The Energy of Winter Solstice | Messages for the Empath Soul Podcast
As we prepare to enter into a new season we get to learn from Mother Earth and the importance of her growth cycle.
Our society has celebrated hustle mentality and it's lead to additional strain on your body and stress in your mind. This behaviour of over-prioritizing productivity is affecting your ability to experience peace and cultivating a feeling of fulfillment.
By taking the time to honour the Winter Solstice and connect with the messages Mother Earth is teaching us, we can grow in our own lives in exponential ways. But we must be willing to leave the old paradigm of a constant state of hustle.
In this episode I will break down two key themes of this Winter Solstice and how you can use this next season to connect more with your Spirit, while healing on your growth journey.
Press play to learn more about the Winter Solstice and what you need to do through this next 3 month season in order to create more peace in your daily life.
The eighth episode is called The Energy of Winter Solstice.
Listen here, or scroll down to read more on what this episode is all about!
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Back to the blog - The Energy of Winter Solstice
Here I will share the transcript of the podcast episode, and I highly encourage you to give it a listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
INTRO
Hello, hello, hello and welcome back to another episode of Messages for the Empath Soul. Today we are talking all about the Winter Solstice and the energy behind the Winter Solstice and what you need to know as you prepare yourself to head into this next season. I am so excited to dive in and to connect with this energy. I am a lover of connecting with Mother Earth and listening to all the messages and guidance and support that she has to share with us. I often look to the animals and the elements and the weather to remember soul truths. I think we get so busy in the humanness of life. We get so caught up in the day to day, living on autopilot, moving through the motions of being human that we forget to come back to the spiritual connection, the soul connection; which is always the space where we feel true connection. I don’t believe that you can have a deep connection with other people in your life if you are not deeply connecting with yourself, to your soul and your spirit.
Whenever I come back to my connection with Mother Earth, whether it’s through the seasons, the weather, the elements or any sort of animals that are popping up on my path, it’s always a reminder to come back into my connection with myself and my soul. This is why I am excited to bring this topic forward for you today. Before we dive in, allow me to introduce this space to you.
This is your soul journey and I am here channeling messages from the Universe to help guide and support you.
This is Messages for the Empath Soul.
If you’re new here, I’m Sydney a ⅖ generator, with a deep intuitive connection. My mission is to empower as many spiritual empaths in this community, creating a ripple effect of compassion and peace that is felt around the world.
That is why we are here and more specifically today we are here to talk about the energy of Winter Solstice. I truly truly believe that when you take time to prioritize your energy, your connection with your soul and the universe, you awaken more light within you in order to create that beautiful ripple effect in the world. You are an empath and you have that desire to bring more light and compassion and peace into the world around you. You often wonder “how do I do this? Where do I start?” and you always have to start with yourself.
This is what we are doing, just by pressing play on this podcast episode and choosing to listen to the message that is channeled for you today, you are taking time to connect with yourself. So I am excited to share with you, to share space with you and to share this message with you.
The Energy of Winter Solstice.
Before we dive in when you begin to align with your true nature as a Spirit, your frequency naturally aligns with the vibration of the earth. As a human, as a spirit in this human world, your spirit's natural vibration has a beautiful harmonic connection with the earth's vibration. We can see in this very human world that we have been taught to hustle, that go go go mentality. There is so much pressure to be in a constant state of productivity. This creates real strain on your body and stress in your mind. When this strain and stress builds over time it creates a degree of separation, a degree of disconnect. You are no longer in your true nature, or aligned with your natural frequency as a Spirit. So, how do you get back to your authentic self? How do you get back to your true nature? Well, one of the keys is to connect with the earth, to learn from the earth. Like I was already saying, I look to the weather, I look to the animals, I look to the elements and the seasons because there are lessons there, there are teachings, there is medicine in the earth. When you choose to connect with the earth, your energetic frequency starts to naturally align with Mother Earth’s frequency, which is one of abundance and flow, grace, compassion and nurture.
