It’s been far too long since I watched the sun rise.

I know this because I couldn’t sleep last night. The nearly full moon had me spinning in full werewolf mode, unable to contain or ground my energy. It occurred to me as I laid awake, staring at the ceiling, cells buzzing and mind racing, that I hadn’t stepped on actual ground in a long time. Winter comes early in the Northern hemisphere, and so far I’ve spent it mostly indoors in a cocoon of silence, solitude and deep introspection. No wonder it felt like I was pin-balling at light-speed through outer space. I know this morning I need to watch the sun rise so I can harmonize with it’s rhythm.

For many, this time of year is riddled with depression and burnout. As we slide into to the latter months of the year, we feel the propulsive motion of each day shortening until our surroundings halt in near dormancy at the solstice. The days are so short that many of us miss sunrise and sunset because they fall within working hours, our commutes to and from work made in total darkness. Temperatures drop far below 0 degrees Celsius and we often receive so much snow we are literally trapped in our houses until a neighbour with a tractor comes and digs us out – no jokes. All of this darkening weighs on a soul in ways we don’t realize until the light is sparse.

When I was living in Thailand, the sun rose and set at around 6:00 every day. 12 blissful, predictable hours of sunlight, 365 days a year. I have never felt so balanced, so stable, and so myself. Each year, about the time we reach the fall equinox and descend further into the palpable darkness of winter I find myself wondering:

“why the hell do I choose to live here?”

Not even the trees can stay alive through this season. They shed their foliage and draw their vitality inward to fuel the sole function of survival. The once thriving landscapes of abundant grasslands, lush forests, and alpine meadows lay seemingly lifeless and muted by the nothingness of flat, white snow.

The entire world reminiscent of that awkward Pirates of the Carribean scene, where Captain Jack Sparrow wakes in the Land of the Dead. The nothingness can be terrifying, engulfing, and suffocating.

It can also be liberating, empowering, and transformative.

At the beginning of 2019 I set the intention of reprogramming my nervous system for ease. I was maxed out in a high beta brain wave state nearly 24/7, 365 – and my nervous system was fried. Beta waves oscillate at around 12-40 Hz and characterize most of our wakeful consciousness. On the low end of that scale, they allow us to function and focus in our day to day lives. On the high end of that scale, they induce significant stress, anxiety, paranoia, high energy, and high arousal.

It’s an experience we stumble into earnestly as we are so conditioned to try our best all the time – in our careers, our friendships, even in our self care. The practices that are supposed to be regenerative and nourishing take on a degenerative quality when they are fuelled by the chaos and panic of our sympathetic nervous systems and high beta brain wave states. When this becomes our modus operandi, or our habitual way of being, everything we touch turns to chaos and dysfunction. Our intentions are so good, so pure. We meditate on healing, on Love, on compassion – but are confused when everything we emit is tarnished with this erratic vibration of scarcity and lack. No matter how hard we try, how much research we do, how many healers we visit, and how much green juice we slam, it’s never enough. We never feel complete.

When I was spiralling on the hamster wheel of depression and burnout, it was like being separated from all the joy and good fortune life was trying to give me by an impermeable, soundproof pane of glass. I could see with my eyes how lucky I was to be so blessed with a loving partner, a healthy bank account, a beautiful home and tons of exciting adventures and opportunities to feel alive.

But that’s the messed up part –

I didn’t… feel… any of it.

I was racing and spinning from one thing to the next so quickly I’d completely forgotten how to be present. How to feel what was happening in me and around me. How to receive the joy and the abundance I was seeking.

What I realize now, that I couldn’t see through the crushing tidal wave of overwhlem, was that the joy and the abundance never left me. They were always right there, knocking at the window of my awareness, begging to be let back in. To engulf me in happiness and joy and satisfaction. But I’d forgotten how to receive.

