Originally published on December 21, 2022 on Katie’s Facebook page.

Each year, I celebrate the Winter Solstice. It’s one of the most reflective times of the year for me. And I always like to celebrate and share my Solstice practice with others. Sometimes, like this year, it’s a formal class, other times, like last year, I’ll celebrate with friends.

But as I look up at the sun nearing its high point through the window shades of my office, I’m reminded of a conversation I had with my Mom on last year’s Winter Solstice. We were just getting moved into our new building at the Community Justice Campus, and it was a difficult adjustment from working downtown.

There were a lot of “quirks” with the new building, including tons of windows, but a complete lack of window shades. There wasn’t really food that was easily available if you didn’t bring it with you, which was a shock compared to the ease of grabbing a salad from Whole Foods or soup from Subito.

So that Solstice day, not having planned my lunch ahead, I went to a restaurant in Fountain Square, and ordered a salad to go. I was charged an “employee quality of life” fee (huh?) of a couple bucks in addition to tax and a 20% tip. I spent over $18 total.

Later that day, I called my Mom and said “I just need to complain”. She held space and listened to me as I rattled off the “quirks” of the new building, my $18 salad, and ended by saying, “and I have had the sun in my eyes all day long and it’s the shortest f***ing day of the year!”

That afternoon, before my friends arrived, the guy I’d been talking to told me he was no longer interested (he was super nice about it), but all I could do was laugh.

The rest of the evening was lovely and went on as planned: sitting around my fireplace with friends, setting intentions… you know… Solstice-y stuff.

The following day, an ache started to run through my body. At first, I thought it was soreness from my morning workout. But then I couldn’t lift up my head. I barely moved the rest of the day. The next morning, I felt much better, but thought I should take a COVID test. It was positive. Already knowing this meant that I would not be able to go home for Christmas, I was filled with shame as I texted the friends who had spent time around me, fearing their Christmas plans would be spoiled, too.

I’ve thought a lot about how I missed my last Christmas with my Dad because of COVID. I was grateful to spare him from getting it as his health had long been in decline. But I didn’t completely miss Christmas with him. He and my Mom drove down to Indy on Christmas Day to exchange gifts with me, each taking turns to place them on my sidewalk, and we talked on Facetime, me inside of my house, and them from their car parked in front of my house.

Anyway… over the past week, I have been trying relentlessly to put together inspirational thoughts to share about the Winter Solstice. Over and over, I get started writing about honoring the darkness within, moving onto shadow work (see Carl Jung), and then I get stuck on shadow work… which isn’t really the subject I’m wanting to broach.

The subject I really want to talk about is hope and possibility.

But you know the phrase “holding onto hope”? Maybe I’m holding onto it a little too tightly. Maybe in trying to force hope on all of you, I’m missing the point. Maybe that’s why my writing on this subject hasn’t come together. It’s not that we can’t all have hope, it’s that you can’t force it, on yourself or others.

So as I prepare to celebrate the Winter Solstice and to share my practice with others in a sold out class tonight, I wonder… perhaps I need to take my own advice.

I want the Winter Solstice to feel good, and warm, and softly lit, like the Scandinavian term “hygge”. This isn’t much different than forcing hope.

I want people to honor the Solstice by “embracing their inner darkness” by “shining a light on the parts of themselves that they don’t love” and learning to love themselves entirely. But maybe, I haven’t been doing the same for myself. I’ve been forcing this yoga and meditation teacher version of myself to show up, instead of the version of myself that’s actually here. The version that’s here knows that COVID is still around this Christmas, but my Dad’s not. The version that’s here wrote this thing instead of something inspirational about hope and possibility.

So, as a joke, I changed the graphic for this post as a play on the “Office” episode with the “It is your birthday.” sign. Before, it had said “Winter Solstice Blessings” in pretty cursive. That’s definitely not the version of myself that’s showing up today, the version I have to accept and start to love if I urge the same for others. This version of myself isn’t so bad though. She’s got a sense of humor, at least.

Anyway, maybe you’ll choose to celebrate today by doing some Solstice-y stuff, or maybe you won’t. But for me, the best way I can think of to honor it is to show up exactly as I am, and not some romanticized version of Winter Solstice Katie. And in doing that, it stokes my inner flame of hope and possibility that others can do the same. Happy Solstice, Friends.