When we align with the frequency of the earth we begin to move through the seasonal phases as the earth does. This gives us time and space for exponential growth because productivity is not the only phase required for growth and expansion. There are other phases in your growth journey that are necessary for true growth and true expansion. When you start to involve other phases and other seasons in your journey you start to experience exponential growth because you have a greater capacity to grow.
Right now you don’t have the same capacity to grow because of the strain on your body and stress on your mind from having to stay in that constant state of productivity. So we come back to the Earth, and we come back to her seasons. Those seasonal phases are how growth truly occurs.
We enter the Winter Season at the start of Winter Solstice and we are being reminded of 2 key themes for this season. Now I can go so deep into Winter Solstice and the energy connected with Winter Solstice, and this is something I do in my membership space, The Soul Care Space. Inside The Soul Care Space I am constantly channeling different sessions to guide you through your own healing and growth, bringing spiritual lessons, but more importantly guiding you through energetic healing. Whether that’s in connection with your inner child, or connecting with your higher self, working through your fears, aligning with your desires. There is so much work that I have to offer inside The Soul Care Space and not necessarily more work, there is of course effort that we need to put into it; but, I take the guesswork out of it for you. You know you want to grow on your journey, you know you are on this soul journey and you want to create a deeper connection with yourself and with other people in your life, inside The Soul Care Space I guide you through these different sessions, energy sessions, for your healing, your learning and your growth. More specifically why I brought this up is because I have a Winter Solstice Ceremony. Every single season I offer a bonus session that is a ceremony. I guide you through a ceremony so you can align with the frequency of the earth and you can carry that medicine she holds into your own life. I go much deeper into guiding you through the process inside The Soul Care Space. Today’s episode I am here to share 2 key themes we are being reminded of through the winter solstice. The first one is “it’s time to slow down” and the second one is “the integration phase of a growth cycle”. So let’s jump in.
IT’S TIME TO SLOW DOWN
This is what the Winter Solstice is reminding you of. It’s telling you that the time for hustle and overextending yourself in productivity is over for this cycle. Maybe you’ve been feeling burnt out, exhausted and overwhelmed, and you are finally taking a moment to breathe deep and to remember that there is more to life than the hustle and constant state of productivity.
Your spirit has been begging you to slow down, to turn inwards, to take time to connect with yourself. This is exactly what the Winter Solstice is asking of you. There are 3 things you can focus on in this theme of it’s time to slow down. The first one, creating a safe sanctuary.
Oh in this world, it’s so easy to be overwhelmed and to become exhausted emotionally and energetically because of everything that is going on in the world around you. Especially as an empath, you easily understand and feel the emotions and energy of the people around you and of the entire world. There can be something happening in a country that you don’t live in and you can feel the weight of it. Maybe your best friend is going through a difficult phase in their journey and you want to be there for her, or him, or them, and you are struggling because there's only so much you can do, and you have your own things that have been weighing on you. Creating a safe sanctuary for yourself is really important because inside that Safe Sanctuary you are going to be reminded to prioritize your own energy. You will be reminded to take care of yourself. You will be reminded to slow down. In doing these things you can honour your energy more easily, you can hold compassion for yourself more easily, and you can heal your own emotional state by taking care of your own emotional well-being. All so you can come back to helping others when you have a full cup.
You cannot pour from an empty cup, when your cup is full and begins to overflow, you can then share the excess with others. This is the goal, is to focus so much on your journey, on yourself and your needs, so your cup starts to overflow, and all the excess is poured into the community around you. That is the goal. We are leaving the paradigm that tells us that selfcare is selfish. We are leaving the time in this societal place where we are shamed for taking care of ourselves. As an empath it is imperative that you take care of yourself, you take care of your energetic being and you take care of your emotional being; because when you do, you have a greater capacity to care for others and to support others.
Creating a safe sanctuary can look like many different things. The first thing is, depending on what your home environment looks like, you have to have a safe sanctuary for yourself where your nervous system isn’t dysregulated; where you can truly take a deep breath and feel like you have a moment to yourself. This can look like many different things, whatever stage of life you are in, for instance if you have young children maybe part of your safe sanctuary is making boundaries with your partner or spouse that you need to have 15 minutes every day for yourself. Your partner or spouse can watch the children, or maybe you ask your friend or family member to watch the children or maybe you wake up that much earlier so you can have that time for yourself. You have to figure out what that means for you in creating that safe sanctuary, you need to have a place that allows you to embrace time to slow down because this is not the season of hustle and productivity.
