Wintering Gently: Embracing Slowness in a World That Refuses to Rest

By Corey Stork, LMSW

Winter arrives quietly, asking very little of us. Shorter days. Colder nights. A natural pull inward. And yet, many of us meet this season with resistance, continuing to push ourselves through schedules and expectations that leave no room for rest.

For anyone whose nervous system has learned to stay on high alert, slowness can feel uncomfortable. Even threatening. We have been taught that rest must be earned, that productivity equals worth, and that slowing down risks falling behind.

Winter offers a different invitation.

The Wisdom of the Season

In nature, winter is not a failure of growth. It is a necessary pause. Plants conserve energy. Animals hibernate or migrate. The world becomes quieter so that life can prepare for renewal. Human bodies are not exempt from this rhythm. Our nervous systems respond to darkness, temperature, and pace, even when we try to ignore those cues. When we override them, exhaustion and disconnection often follow.

Slowness is not laziness. It is attunement.

Why Slowing Down Feels Hard

For many queer and oppressed groups, staying busy has been a survival strategy. Movement meant safety. Stillness meant vulnerability. If we kept going, we could avoid what might catch up to us in the quiet. Trauma teaches the body that rest is risky. Hypervigilance becomes familiar. Calm feels suspicious. So when winter encourages us to slow down, our systems may resist, interpreting rest as a loss of control. This does not mean you are doing slowness wrong.

It means your body learned how to survive.

Rest as Nervous System Care

Slowing down is not just a lifestyle choice. It is a physiological intervention. Gentle routines, predictable rhythms, and intentional rest help signal safety to the nervous system. When the body begins to trust that it does not need to stay on guard, repair becomes possible.

Rest can look like:

● Going to bed earlier without negotiating with guilt

● Letting plans be simpler or fewer

● Allowing silence without filling it

● Choosing warmth, softness, and comfort

● Doing less and noticing more

These choices may seem small, but they accumulate into regulation.

Queering Slowness

Slowness is countercultural. It resists capitalism, productivity obsession, and the idea that worth is measured by output. For queer folks, choosing slowness is also an act of reclamation.

It is a refusal to perform resilience on demand.

It is permission to exist without spectacle.

It is choosing care over constant proving.

Queer rest is not disengagement. It is a return to the body, to presence, to community that allows us to be held rather than hustled.

Letting Winter Be Enough

You do not need to transform this season into a self improvement project. Winter does not ask for optimization. It asks for listening.

If your energy is lower, that makes sense.

If your body wants more sleep, that is information.

If your desires are quieter, they are still valid.

Healing does not always look like movement. Sometimes it looks like staying.

A Gentle Winter Practice

As the season unfolds, consider this question: What would it mean to let this winter be slower on purpose?

Not perfect. Not fully rested. Just softer. More intentional. Less forced.

Slowness is not the absence of growth. It is where growth is quietly taking shape.