Emerging from Winter

What Hibernation Taught Me About Burnout and Leadership

Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/brown-tree-covered-by-snow-221415/

Honoring Seasons

This past year has felt like a long, dark winter.

And it fundamentally shifted how I understand burnout, energy management and sustainable leadership.

You see…. I am a sun worshiper.

Which is unfortunate for someone who has spent all but three years of her life in New England, .... and Alaska… and Colorado…. You see my problem?

I would rather be too hot, than too cold. But that’s not my reality.

Even in Colorado Springs, where we get generous sunshine, I'm still stuck dealing with single digits, biting wind, and ice scrapers.

However… As much as I crave sunshine and warmth, I’ve come to respect the wisdom of winter.

Winter slows everything down.

Winter forces rest.

Winter invites hibernation.

It’s nature’s built-in rhythm of reflection, recovery, and preparation for what will emerge next.

It may look barren on the surface, but underneath, something is always happening.

Right now, my life feels very much like a springtime emergence… like I’m coming out of hibernation.

And it has changed how I understand burnout.

My Long Winter

Losing my corporate job in 2023… my mom in December 2024 …. and my marriage in 2025 has felt chilling… and the weight of it all sent me underground, even I was trying to launch a business.

Grief ushered (or forced?) me into stillness. Into rest.  Into recovery.  Into reflection.

During this long season, I have done just enough to stay visible.

Just enough to stay connected.

Just enough to keep my business breathing.

I didn’t hustle. I chose clients and networking events very selectively. I took long breaks from social media. If you’ve followed me a while, you may at times have thought I’d vanished.

I didn’t disappear… I was integrating.

It was a season of honoring my actual capacity. Of anchoring to my values. Of listening to my body instead of overriding it.

And now… I finally feel a thaw.

Not a dramatic overnight transformation. More like the subtle drip of snow melting. The first patch of earth showing through. The quiet return of birdsong.

I feel a growing surge of energy, clarity and strength.

And I realize that this long, dark winter has made me better at my work… because it has always been about integration.

Regeneration Starts With Self

I started Regenerative Workplaces to build healing, human centered cultures.

I quickly realized that leaders can't heal in others what they haven't first healed in themselves. That's where my true mission, "Trickle Down Humanity," came from.

Ending the normalization of burnout starts with coming home to our true selves. Mending the fractured pieces. Reconnecting to the wisdom in our bodies. Unearthing our “why.”

• Slowing down to tend to our nervous system.

• Embracing rest as a required rhythm.

• Releasing the urge to prove our worth and simply acknowledge it as fact.

This is the work I have had to do in my own life, and it’s the work I hold sacred space for leaders to do in theirs.

Because what I know now more deeply than ever is this:

Burnout is not just about overwork. It’s about ignoring seasons.

It’s about misalignment, silencing our own instinctive internal invitations, and bowing down in obedience to someone else’s “shoulds.”

We do this to ourselves personally... and we do this at work.

When we demand summer productivity in the middle of winter or when we judge ourselves for not blooming “fast enough,” we are ignoring the essential wisdom that nature herself is trying to teach. I wrote about this in the summer of 2025, but it has become even more clear to me.

We cannot build regenerative cultures while living in chronic override. We cannot create sustainable performance without honoring cycles of effort and recovery.

What does this rhythm look like in our own leadership?

We role model it.

My favorite spiritual teacher, Richard Rohr, says: “We don’t think ourselves into a new way of living. We live ourselves into a new way of thinking.”

Change comes through embodiment. In my case, grief became my teacher. Who or what is yours?  I'll bet your body knows. It is probably whispering right now. If you don’t listen, it may start to yell….

So maybe this is your permission slip:

If you’re in winter — rest.

If your energy is low — listen.

And give your teams permission to do the same.

Winter is not wasted. It is preparation.

A Gentle Relaunch

As for my emergence? I’m making a few shifts.

First, I’ve decided to build Trickle Down Humanity content and community on Substack.

Why?

Because I want a space for deeper reflection and longer conversations that don’t get swallowed by algorithms.

I’m not leaving LinkedIn entirely, but Substack will be homebase for me, where you are guaranteed to get my content and go deeper.

If you’d like to continue this conversation with me there, you can find me at https://gatheringgirl.substack.com/.

Healing Burnout

Also, as I get clearer on how/who I want to BE, I’ve gotten clearer on what I DO:

I heal individual and systemic burnout.

I do that first by guiding Founders/CEOs through their own embodied, aligned healing and then walking them through a framework that addresses burnout in their company at the root – in mindsets, systems and measurements.

I’ve created a completely free resource that outlines my SPACE framework and gives you some quick shifts to start healing burnout in your organization: It’s called From Degenerative to Regenerative: 5 Shifts to Restore Humanity at Work You can download it here.

If you’re craving deeper work and need help giving yourself permission to BE, I also offer a 90 day program, a sacred container for an embodied leadership reset, which I'd love to tell you more about.

What's Next?

I don’t know exactly what this next season will hold. But I know this:

I will no longer rush my healing.  Or my growth.  Or my work.

I will honor life’s rhythms and listen to my body and help others do the same.

My spring is coming, and what blooms will be stronger because of the winter that preceded it.

This feels like a relaunch, but not in the loud sense. More like opening the curtains after winter and basking in the light again.

If you’re emerging from a dark place too…

Or if you’ve been in the sun too long and feel parched…

Either way… I’m here to walk with you.

Into some unforced rhythms of grace.