This winter season lasts 3 months, so even though I said this is the energy of the Winter Solstice and the Winter Solstice happens at a moment in time, it's not to say that your safe sanctuary is just for the Winter Solstice Ceremony. This is a theme that you are embodying and carrying with you throughout the next three months. This is a phase in your life, a period of time, a length of time.
Creating a safe sanctuary for me looks like having a comfortable spot to sit, being able to close a door, or make it clear to the people that I live with that I wish to not be disturbed. It looks like having items in my sanctuary that allow me to connect with the universe and connect with my spirit. As I’ve already said I connect with the earth, so I have items from the earth in my home and in my safe sanctuary to inspire this connection. I collect feathers that I find on the ground when I am walking. I have rocks and crystals. I collect items from different trees that have fallen on the ground, so that is going to look like some branches of cedar, or pine, or sage. I have a deer antler that I have found in my journey, and it helps me to connect with the animal kingdom, the animal realm. These are some physical items I have in my space, I have some sage that I can burn so I can connect with the healing energy of the smoke. I have a comfortable blanket and pillow. I have a book, headphones to listen to some music.
The idea behind creating a safe sanctuary is not so I can avoid, ignore and deny the heaviness. It’s not where you scroll social media, or watch Netflix or YouTube, or listen to the news. Your safe sanctuary is that space for you to slow down and turn inwards. In order to really lean into that theme of “it’s time to slow down” how can you create a safe sanctuary for yourself?
The next part of “it’s time to slow down” is the space where peace expands. If you are here listening, I am going to assume, you know what assuming does, so I always like to be upfront when I am making an assumption because if I am wrong in my assumption, then that is okay, but just don’t take it as your truth. I am going to assume if you are here listening that you desire peace. Are you nodding your head? How do we create peace? How do we connect with the energy of peace? How do we find peace? How do we become peaceful?
There are many ways to understand the feeling of peace and I think in many different capacities of our lives that feeling or that definition might look a little different; but when it comes to the energy of Winter Solstice and it being time to slow down, we are being reminded that when we slow down we create space where peace can expand.
When you are stressed out and your body is feeling the strain from that constant productivity and hustle and go go go, there is no space for peace to flow in. You want to be in a state of peace and so often your mind is telling you “when I finish this task I can then relax and life will be peaceful”, “when I complete this to-do list then I can finally relax and life will be peaceful”. Guess what? If that is the way you are living then it becomes extremely challenging for you to ever connect with the feeling of peace. Peace doesn’t just happen, peace is created, it's felt. Your job, if you desire to experience the energy of peace, the feeling of peace, the emotion of peace, your job is to create space in your life where peace can expand. This comes from slowing down.
The biggest thing that helps me to cultivate peace in my life, because let’s be honest if we are living in a way where we say “peace can only be felt once all the problems are solved” man oh man oh man will we be waiting a long time. Because this is life, this is the human experience, there is always going to be problems, there are always going to be issues, there will always be challenges that arise. So if we are waiting for life to be perfect and then we can be at a state of peace, we are prolonging our ability to feel at peace. So, we need to practice creating peaceful moments amidst the chaos, amidst the challenges, amidst the moments when you have problems before solutions arrive. Because if we can create the feeling of peace amidst the chaos, oh my gosh it’s going to be so much easier for you to feel at peace when life is good and flowing beautifully.
