Winter Solstice – 21st December 2022 - By Lizzy Turek

Autumn is ending as the temperatures drop and the long dark nights draw in, this can only mean one thing – winter is coming. The official start of this season is marked by the winter solstice which falls on 21^st December this year. The word 'solstice' comes from the Latin solstitium meaning “sun stands still”, because the movement of the Sun's path north or south stops before changing direction. The actual moment of the solstice in 2022 will occur at 9.48pm GMT in the UK, but most people focus on the whole solstice day, which has been recognised by holidays and festivals in many cultures all over the world (When is the winter solstice? The shortest day | Royal Museums Greenwich). Winter solstice is seen as a time of hope, when days become longer and nights shorter. It is also a time to review and reflect.

One way to reflect involves a process called Winter Solstice Practice whereby you take two pieces of blank paper and on one, write everything that went well last year and on the other, identify what you want to leave behind by listing what did not go well last year (Winter Solstice + Year-End Happiness Practice | Elizabeth Rider). Other business owners recommend aligning our work patterns with nature’s own rhythms and applying this to organisational life, “At some point in your business’s annual cycle, you can allow for a fallow period, where you let things come to a full stop. In that dark, quiet time, you can reflect on what you’ve achieved during the year, what’s worked and what hasn’t, what is worth replanting for next year and what you need to dig up and put on the compost.  You can prepare the ground for the new seeds of the next cycle of growth…” (Sarah James Wright, GenerativeWork) The Winter Solstice in Business: Aligning Work with Nature's Rhythms linkedin.com). Some of the activities suggested are as follows:

• Schedule team awayday and use the time to evaluate the year you’ve had.
• Review habits, behaviours, activities and relationships.
• Acknowledge all the support you have received this year and identify if more support is needed next year.
• Book holiday to allow yourself to come to a full stop and encourage employees to do the same.

The winter solstice marks a turning point in the year but it also provides a moment to pause and reflect and we should make the most of this moment, before life rushes in and on again.

Lizzy Turek

Client Research Associate