We just finished reading Wintering by Katherine May in the book club, and it has prompted me to reflect on the parallels between the book’s themes and the foundational values underlying The Return to Serenity Island.

https://youtu.be/NoGFVIuAPJk

Katherine May describes Wintering as “a season in the cold. It is a fallow period in life when you’re cut off from the world, feeling rejected, sidelined, blocked from progress, or cast into the role of an outsider.”

We’ve all experienced these times in life, but wintering is a quiet act of defiance in a world that never stops.

It is an example of gentle rebellion in the face of the perpetual demand to be productive and useful. It’s choosing rest over empty hustle, care over competition, and creativity over endless productivity.

May suggests that we often treat these winters as something to hide or ignore. However, embracing them is “a radical act—choosing to slow down, letting spare time expand, and getting enough rest. If you shed this skin, you’ll expose all those painful nerve endings and feel raw. But if you don’t, the old skin will harden around you.”

This resonates deeply with what we do in The Return to Serenity Island.

What Is Serenity Island?

Serenity Island is a slow and immersive experience, and perfect for those navigating, preparing for, or healing from a season of wintering. Whether you’re in the aftermath of a crisis, have identified a gradual drift in a part of your life, or you simply feel the burden of life’s demands on your shoulders, the course offers a space to pause, reflect, and reconnect with the things that matter.

You are invited to…

Rest and listen: Discover tools to help you embrace stillness and notice the unexpected wisdom waiting in the spaces between.

Illuminate the path: as the snow falls, it brightens the world engulfed in the darkness of short winter days. Serenity Island helps you find your footing more clearly and softens the harsh edges of life.

Rediscover your voice: As May reminds us, despite beliefs entrenched by popular culture, to view singing as something for the talented is to misunderstand it as a natural and necessary part of human expression. On Serenity Island, you will reclaim your sound and find the courage to explore your voice, regardless of what anyone else thinks of it.

Move with the seasons: Life isn’t linear, and neither is healing. With maps and imagination, Serenity Island helps you embrace a cyclical and three-dimensional understanding of growth.

What You’ll Find on Serenity Island

Wintering is not just about survival—it’s about transformation and enduring growth. May writes, “Every time we winter, we develop a new knowledge about how to go back into the world.”

On Serenity Island, you will:

Gain clarity on what matters most and how YOU want to approach this next season of life. Identify and gently release the things you no longer want to spend your finite resources (resilience, energy, time) on.
Anchor in the present by embracing and enjoying life’s imperfect and bittersweet endings, letting go of perfect hero’s journeys and wishful thinking.
Slow down, rest, and be yourself alongside others in the folded-page moments of our picnic sessions, where there is no pressure to perform or deliver.
Build your toolkit for life by using the course templates and ideas. Develop your own practices, rituals, and metaphors to carry you through future seasons.

Ready to Join Me on Serenity Island?

Maybe you’re in a Wintering season like this and would like some company as you navigate it. Or perhaps you want to be more prepared to embrace your next winter when it arrives. If so, I invite you to join The Return to Serenity Island. This course is designed to meet you where you are, offering a space to explore, reconnect, and grow from the inside-out.

Sign up for The Return To Serenity Island

“I would encourage everyone to engage with this fantastic experience. The course is a first-class prescription for wellbeing” – T.W.

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