Wintering: The Emotional Seasons We Move Through

/ Dustin Shultz Counseling/

There’s a quiet emotional truth inside A Long December:
We are seasonal beings.

We move through cycles of closeness and distance, clarity and confusion, grief and renewal.
And yet many people judge themselves harshly for feeling slow, heavy, or reflective this time of year, as if emotional winter means they’ve failed.

But winter is not failure.
It’s invitation.

It’s the season where:

  • old regrets surface

  • quiet shame makes itself known

  • unmet needs rise to the surface

  • tired parts of us ask for warmth

  • we finally recognize the truth of what’s not working

  • we remember we’re human and finite

If December feels heavy or quiet, it may simply be signaling:
Something inside you needs gentleness rather than pressure.
Honesty rather than avoidance.
Warmth rather than self-criticism.

Let this be a month where you honor the season you’re in, not the one you think you’re “supposed” to be in.

Hope That Isn’t Naive

/ Dustin Shultz Counseling/

One of the most quoted lines in the song is:
“Maybe this year will be better than the last.”

It’s a simple sentence, but it carries the weight of every disappointment, every missed attempt at repair, every moment we told ourselves “I’ll handle it later” and later never came.

This isn’t the shiny, Instagram-quote kind of hope.
It’s the quiet, weathered kind… the hope that remains after regret, shame, or relational distance.
Hope that knows what it costs to hope again.

This is the kind of hope that heals.
Not the kind that avoids the truth, but the kind that walks directly into it.

Real hope sounds like:

  • I can name the hard things honestly.

  • I can take responsibility without drowning in shame.

  • I can grieve what didn’t unfold the way I meant it to.

  • I can still believe change is possible in small, real ways.

Hope and honesty are not opposites.
They depend on each other.

As you move deeper into December, you might ask:

  • What am I ready to hope for with clear eyes?

  • What gentle shift feels possible, not drastic, but meaningful?

Hope doesn’t require certainty.
Just courage.