5 Winter Practices for Warmth Within
We’re a Natural Lifestyles Business. So, naturally, we love all things winter. But that doesn’t mean it’s always easy to be positive about cold weather and how isolating winter can feel. We’ve learned that in order to feel excited about three months of winter, we have to practice mindfully connecting to the joys of the season, and then develop lifestyle practices that embody those themes.
In addition to warm drinks, blankies and firelight, here are 5 suggestions for connecting to this snowy winter season and for bringing all the best parts of winter into our homes and hearts.
- When blue shadows fill your home in the winter months, grab a pair of gardening shears and go on an adventure to find the evergreen life in your area. Carefully snip a small branch here and there, and with thanks, bring them into your home and place them in a vase near a window. Bringing green inside can offset the gloom of sunless days and even add a fresh air scent to your home. Here are some of our go-to greenery options: pine, fir, spruce, cypress, boxwood, and sometimes evergreen viburnum and magnolia varieties.
- If you miss the feel of the warm outdoors, working with houseplants can be deeply nourishing to your mind and body. Consider repotting and splitting plants that you love, or purchasing new ones to nurture. Don’t want to spend the money? Most of our plants come from friends and family! We split and repot our plants and share them as host gifts when we visit others. Inevitably, they return the favor and now we have little extensions of our loved ones all over our house.
- When you feel stuck inside and disconnected from the world, make a small homemade gift for a neighbor, a friend or even your local mail carrier. If you’re feeling the winter blues, chances are someone else is too, and sometimes an unexpected jar of honey or some fresh bread can really lift the spirits. Maybe you share a plant you repotted, a bundle of firewood, or a homemade hand-scrub, or create a playlist customized to their favorite songs and styles.
- Winter can enliven your creative visions. We love to plan our “favorites garden” in the winter, and watch it come to life in the spring. Choose 5-7 of your favorite regional herbs and flowers, and layout a garden plan to include your sources for plants or seeds (we like Southern Exposure Seed Exchange for their organic options), the ideal planting day, the materials and tools you’ll need, and one or two recipes from the herbs you grow that you can envision yourself enjoying in warmer seasons.
- If you have dry hands and feet you can craft scrubs from on-hand kitchen ingredients. Here’s a recipe for our go-to environmentally-friendly and humane* Simple Dry-Hands Scrub that we recommend you apply directly into your palms over the kitchen sink.
½ TBSP organic, rolled oats
½ tsp salt from local sources (we like Virginia coastal sea salt)
½ tsp plant or nut oil from local sources (we like flaxseed or
sunflower oil)
Pinch of dried or fresh lavender for scent
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