Accepting The Times
Our word for the month of March is acceptance.
There’s quite a body of research showing that the external seasonal shifts shape and correspond to our internal well-being. As spring approaches, we’re gaining more sunlight, we’re likely to spend more time outside, and increase our amount of social interactions. Spring is also the time of year where our sleep and rest patterns begin to shift more dramatically, especially if we live further from the equator.
In addition to all of these natural changes, our social structure and news cycle continues to be both dense and heavy. There is a lot of change going on there, too, and it’s hard to keep up.
This month, as it specifically relates to your sleep-health foundations, we’re going to focus on acceptance, above and beyond trying to “fix” or “change” anything. A few questions to ponder over this month might be:
Where do I struggle most with my sleep cycle?
How can I…:
Recognize when I am struggling more quickly?
Name and be curious about what is happening in that moment of struggle without judgement?
Give myself the gift of softness or kindness in that moment?
What are a handful of activities—that help prioritize solid, quality rest—I can prepare to engage in, even on the nights I cannot sleep, or wake up earlier than I would hope?
And if you have difficultly giving yourself acceptance and loving-kindness when you cannot sleep—my 1:1 bookings are currently open for in-person and virtual clients. Come see me, nested in the Natura Health and Wellness Clinic1 , or over zoom in the comfort of your home.
The Monthly Update Corner
What a strange winter it has been.
When I realized the word for the month of March was “acceptance” I could not have given my past self—who more-or-less arbitrarily chose that word—a bigger high-five.
When March rolls around the corner, I know that here in Montana it’s not technically spring yet, but I can at least make peace with whatever the portal of the last several months has pummeled me through, and I can typically re-orient my trajectory towards something more optimistic. It generally takes a little bit of effort to pull my head out of the vortex of my bellybutton from all the navel gazing I tend to do in the winter, but my eyes hitting the light seem to adjust quickly enough.
During the adjustment period a short period of acceptance often feels necessary.
I need a little time to transition by honoring all of the wounds I got to lick in the dark. To shrug, and put down all of the to-do list items and grandiose art projects I didn’t quite get done in the “slow months”. And to steady myself while that not-quite-yet-spring bursts through the frozen, dark soil into the vibrant green assurance of life that I can more easily recognize.
This year, acceptance is showing up in the form of loving things exactly as they are, in this very moment, without asking them to change.
The past several months have been tough on humanity.
Civil unrest. Deportation. Murder. Horrifying truths about child trafficking have been unveiled and blatant government corruption seems to be everywhere we turn. Climate crisis feels palpable as much of my home region did not get the snowpack they were hoping for, while other parts of the country got extreme weather they are not typically prepared to navigate.
Personally, I vastly over-scheduled myself and rode on that razor-sharp edge of burnout, which I hadn’t experienced this predominantly since graduate school. My social configurations were changing underneath me, as I realized my own value system was also in the process of changing, too. I was also undergoing the uncomfortable internal shifts while trying to get the correct ADHD medication cocktail going for my brain chemistry.
Annoying stuff. All of it.
The combination of the collective, and individual shifts left me personally feeling…bitter. Recoiled. Protective. Angry. Aggressive.
As someone who doesn’t exist in that state as my baseline very often, the gradual hardening of my heart over the course of this winter was distinct. It wasn’t until preparing a mindfulness lesson for a team I’ve been working with for nearly a full calendar year, that I found the balm I was looking for.
Acceptance.
Not just the collapse of acceptance that feels like the farting noise of a deflating balloon. Or the sigh you take when you accidentally drop your entire box of Vietnamese takeout food all over the floor at 11 PM when you walk in the door late and you realize you have to sweep it all up now as rice grains fly everywhere like some kind of malevolent confetti.
No. Acceptance combined with kindness, love, and well-wishes.
If you’re not familiar with the Buddhist practice of metta, I would highly recommend downloading this month’s version of Sweet Darkness, or googling a guided metta practice online. Metta, or sometimes in the west, called ‘loving-kindness’ is a practice technique of compassionate acceptance for the self and other. The practice, itself, often generates an organic sense of gratitude, savoring, and well-wishes towards others.
Physiologically, we cannot feel gratitude and fear at the same time. The brain circuitry doesn’t allow for it. The hormonal release system doesn’t work that way. The nervous system’s blended states don’t configure in this particular pattern.
When we’re having a difficult time, our physiological body is responding from a place of fear. Our nervous system contracts.
