The Power of Rest & Retreat in Difficult Times: Katherine May

Episode 06

We’re at the tail end of our For the Love of Calming the Chaos series–and if you’ve gotten a chance to hear the whole series, we hope you’ve been able to take away some actionable items toward further peace in your life. Our last episode in the series is the perfect capper toward extending that ability to calm the chaos during the disruptive times of our lives, but also during the heartbreakingly difficult times. Our guest this week brings us the very comforting message that simply bucking up or trying to cheerlead ourselves into positivity isn’t going to cut it. She gives us permission to actively accept our sadness, and then some tools for how to process it and move it from chaos to a place of peace. Katherine May is an international best-selling author, including the books Enchantment Awakening Wonder in An Anxious Age and Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. Katherine is going to walk us through not only her own story of a hard winter season she endured, and what she learned, but she’ll show us how we can be gentle with ourselves and believe that we deserve peace, no matter the circumstances. 

Jen and Katherine talk about:

• When those winter seasons come, just when you think you can’t or will never be happy again and the dark pit feels too overwhelming; that’s typically when the winter begins to cease and recovery begins
• Giving yourself grace to believe you haven’t done anything wrong if you’re still suffering a week, a month or even six months later – the process of unlearning your old ways of life and relearning new ones can be painful and lengthy
• Not all the lessons we learn come from happiness, they come from sorrow, and how to accept that 

Chaos doesn’t just emanate from choices that we’ve made or that we’ve onboarded too many things, but sometimes when tragedy or heartache has found its way to our doorstep. Allowing ourselves to rest and retreat at these times is a gift we can all give ourselves.