Scan barcode
Reviews tagging 'Medical content'
Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times by Katherine May
18 reviews
kelly_e's review against another edition
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
Title: Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
Author: Katherine May
Genre: Non Fiction Mental Health
Rating: 3.75
Pub Date: February 6, 2020
T H R E E • W O R D S
Comforting • Reflective • Poetic
📖 S Y N O P S I S
An intimate book exploring the ways in which we can care for our beings in the most difficult moments of our lives. Wintering is Katherine May's personal narrative of wintering and the power of rest and retreat. It explores the importance of reflection and replenishing and restoring and transforming during fallow times.
💭 T H O U G H T S
This memoir came highly recommended to me during a particularly difficult period in my life. It was a reminder of the importance of embracing the difficult seasons and taking care of myself. May writes with confidence throughout each of the essays presented. She offers personal reflections and thoughtful observations through beautiful writing. In essence she forms a philosophy around the power of shrinking our world when life presents moments of retreat. It's a quick read, which I found highly comforting and validating. Sometimes applying the idea of 'wintering' is harder said than done, but after reading this it's as though I was given permission to embrace this particular season in my life and the comfort of simply slowing down. Overall, a book to find solace in.
📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• anyone in a season of change
• readers with a strong connection to nature
🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S
"Plants and animals don't fight the winter, they don't pretend it's not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sigh, but that's where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible."
"And although it's easy to think of bees as summer beings, adapted to drifting around flowers on hot days, their whole year is oriented in the opposite direction. Most of a bee's activity is directed towards its colony surviving the winter. They spend half the year preparing for it and half the year living it. Every April they emerge from their hive and start all over again."
"As I walk, I remind myself of the words of Alan Watts: 'To hold you breath is to lose your breath.' In The Wisdom of Insecurity, Watts makes a case that always convinces me, but which I always seem to forget: that life is, by its very nature, uncontrollable. That we should stop trying to finalize our comfort and security, and instead find a radical acceptance of the endless, unpredictable change that is the very essence of this life. Our suffering, he says, come from the fight we put up against this fundamental truth. 'Running away from fear is fear, fighting pain is pain, trying to be brace is being scared. If the mind is in pain, the mind is pain. The thinker has no other form than his thought. There is no escape."
Author: Katherine May
Genre: Non Fiction Mental Health
Rating: 3.75
Pub Date: February 6, 2020
T H R E E • W O R D S
Comforting • Reflective • Poetic
📖 S Y N O P S I S
An intimate book exploring the ways in which we can care for our beings in the most difficult moments of our lives. Wintering is Katherine May's personal narrative of wintering and the power of rest and retreat. It explores the importance of reflection and replenishing and restoring and transforming during fallow times.
💭 T H O U G H T S
This memoir came highly recommended to me during a particularly difficult period in my life. It was a reminder of the importance of embracing the difficult seasons and taking care of myself. May writes with confidence throughout each of the essays presented. She offers personal reflections and thoughtful observations through beautiful writing. In essence she forms a philosophy around the power of shrinking our world when life presents moments of retreat. It's a quick read, which I found highly comforting and validating. Sometimes applying the idea of 'wintering' is harder said than done, but after reading this it's as though I was given permission to embrace this particular season in my life and the comfort of simply slowing down. Overall, a book to find solace in.
📚 R E C O M M E N D • T O
• anyone in a season of change
• readers with a strong connection to nature
🔖 F A V O U R I T E • Q U O T E S
"Plants and animals don't fight the winter, they don't pretend it's not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximizing scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sigh, but that's where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible."
"And although it's easy to think of bees as summer beings, adapted to drifting around flowers on hot days, their whole year is oriented in the opposite direction. Most of a bee's activity is directed towards its colony surviving the winter. They spend half the year preparing for it and half the year living it. Every April they emerge from their hive and start all over again."
"As I walk, I remind myself of the words of Alan Watts: 'To hold you breath is to lose your breath.' In The Wisdom of Insecurity, Watts makes a case that always convinces me, but which I always seem to forget: that life is, by its very nature, uncontrollable. That we should stop trying to finalize our comfort and security, and instead find a radical acceptance of the endless, unpredictable change that is the very essence of this life. Our suffering, he says, come from the fight we put up against this fundamental truth. 'Running away from fear is fear, fighting pain is pain, trying to be brace is being scared. If the mind is in pain, the mind is pain. The thinker has no other form than his thought. There is no escape."
Content Warnings
Moderate: Mental illness, Medical content, Infertility, Cancer, and Grief
Minor: Suicide and Panic attacks/disorders
cath_collette's review
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
3.75
Content Warnings
Minor: Grief, Medical content, Mental illness, Panic attacks/disorders, Pregnancy, and Suicidal thoughts
reviewsandreadathons's review
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Mental illness, Medical content, Cancer, and Infertility
readalongwithnat's review
emotional
inspiring
relaxing
medium-paced
4.0
As a chronically ill person who has also experienced a lot of grief and loss, I really enjoyed this book and its challenges of stepping back and simply being.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Medical content
catherine_au1d's review against another edition
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
Content Warnings
Moderate: Mental illness
Minor: Panic attacks/disorders and Medical content
mostlymusings's review
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
5.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Infertility and Medical content
apoppyinthewind's review against another edition
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
I enjoyed this audiobook so much so that I've added it to my wish list for purchasing which doesn't usually happen with library books. Normally I'm content to return and maybe borrow again at a later date but this title is one I can see myself returning to annually. This is very appropriate given the themes of cyclical life patterns and seasons that the book focuses on. It's a refreshing take on depression, the season of winter, the lows in life and the necessity of wintering, learning to adapt to a cycle of rest & retreat alongside the highs of activity in our lives.
The book explores the overall theme in a variety of ways; touching on the trendiness of Hygge and expanding on the reality of that practice that goes beyond aesthetic, what experiences of cold due to our bodies told through experiences of polar swims which actually make it sound appealing (a first for me), and fascinating information about the lives of bees which is surprisingly relevant.
So yeah, 5 stars. Will be reading/listening to it again!
The book explores the overall theme in a variety of ways; touching on the trendiness of Hygge and expanding on the reality of that practice that goes beyond aesthetic, what experiences of cold due to our bodies told through experiences of polar swims which actually make it sound appealing (a first for me), and fascinating information about the lives of bees which is surprisingly relevant.
So yeah, 5 stars. Will be reading/listening to it again!
Content Warnings
Moderate: Medical content
Minor: Suicide
briggs4598's review against another edition
hopeful
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Chronic illness, Infertility, and Medical content
More...