The hardened heart and the burnt out nervous system doesn’t need another nap when we’re feeling hopeless—It often needs to feel connected. Curious. Hopeful. Care. It needs a reminder of life without fear feels like in the body and a renewed sense of meaning-making towards why we might continue to trudge away in the mundane tasks around us when conditions feel so bleak.
Metta practice does many things, but re-establishing a sense of connection to self and other is one of it’s facets. Importantly, loving-kindness doesn’t try to change anything by sending it well-wishes. The practice of metta acknowledges everyone’s inherent worthiness of love without asking it to be different. It is compassionate in it’s non-changing approach. This style of meditation also often helps us identify (sometimes painfully) where we might be resisting our acceptance towards ourself or towards others, too.
Acceptance towards the difficulties of life, and then intentional and compassionate care towards whatever and whoever we are building acceptance around, isn’t just a nice sentiment.
Acceptance is known to:
Reduce acute subjective feelings of suffering
Improve our ability to emotionally regulate
Promote more value-based action (rather than reactive responding to the environment)
Enhance long-term resilience and
Improve factors of overall well-being
And as someone who’s been doing loving-kindness meditations for almost 15 years?
Honestly—most of the time—it just feels good.
Especially when things feel like they’re stagnant, or actively falling apart.
March has always been that time of the year that feels like the gears of time have stopped. It’s not quite as chaotic as December, as cold as January, or as acutely uncomfortable as February. It just has this feeling of the entire landscape holding its breath.
We know that the exhale is going to come. And soon. We know the bloom is about to burst.
But we have to accept that there’s just a smidgen longer go to.
When we’re resourced enough, hopefully we can ride that pause for ourselves, and others, with some level of acceptance, and an enormous amount of kindness.
Sending you the exhale this March.
With metta,
Dagny Rose
Support Us….Creatively!
Our art sales are specifically to help bolster our scholarship programs and make our work more accessible to folks from diverse backgrounds. Each print you buy gives you a new piece of art, while supporting those who cannot always afford my resources.
Because this month is also my birthday month, I wanted to offer some art that gives you a print and comes with a bonus one to give as a gift! Our featured art piece is an abstract watercolor and ink, [5x7] non-limited print. These smaller prints make excellent cards, and tiny thoughtful gifts.
March’s orders come in a 2 pack so you can keep one for yourself and pass one the other one along.
Last Month’s Articles & The Art of Rest Updates
Our Attention In The Sweet Darkness— Our monthly bonus material for paid subscribers only! A guided meditation on quality of attention.
Happy F*$@ing February — The Hardest Month of the Year Our Monthly Newsletter update for February. Asking ourselves about the gift of long-term attention to specific seasonal patterns.
Circle Back To Your Attention— Our monthly mindful art exercise with an easy circle-based mandala pattern and practice.
Tending To Your Wintertime Rest— A podcast feature on All Things Vagus and in Backpacker magazine! Wahoo!
*SPRING EVENT ANNOUNCEMENTS*— An events update on all of our upcoming ways to connect in-real-time.
February’s Tree of the Month Club— A look at the Nordic Mythological “axis mundi” of Yggdrasil.
Our Community Announcements:
TONIGHT — 70’s Flower Power Dance Party & Silent Auction Fundraiser for Earth Within Girls — My sweet friend Melissa runs a beautiful organization called Earth Within Girls. Their big spring fundraiser is this evening and if you’re a Missoula MT local, I’d highly encourage at least showing up to see what great stuff they’ve got in their auction! 6PM - 10 PM Tonight at Free Cycles. Sliding Scale entry fee of $10 - $20
Embodied Trauma-Informed Practices Training - Bozeman, MT — April 3 & 4 — Jojo from Touch and Change, and I are co-teaching an embodied training this spring that helps folks understand how the nervous system works and how to safely up-regulate from a point of shutdown or chronic burnout. Come join us for a full day and a half to spend time learning about, and practicing nervous system techniques together.
This sub-section of The Art of Rest, keeps our most vital attention…well…ours. Welcome to our Monthly Newsletter.
Here the Art of Rest we believe there is nothing more precious than the agency to choose where our loving-attention goes. We want to celebrate folks who are trying to keep their inboxes clean, their minds clear, and the energy of their lives headings towards the things they care about the most.
This Monthly Newsletter section is only the high-level updates of what’s going on here at The Art of Rest. It recaps all of our important stuff so you don’t miss a thing, but also so you can keep your own life in attuned to what you really want to do. Less virtual clutter, more time for creative rest. If you want to shift your subscription preferences, a step-by-step guide can be found here
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