Taking the time to slow down creates space where peace can expand. So, for myself, the way that I do this is I catch myself, I build awareness when my mind is cycling through all of the negative thoughts, worried thoughts, doubtful thoughts or thoughts about productivity and to-do lists. I catch myself in those moments and I remind myself to breathe. I come back into my body and the way that I feel rather than living in my mind. I often say this, I say this in my emails, I say this in podcast episodes, in blog posts, I say this in my community The Soul Care Space, that we need to drop from our mind to our body. We need to drop from that thinking space into that feeling space. It’s not an easy task, well it is an easy task, but when we are not used to it, when we don’t have the practice of it, it can feel quite challenging. It really takes practice for you, which is why I think meditation is very empowering; especially guided meditation, if you struggle with “quieting the mind” then guided meditation can be very empowering for you because you are not focused on necessarily trying to quiet the mind, instead you are focused on following the prompts, following the guide, following whoever’s voice it is that is guiding you through the meditation. Through this practice you are less focused on creating more thoughts in your mind and it can be easier to drop into your body and how you feel.
This is the space where peace expands, when you can drop into your body and how you feel, focusing on your breath. Take a deep inhale and feel your lungs expanding, then on the exhale feel everything releasing from your body. This practice, and doing it multiple times in a row, it brings your mind into focusing on your body and how you feel, which is how you start to tune into that feeling of peace. If we attach peace onto when all of the problems are solved, you are prolonging the wait time for you to experience peace. You are pushing peace away. You are resisting your ability to be at peace in this moment.
When the Winter Solstice reminds us that it is time to slow down, in that space of slowing down it is where peace expands. The more you allow yourself to slow down, the greater chance you have at being able to tune into the frequency of peace. You know where the perfect space is for you to do that? In your safe sanctuary that you’ve created.
When we slow down we have greater capacity to reflect and have introspection, which is so important. The winter season is all about reflection and introspection, it's not about productivity. There is a reason why in the winter season the days are much shorter and the nights are much longer. There is a reason why we don’t have the energy to go out and do all the social things. There is a reason why you want to snuggle up on your couch with a comfy blanket and a hot tea and just relax. This is because of the energetic frequency of Winter. The earth is hibernating because she needs to. She needs to experience that slow down in her own safe sanctuary so peace can expand, so her frequency, her trees and plants and animals, can rest and heal, in order to prepare for the next cycle come spring.
For you, your job in resting and healing is reflection and introspection. When you take time for reflection you can start to see where you have wounds that need to be healed. You can look back on the experiences of this past year and say to yourself “oh that’s a pattern that I experienced many times over, I don’t want to experience that pattern anymore. What lessons are there here for me? What do I need to learn from? What do I need to let go of? What behaviours can I change?” That is what winter is all about. Most of the time people don’t want to do that work, so they drink more, they watch netflix, they spend more time indulging in food, indulging in habits that maybe aren’t necessarily healthy. All because it’s easier to ignore, and deny your own patterns and your own shit that needs to be worked through.
But that is not why you are here. You are here listening to this podcast because you’re on this growth journey, you're on your soul journey, you want to do this work, you just don’t know what to do. You don’t know what to do, you want inspiration to keep going, you want more clarity, you want to connect more, so you are ready to do the work. This winter season is encouraging you for that reflection and introspection.
I would encourage you in creating your safe sanctuary to buy a journal. Maybe when you buy a journal you buy one with prompts in it because you don’t know what to journal on. I think that is the best way, when you are on your journey and you don’t know what to do or you feel lost in knowing what to do, you can learn from the people around you. Find a mentor or teacher, or somebody who has been through a similar experience. Find someone, learn about their experience and if their experience resonates with you and you see yourself in them, they most likely are going to have created content to support you. That is what I am here doing, I am trying to create content that is going to support you on your journey, because I’ve been there. I came to the place of realizing, “hot damn, I need to change because my life doesn’t bring me joy, or purpose, or fulfillment”. So, now I am dedicated to this path of reflection and introspection because the more I learn about myself, the more I learn about my shadows, my fears, my patterns, my conditioning, the more I can heal those triggers and release their attachment to me, so I can feel freer. All so I can actively pursue my passions without my fear holding me back. Reflection and introspection, that is how you fill your time when you slow down. You’re not as social, you’re not as active, you aren’t going out and doing all the things, you don’t have the energy to.
So what do you do? You grab your journal. You create your safe sanctuary. You take time to reflect and you take time for introspection. That is where you create space for peace to expand.
It’s time to slow down.
