Midwinter, Memory and the Turning of the Year: Why This Season Brings So Much Up

A Season That Stirs Deep Feelings

As the year draws to a close, many people notice a familiar mix of emotions rising to the surface — sometimes quietly, sometimes with force. This period is culturally framed as one of celebration, connection and renewal, yet beneath that sits something more complex and deeply human. The pressure to create a “perfect” Christmas, the emotional weight of family dynamics, the memories of loss that feel sharper in the darker months, and the hopes and fears tied to the New Year can all converge at once.

For some, the festive season highlights the absence of what once was: a person, a relationship, or a previous version of life that felt more stable or whole. For others, the contrast between how they feel expected to be — cheerful, social, energised — and how they actually feel creates a sense of internal dissonance. Even people who function well during the rest of the year can find themselves unsettled in December in ways they didn’t anticipate.

The Symbolic Weight of Christmas and the New Year

Christmas, even outside religious meaning, has become a cultural anchor for belonging, warmth and togetherness. When those qualities feel uncertain or distant, the gap becomes more pronounced. The New Year brings its own subtle pressures: the narrative of a fresh start, of self-improvement, of becoming a more organised, motivated or fulfilled version of oneself. Hope and pressure often sit side by side during this season. One may even feel that we “should” be a certain way as the year closes — hopeful, grateful, energised — even when our actual experience is more complicated.

Midwinter as a Turning Point

Perhaps beyond the cultural and emotional layers, there is something older and deeper at play. Midwinter has long been recognised across cultures as a threshold moment — the point when the night reaches its longest stretch and the gradual return of light begins. It marks a natural turning point, of an inner and outer shift.

This turning does not erase the darkness that came before it, nor does it demand clarity or joy. Instead, it signals that something is beginning to move. Many people feel this before they consciously understand it — a stirring, a heaviness, or a quiet sense that the year behind them has shaped them in ways they now need to explore.

What Begins to Surface in the Darker Months

The slower, quieter rhythm of winter often allows deeper layers of the self to rise into awareness. Feelings or questions that were easy to suppress during the busier parts of the year begin to make themselves known.

This might include:
unresolved grief
unmet emotional needs
internal conflicts
unspoken longings
questions of identity or direction
memories or relational patterns resurfacing

These are not signs of something going wrong — they are signs of something asking for attention.

Grief, Loneliness and the Pressure to Feel a Certain Way.

For some, this season brings renewed waves of grief — not only for the loss of people, but also for lost futures, paths not taken, or versions of themselves they feel distant from. Grief moves in cycles and often returns more strongly around holidays or significant dates. Others experience a particular form of loneliness — not necessarily the loneliness of being without people, but the loneliness of feeling emotionally separate even in the presence of others. The festive season can amplify this sense of disconnection. And for many, the approach of the New Year evokes anxiety: the pressure of expectation, the uncertainty of change, or the belief that they should feel more hopeful or motivated than they do. This mismatch between internal and external experience can feel destabilising.

Why Therapy Can Be Helpful at This Time of Year

Therapy does not aim to “fix” seasonal emotions or force a positive outlook. Instead, it offers a supportive and steady space to understand what is emerging within you. The therapeutic space can help you explore:

what the past year has stirred in you
what remains unresolved
what you may be carrying into the new year
which parts of you need attention, integration or care
where meaning or direction may be shifting

Rather than rushing into resolutions or self-improvement, therapy provides room to sit with uncertainty — to listen to the quieter movements within you.

Stepping Into the Returning Light

As the light slowly returns in the coming weeks, there can be something meaningful about having a consistent space to explore what this turning of the year is bringing forward. Whether your reflections involve identity, relationships, work, purpose, or something quieter and harder to name, therapy can help you make sense of these internal movements.

Midwinter may feel dark, but it also marks the beginning of a gradual, steady return of light. For many people, therapy becomes part of that return: a way of regaining clarity, reconnecting with themselves, and entering the New Year with more groundedness and direction.

If This Season Is Stirring Something in You

You’re welcome to reach out. Therapy can offer a grounded, reflective space to explore whatever this time of year is bringing to the surface, at a pace that feels right for you.