Does this month feel like one to be survived and got through somehow, or can you use it in your preparation for spring and the start of a new cycle?

For me, February was the month that I used to abandon. By the end of January, I could not tolerate any more cold or dark nights or grey skies.

I had worked out that this was the month when I was most vulnerable, and I needed to get away, really to support my mental health and wellbeing.

So for a whole decade, each February 1st, or thereabouts, I'd get on a plane to Sydney for several weeks of bone-warming sunshine.

My tickets were booked to return home in time to enjoy the English spring golden daffodils in late March and early April. I found those weeks travelling in the bright southern hemisphere, having exciting experiences, were really nourishing for my soul. It was a period in my life when travel was paramount, and I thrived on all the new ideas I was exposed to. All the varied life discoveries I made broadened my horizons and helped me see the world differently.

Since 2016 my practice of escaping the winter has been replaced by settling down in one place. In fact, during the last two years, while we've had a global pandemic, I have, in effect, been grounded like everyone else. I've got used to being in one place, literally in one town rather than simply in the UK, and moving up and down to London from my Yorkshire base. So now, I am living through and processing all the seasons and the shifting energy they bring. I value the energy that each season contributes to my wellbeing, and I understand what they are doing to support the process of my life.

Befriending February

When I escaped the cold weather in the northern hemisphere, I nourished myself on the other side of the world in the abundant light and heat of Australia. Although I miss my friends and communities over there, I have learned to work with the energy of winter and befriend it. I am not resisting the winter months but taking the best that each one has to offer and going with the flow to get through to the spring and feel replenished by the dark rather than the light.

The dark has power and helps us with our inner work of transformation.

If you can be patient with February, it will bring rewards in the year ahead. If you managed to have a quieter January, as I advocated in my last column, you might feel tempted to launch ahead with bustling activity. Stay steady and continue the inner work. The rest of the year will actually be more productive for you with this continued slowness. If you spent time in January setting intentions and perhaps creating a vision board for your life and your business, then February is an excellent month to refine the blueprint for your year.

Trust Nature. You look outside the window and see the bare ground and grey landscapes, and perhaps you forget that underneath the soil, much is happening. That tiny seed that will one day grow into a magnificent plant or mighty tree is doing its final preparations before launching out of the ground in the spring. That launch might be a bursting through or a tentative step, but it is powered by the information crystallised within the seed and the prompts given to it by Nature herself.

So what you need to focus on now, in whatever way works for you, is to refine that blueprint of yours … spend time within on the inner transformation work that will power the seed of your business or life this year.

Here are my tips for chilly February that will help prepare for the next season and strengthen the foundation of the next cycle:

1. Enhance the light:

You might find, like me, that your tolerance for darkness needs support. Some folks are more sensitive to the lack of daylight and need to invest in a lightbox. Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) is where your energy drops; you can feel sluggish and listless and experience persistent sadness. It can be really debilitating and can occur after just a few weeks of winter or creep up on you in February when you might feel that winter will never end.

2. Time Outdoors: Lucky you if you live in a more temperate climate, but if not, don't let the cold or wet weather stop you from getting outside and walking. Resist the temptation to avoid the cold, wrap up and tell yourself that you are boosting your much-needed Vitamin D levels…. which you are. Stepping out in the cold is good medicine.

3. Welcoming Fire: I light my log fire most nights, even when it is just me, and I have central heating, so I don't necessarily need a fire for warmth. But I love the energy and aliveness it brings into my space. I take the time on a dark evening to enjoy sitting in the quiet, reading and looking into the flames. It really does help spark new ideas. I made the creation of a fireplace in my home an absolute priority. There is nothing like sitting by a real fire, and it is even more enjoyable when you have come in from that cold walk.

4. Brightness: Once the red, gold and shiny Christmas decorations have been put away for another year, your rooms might look a bit cheerless, by comparison. I enhance the brightness level in my home with strands of LED lights that I keep up after Christmas. I keep a dried wreath of red berries as a piece of winter decor; I make sure dark corners have lamps that I turn on each evening. I use my gold china for everyday meals … you can find your own ways of bringing brightness and more light into your home. You need it to get you through to the Spring Equinox in March.

