Coming Home to Winter

By Fleet Maull, PhD

During my years in federal prison, I always looked forward to December. For a few days around the winter solstice and the holidays, the usually harsh and violent prison environment unexpectedly softened. You could feel that shift moving through the cellblocks and the yard. Men who normally kept their guards up, who had to stay vigilant every moment, would let themselves remember who they used to be. Fathers. Sons. Brothers. Someone's beloved.

Even in a place designed to strip away your humanity, this season proved stronger. The darkening days and the approaching threshold of winter called us back to ourselves. Called us home.

I've been thinking about that softening a lot as this December unfolds. Something similar is happening everywhere right now, if we're paying attention. This time of year asks us to slow down. To remember. To come home—to ourselves, to our families, to what matters most.

The Threshold We're Standing On The winter solstice marks the longest night of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. Ancient peoples understood this as a threshold, a liminal space between what was and what will be. They gathered together, lit fires, told stories, and held vigil through the darkness, trusting that the light would return.

We're standing on that same threshold now. Not just the astronomical one, but the threshold between years, between versions of ourselves. And thresholds are powerful places where transformation happens. Where we can choose what to carry forward and what to leave behind.

This is why I think of December as an opportunity for restoration.  Not just resting or recovering, but actively restoring ourselves to wholeness. And here's what I've learned: restoration is a creative act.

Restoration as Creation When we hear the word restoration, we often think of passivity. Taking a break. Lying down. Doing nothing. But genuine restoration requires something much more active and intentional. It requires us to consciously tend to what needs healing, to deliberately let go of what no longer serves us, and to thoughtfully cultivate the conditions for thriving.

Think about it this way: a master gardener doesn't just stop working in winter. Winter is when they're preparing the soil, planning next season's garden, pruning back what needs pruning. They're creating the conditions for spring's abundance. That is restoration as a creative act.

As this year winds down, we have that same opportunity. We can actively restore ourselves by doing the tender, honest work of reflection. Not the superficial kind where we make a quick list of wins and losses and move on. I mean the deeper work of really sitting with the year we've lived.

The Practice of Honest Reflection

I keep a journal by my bedside. Have for years. Every morning after I make my bed, which is always my first small victory of the day, I sit with my journal and check in with myself. But at this time of year, that practice deepens. I give myself more time. I ask bigger questions.

What did I learn this year? Where did I grow? Where did I stumble? What relationships deepened? Which ones need repair or release? What brought me genuine joy? What drained my energy without adding value?

These questions aren't meant to be answered quickly. They're invitations to really look at the territory of this year. And here's what's crucial: we need to celebrate our victories AND mourn our losses. Both. Not one or the other.

Western culture doesn't give us much permission for either. We're told not to brag, not to celebrate ourselves too loudly. And we're definitely not encouraged to grieve. When we experience loss, the message is: get over it, move on, be productive. Even when we lose someone close to us, we get maybe a few days before the world expects us back at work, functioning normally.

But here's the truth: celebration and grief are both forms of honoring what's real. They're both ways of being fully human. Your journal is a place where you can do both without apology. You can celebrate every victory, from the small ones like getting out of bed on hard mornings to the big ones like major breakthroughs in your work or relationships. And you can grieve whatever needs grieving, whether that's actual losses or simply the grief of roads not taken, mistakes made, opportunities missed.

Coming Home to What Matters

The holidays can be complicated. For many people, this season brings loneliness, financial stress, family tensions, or painful memories. The cultural expectation of constant joy and celebration can make these struggles feel even heavier.

But what if we reframe this season not as a mandate for happiness, but as an invitation to come home? Home to ourselves first. Home to honest awareness of where we are and what we're carrying. And from that grounded place, home to our relationships in whatever form they take.

Maybe coming home means having deeper conversations with family members beyond the superficial small talk. Maybe it means reaching out to someone who's alone. Maybe it means engaging in service work, serving meals or showing up for your community in some way. Or maybe it simply means giving yourself permission to be exactly where you are without trying to force any particular experience.

The neuroscience research on connection and belonging is clear: we're wired for relationships. Our nervous systems literally regulate through co-regulation with others. When we slow down enough to genuinely connect, we're not just being nice. We're engaging in one of the most fundamental forms of healing available to us as human beings.

Claiming the Sacred

Here's what I've come to understand after decades of contemplative practice and teaching: we have no idea what this incredible thing we call life really is. We're here on this small planet, spinning through space, conscious and alive and able to reflect on our own existence. The sheer improbability and mystery of that is staggering.

Yet most of the time, we're so caught up in the logistics of daily life, in our worries and plans and problems, that we forget to pause and feel the awe of it all. We forget that simply being here, breathing, aware, connected to others, is itself a miracle we're participating in.

This season invites us to remember. To claim the sacred dimension of our human journey. Not in some abstract spiritual way, but right here in the concrete details of our lives, in the warmth of connection, in the courage it takes to keep showing up, in the mystery of consciousness itself.

The men I was in prison with, in those brief days of softening each December, were doing exactly this. They were reclaiming their humanity, their dignity, their connection to something larger than the brutal daily reality of incarceration. They were remembering that they mattered. That their lives meant something. That they were still, despite everything, beloved.

You are, too. Worthy of celebration and grieving, of rest and restoration, of connection and solitude, of all of it. You've made it through another year on this challenging, beautiful, mysterious planet. That alone is worth acknowledging.

Preparing for the Year Ahead

As we move through these darkest days toward the solstice and then into the new year, we have a chance to be intentional about what we're carrying forward and what we're releasing. 

What needs to be healed in you? What needs to be restored? What do you need to optimize or upgrade to truly thrive? And just as importantly, what can you let go of that's no longer serving your growth?

These questions take time to answer. They require the kind of honest self-reflection that can only happen when we slow down enough to actually listen to ourselves. When we create space for our own wisdom to emerge.

At HeartMind, we're gathering some of the world's leading experts this month for our Heal and Restore Summit, because we believe this work matters. We believe that how we complete one year and prepare for the next shapes everything that follows. Not because we can control the future, but because we can show up for it more whole, more present, more alive to the extraordinary gift of being here at all.

So this is my invitation to you: slow down. Reflect. Celebrate your victories, all of them, from getting out of bed to your biggest achievements. Mourn your losses, acknowledge your mistakes, give yourself the grace to be fully human. Come home to yourself and to the relationships that matter. And claim the awe and mystery of this journey we're all on together.

The light returns. It always does. But first, we have to be willing to stand in the darkness of the threshold and do the tender work of restoration. To create, consciously and courageously, the conditions for our own thriving.

Welcome to winter. Welcome home.