THE INTEGRATION PHASE OF A GROWTH CYCLE
Now the other theme that the energy of Winter Solstice is telling us is the Integration of A Growth Cycle. Now that we’ve just created a beautiful safe sanctuary, we are recognizing that we are ready to reflect and introspect, and we are creating space for peace to expand… Now we can see this phase of integration.
There are four seasons, you probably already knew that, Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter. These four seasons align with a growth cycle. We can see it in the earth, the earth moves through these four seasons, and every year the trees get larger, the animals and wildlife get larger and grow. You can look at children, they grow and change. As adults we don’t talk as much about our growth and our change. A lot of us have fear around changing, but ultimately we are still growing and changing.
The four seasons align with a growth cycle like this: Spring is the beginning of a new season or cycle; Summer is nurturing your growth with productivity, summer is when we are productive; Fall is harvesting the abundance and releasing the old; and Winter is resting, healing and integration. In those four seasons we are in Winter, we are in that state of resting more, resting our bodies, resting our minds, because in that space of resting we can connect with peace more easily. We are healing and we are moving through integration.
When we are in that state of reflection and introspection what we are actually doing is we are healing and we are integrating. Why is integration necessary? Integration is necessary because you either continue the same patterns and lessons or you integrate the knowledge into wisdom and you show up differently.
During my spiritual awakening I caught myself and I said “I don't like who I have become and I want to change who I am becoming”. It was a recognition that I was repeating the same patterns and lessons and I didn’t want to keep repeating them. I wanted to change my story. I wanted to change my life. I wanted to change my experience. I wanted to change who I was and who I was becoming. That moment I decided I needed to integrate the knowledge into wisdom, so I could start showing up differently. Now this wasn’t a conscious thought, I didn’t have that thought in that moment exactly as that, I just knew that I needed to create change. Now looking back on it I can see it as a moment of integration, in that moment I said I need to do things differently, which is the integration from the reflection and introspection.
So, in your reflection and in your introspection you get to then say “okay how am I going to take this information and turn it into wisdom to show up differently? How am I going to change my patterns? How am I going to change my behaviours? Because ultimately I want to experience more fulfillment, more peace, more joy, more love, more connection. So I need to change my behaviours, my habits, my perspectives, my thought patterns”.
Throughout the next 3 months this is what you are going to be doing. You are going to be taking moments for reflection and introspection, which is going to help you to integrate the lessons you’ve learned into wisdom. You get to say “now that I have this lesson, how am I going to show up differently? How am I going to change the pattern and the behaviour?” If you are tired of living the same experience and you really desire positive change, then this phase is imperative in order to prepare you for the new beginnings come spring. It’s not necessarily about completely starting over in this moment and changing everything. I’m not saying all the changes need to happen in this moment. I’m saying that your ability to reflect and take time for introspection is the integration, this is how you are integrating the knowledge into wisdom. Your ability to slow down, to create a safe sanctuary, to learn about yourself, that is the integration.
These next 3 months is you integrating all the lessons you’ve learned over the past year into who you are choosing to become as you begin to enter this next year. The new year, the calendar new year, is not energetically the new year. Spring, March 21st I believe, is usually spring equinox, that is the new year, that is the new beginning. You aren’t rushing to get to January 1st to have all these new habits and practices, that’s not the point. Throughout the rest of December, all of January, all of February and half of March, that’s 3 months. You have 3 whole months to reflect on the past year, the past couple of years; to reflect on the big life lessons you’ve learned; reflect on the small changes you’ve already made; reflect on your habits and behaviours; reflect on what changes you want to make; that is the power of integration.
When you take this time for integration it means you head into the next cycle as a grown version of yourself. You have new perspectives, you have a new found purpose that is guiding you forwards, your awareness is at a new level. Can you imagine heading into June of 2025 and something triggers you into fear and you catch yourself in that moment and say to yourself: wow my fear of judgment was just triggered and I know the old version of me would jump into the patterns of ‘how I can be the person they need me to be, so that they validate me and accept me. How can I make sure they are happy and taken care of?’ That is how the old version of me would have behaved, but instead this new version of me is saying - oh my fear of judgment was just triggered. How can I come back into my breath, feel my feet rooted into the earth, come back into my own spirit, take a moment for my inner child and remind her that she is safe, she is loved and she is worthy. Then how can I ask myself ‘what is the next step forward I can take from a healthy state, from an aligned state’. Then you end up moving forward with purpose and intention and love, rather than pressure and stress and fear. Wouldn’t that be so nice? Isn’t that such a beautiful place to live? To live from this place of abundance, and compassion and this space of peace? That is who you are creating yourself to be, you will be that person come June. You might even be that person come March.
