It’s 4:30 p.m., but the day already feels done. Around us there may be the hum of holiday cheer, yet some of us are carrying grief, loneliness, or worry. If that’s you, know this: You’re not alone, and there’s nothing wrong with your heart for feeling deeply.

Spiritual teacher Mark Nepo tells of a master who asks his apprentice to pour salt into a glass of water and drink—bitter. Then he pours the same salt into a lake—fresh, clear, drinkable.  We all get our handful of salt: loss, fatigue, disappointment. The practice is not to remove the salt, but to enlarge our sense of life so the bitterness is diluted by something wider and more loving.

Here are 8 practices that can offer warmth and wholeheartedness during the winter months.

1. Build Your Winter Toolbox (Before You Need It)
   We all need a kind of inner weatherproofing to stay awake and well in modern life. The secret is to prepare before the hard moment hits.
   
   When pain comes, we can feel empty—so gather your medicine now:
   The song that lifts you.
   The friend who steadies you.
   A gorgeous playlist that softens your edges.
   The walk that clears your mind.
   The recipe that smells like home.
   Keep these close and visible.
   
   This is your emergency kit for heavy-hearted days—a reminder that light can be built, one small comfort at a time.
    
2. Let the Soft Animal of Your Body Love What It Loves
   Poet Mary Oliver reminds us, “You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” Movement, any movement, helps unfreeze the soul. This isn’t about fitness; it’s about listening to the body’s quiet longings. Stretch. Sway. Walk. Dance. Join a class. Each gesture says: I choose vitality.
    
3. Give Attention, Don’t Just Seek It
   Loneliness tempts us to crave attention, but as Eckhart Tolle teaches, presence arises not from grasping but from giving. When we offer awareness to the moment—the sound of rain, the eyes of a stranger—we touch something vast.
   
   So, call the friend who’s struggling. Smile at the tired cashier. Send the message you’ve postponed. When you give your attention freely, connection quietly returns.
    
4. Practice the Broken Hallelujah
   Your grief is real and there is still beauty. The days are short and the light will return.
   
   This is the art of what Leonard Cohen called the Broken Hallelujah—holding both the ache and the awe. Or, as Maya Angelou wrote, “Nothing can dim the light that shines from within.” Let that inner light flicker if it must, but keep it lit.
    
5. Use Tara Brach’s RAIN for the Hardest Moments
   When darkness feels unbearable, practice Tara Brach’s RAIN:
   R – Recognize what’s happening: This is grief. This is fear.
   A – Allow it to be there without resistance.
   I – Investigate with kindness: Where do you feel it? What does it need?
   N – Nurture yourself with compassion. Hand on heart, whisper: This is hard, and I’m here with you.
   
   RAIN doesn’t erase pain—it changes your relationship to it. You become the lake, not the glass.
    
6. Gently Allow the Discomfort
   Pema Chödrön reminds us that suffering comes not only from pain but from our resistance to it. We want comfort; we crave certainty. Yet healing begins when we can stay with what is raw.
   
   Notice how the early dark stirs your mood. Feel the absence of the one you miss. Admit the exhaustion. Do this in a way that feels safe, perhaps with a therapist or healer. The paradox: When we stop fleeing discomfort, it softens. We discover a spaciousness inside.
    
7. Let Your Gifts Strike Against the Darkness
   Your gifts are like matches—they reveal warmth only when struck against the world’s needs. This season, share where your light is most needed.
   
   Maybe your gift is humor, or deep listening, or courage to speak truth. Maybe it’s in crafting little felted woolen creatures for friends. Let it strike. As Rabbi Solomon Schechter taught, holiness lives not in dogma but in how we lift each other. Your smallest kindness is a sacred act.
    
8. Remember: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back
   A medieval monk once said the spiritual path is simply “falling down and getting up.” That rhythm—forward, back, pause, repeat—is not failure; it’s the dance of being human.
   
   You’ll have luminous days and hard ones, bursts of connection and moments of loneliness. The Hindu sages compared growth to a caterpillar: gather, stretch, rest, repeat. On the days you forget these practices, call someone who remembers. We take turns being the lake for each other.
    

The Light Will Return

The invitation of winter is simple but not easy: Keep following your heart. Build your toolbox. Move when you can, rest when you can’t. Give attention. Let your gifts strike. Lean into discomfort. Celebrate tiny moments of light. 

The darkness is real. And so is the beauty, the connection, the returning light.
                          To breathe after pain,
                           to begin again, though nothing else seems possible.
                           To ask of everything you meet, “What bridge are we?"
                                                                                 — Mark Nepo