5. Chinese New Year: This special day falls on February 1st. It marks the start of a new cycle and the beginning of new energy coming in. 2022 welcomes in the Year of the Tiger. What a beautiful animal .. powerful, strong, ferocious, regal. How will you use that energy this year? Think about how you will express your power in the year ahead? In fact, are you using your power, or are you allowing others to have power over you? Who is the Tiger in your life? Make sure it is you.

6. Warm Foods: Spend time in the kitchen making nourishing foods. This is not yet the time to introduce salads, juices and raw foods back into your diet. Keep putting heat into your body and keep your inner furnace going with vegetable soups. Plenty of root veggies plus some greens, and get some beef bones from the butcher to make some bone broth to use in as many meals as possible. That bone-deep nourishment is really going to give you a good foundation for the year ahead. The stronger your foundation, the higher you can leap and the further you can stretch.

7. Quiet Space: This is the last month where there is natural quiet. March will herald in the surging energy of springtime, and that will be like lighting the blue touch paper to life. Until then, you have a few more weeks to enjoy stillness and peace. Do you have a quiet room or area in your home where you can just sit? Was it Winnie the Pooh who said, "Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits"? See if you can create a place without a computer or TV. When you sit there, you can read quietly. If there is space for two, you can create the possibility for companionable silence or deeper conversation to emerge that gets missed out in the rush of the normal day or in the busier corners of the house.

Take time to be truly ready for your next adventure.

Our modern cultures are addicted to action. So few societies value rest, yet … without the time to rest and recuperate, we damage the next cycle. I can recall years ago the TV news reporting on the increasing length of time that British people took as holiday over the Christmas and New Year period. What used to be a couple of days off for family gatherings had gradually become a 10-day vacation. The news narrative presented this with a guesstimate of how many millions of pounds had been lost in production with this new downtime. How lazy and unproductive of us to take the darkest days at the end of a long year to rest!

That perspective has changed, and as a society, we are increasingly seeing the value of rest and time off to nourish the next phases of the cycle. Do you need me to give you permission to keep your foot off your accelerator? If so, I give you permission to continue the slow speed as I encourage myself to take my own advice. Everything you need is inside you. Time invested now in stepping back and tuning in will reap dividends and help you fulfil the year's promise. That is the feminine way, and Mother Nature is your guide and mentor. Know that you will have a stronger foundation for whatever adventure you are creating this year if you are flexible with your speed as each season dictates.

Gina Lazenby - Healthy Living Activist, Feng Shui Expert, Gina’s beautiful hilltop home in the Yorkshire Dales, featured on many TV programmes and the inspiration for her Healthy Home book, is now let as a retreat house to facilitators of yoga, transformation work and wellness. It’s also a special place to hire for family gatherings and celebrations. She has always understood the management and care of a home as a highly feminine skill set. Her work in the last twenty years has been in the exploration of the changing nature of gender roles and the value of home-making in our lives. Her feng shui skill set enabled her to teach hundreds of students the value of aligning your home for success and wellness. She has also produced and presented a radio series called ‘The Rise of the Feminine’ exploring the shift in values in the world and the unique contribution of women. Gina is a veteran conference speaker and has led gatherings for women entrepreneurs all over the globe. Most recently, she has taken on the role of global host for Conscious Café, a consciousness-raising initiative, and hosts the northern community group based in Skipton. Gina is a born organiser and has created thousands of events since she was a small child and led birthday parties for her reluctant toddler brother. You can join her online or in-person at one of the many gatherings she creates around her passions of conscious conversation, feminine leadership, wholefood cooking, Feng Shui, living well and wisdom. Her Healthy Home podcast is about to be launched from the Retreat House with tips for making your home the foundation of your abundance and health.

Gina has since sold over half a million books on feng shui and healthy living and has hosted several courses in her home using it as a backdrop for teaching people about using natural materials, non-chemical housekeeping, wholefood cooking and sacred space. Located in the hills above Skipton with breath-taking views down the Airedale valley, Gina has attracted friends and business contacts from all over the world for meetings and gatherings. For all its remoteness, they have entertained visitors from China, Japan, North America and New Zealand.