All because you are taking the time to slow down to create a safe sanctuary so you can create space where peace can expand; you are taking time for reflection and introspection all because you understand you are in the integration phase of your growth cycle. You want to prepare yourself for the new beginning that will come with Spring, because you desire positive change and you are tired of living the same experience. That is the energy of Winter Solstice.
SELF REFLECTION CREATES SOUL CONNECTION
Now let's take time for self reflection right here right now for yourself. Because you are thinking this is all fine and dandy but what do you need to reflect on, what are the kind of questions you need to ask yourself when you pick up your journal? Hey, that is what I am here for, I am here to guide you and to support you in this part of your journey because self reflection creates soul connection.
The best way to carry this energetic frequency of slowing down and integration into your life is through self reflection. Often we hear something impactful, but we don’t take time to apply it to our own lives, so we forget we ever heard it and go back to the way life was before. I don’t want you to do that in this moment. I don’t want you to have heard something that was impactful and then to forget to apply it and just go back to the way life was before.
Self reflection is a powerful tool that helps you to better understand yourself and strengthen your connection with the Universe. Which is where you build trust and find a way to surrender more easily.
I have four journal prompts to help guide you through this winter season. Grab your journal and a pen and write them down. Then when you have time, or create time for you to reflect on them.
1 - What soul care practices can you prioritize this season to allow yourself to slow down more?
I am making it easy for yourself because you just have to answer. Don’t make it hard, don’t make it some big thing, keep it simple. Pick some soul care practices you know you want to prioritize this season to help you to slow down more. To help you to embrace the energy and frequency of the winter season.
2 - What is a safe sanctuary for you?
Get clear. Define it. When you define it, you understand it more easily and then you can create it. If you are looking at safe sanctuary as some unknown thing that other people do and you don’t know how to do it, then you are not going to create it and you aren’t going to use it and then you are not going to align with the frequency of Mother Earth. This is your chance to understand and when you understand what a safe sanctuary is for you, you can actually create it.
3 - How have you changed over this last year?
We are here for the integration. Ooo this is a good one. Sometimes when you answer this question you can see that those changes weren’t for the better. Maybe you made some poor changes. That is okay, no judgment, no shame, no guilt. We just acknowledge, we come back to our core, come back to your soul. Acknowledge the changes you’ve made whether good or bad, because when you acknowledge it, when you look into the shadow, you call your power back in order to make positive changes moving forward.
4 - What practices or life lessons are you wanting to integrate into your life in regards to living more peacefully?
This is a good one. Take some time to reflect on it, there are no right answers or wrong answers, it’s just about opening up this conversation with yourself. Your inner authority knows best, you are learning to connect deeper with your soul and with the wisdom that is already within you. That is what these questions are helping you to do.
GOODBYE
Remember, this is the energy of the Winter Solstice and it's time for you to align with the frequency of Mother Earth so you can come back into your true nature as a Spirit. All by slowing down and creating a safe sanctuary you will be able to create space where peace can expand, through reflection and introspection. Because this is the integration phase of your growth cycle.
Remember, your life is happening right now. There is not some future moment you need to rush forward to. Be here, take a deep breath, know that you are meant to be in this moment.
Life will always bring more lessons.
Your soul will always guide you to more healing.
Your mind will always require support to see from a bigger perspective.
You will always desire to be seen, heard and understood.
Be here now for yourself. In time you will feel the call to share more light and compassion with the world.
I’m Sydney, signing off and saying thank you, thank you, thank you.
Until next time, sending love & light on your spiritual journey,
Sydney Smith
Spiritual Mentor
Founder of Adventuring with Poseidon Wellness