I spent the past three months immersed in a Yoga Nidra training. Yoga Nidra is the ancient practice of yogic sleep, where we intentionally withdraw our senses from the outer world to our inner world so we can build an acute awareness of what is actually happening within us. Layer by layer, we descend to slower brain wave frequencies and subtler states of consciousness until we land in that space within us that is formless, timeless, changeless. That state which is both the truest core of our being and our most limitless experience of consciousness – bliss body.

We discussed the idea that reprogramming our nervous systems, as well as our thoughts, beliefs, and behaviours has very little to do with willpower, and very much to do with reprogramming the stories that cycle on auto-play in our subconscious minds. These are what direct our behaviour, create our beliefs, and inform our thoughts. And we are prohibited access to this area of mind when we are in a beta brain wave state.

The gateway to our subconscious mind is the alpha-theta brain wave border. Think of that state you hover in between wakefulness and sleep. That first jolting sensation as you trip into a dream. Or that hazy moment of blissful space you float in before becoming fully conscious in the morning. That is where the magic happens.

Now – think of what you’re actually doing when you’re in this state?

Nothing.

In fact – you can’t reach this state if you are trying to do or accomplish anything – it’s a physical impossibility. Just recall any time you’ve tried to fall asleep. It doesn’t work. It’s an oxymoron. Sleep is the absence of all effort. Doing and non-doing cannot coexist.

When we’re spinning out in beta, reprogramming the subconscious mind sounds like a daunting, complicated task. All we can see is how hard it’s going to be, how much effort it’s going to take, or how much we’re going to have to learn, study, and acquire to accomplish this task.

That’s why we need an entirely different paradigm. That’s why we need to shift the way we look at our circumstances. And the comical irony is that it actually requires no effort at all.

And it’s hard to wrap our heads around the notion that doing less will actually help us experience more. The average person spends only a handful of minutes in these potent brain wave states each day, so no wonder why these ideas aren’t common knowledge.

But imagine the untapped potential that lies dormant in that 95% of your mind that you’re only accidentally accessing for a few minutes a day. What could be if you opened the doorway to this wealth of intelligence, creativity and abundance? What if there’s an entirely different way of being that already exists within you that is healthy, happy and thriving? What if the answer to all the questions, uncertainty, pain, doubt, and fear you need resolved to feel okay are waiting here for you to soften into and receive?

The question I was burning to ask:

What if there’s something to this whole dormancy thing I’ve been missing out on while only feeding my hyperactive achievement-bot identity all these years?

The answer I gracefully received:

– spolier alert –

Non-doing is the new busy.

At the beginning of this year, one of my dearest yoga teachers talked about the year 2019 relating symbolically to a snake shedding it’s skin. I had just emerged from one of those cosmic-deep savasanas to the image of a cobra rising from it’s shed. I knew in the primordial womb of my subconscious mind, long before I knew consciously, that 2019 would be a year of transformation.

So much happened this year – to myself, to my loved ones, to our collective. It’s almost laughable to look back and see the common thread spinning a narrative through every touch of grace and shattering loss. A narrative of our outgrown identities bubbling up to the surface to be acknowledged, accepted, understood and released, so we can close the door on this decade and step into the fullness of our truest, most luminous 2020 selves.

I’ll be closing out this decade a lot differently than I rang it in – with an offering of non-doing. A commitment to myself to return to my cocoon as much as possible in the upcoming weeks. To rest in it’s gooey womb of nothingness. To receive nourishment from it’s stillness, wisdom from it’s silence, and transformation from the total cessation of effort. To lean into the dormancy the rest of my environment is revelling in right now.

That is why I choose to live here – in this hectic, temperate, four-seasoned climate where everything spins centrifugally towards change and nothing stays the same for even a moment. I choose to live here for the long midnight sun that fuels me through the summer months. The graceful transition seasons of celebrated blossoms and harvests. And the simple gift of dormancy winter gives me each year to crawl into my cocoon and transform into a greater iteration of myself.

One final reminder to my anxious, grasping December mind as I watch the sun rise in silence:

Not even the sun rose to full capacity today.