013: Root Work Before the Bloom | Why Winter Is Preparation, Not Failure

Is February the new January?

 In this episode of The MindHER Podcast, Mandi challenges the popular idea that winter is a pause and invites you to see it for what it truly is: preparation.

Drawing inspiration from nature (and her love of houseplants), Mandi explores how winter is a season of deep, invisible work. While the world pushes hustle, goals, and immediate momentum, our bodies, nervous systems, and the natural world are asking for something different: rest, reflection, and root growth.

You’ll learn why January isn’t a failure if it felt slow, how rest can be strategic and restorative (not numbing), and how to stop wasting energy on what’s draining you. Mandi shares four practical, real-life ways to “winter well,” including how to deepen your internal foundations, release what no longer serves you, and clear physical space to create mental clarity.

If you’ve been feeling behind, unmotivated, or pressured to “start over,” this episode will help you reframe winter as the groundwork for your next season of growth.

Sometimes the most important work is invisible and what’s happening beneath the surface determines how strong the blooms will be.

Reflection Questions

• What feels like it’s slowing down in my life right now and how might that actually be preparing me for future growth?
• Where am I spending energy on something that’s draining me, and what would it look like to let that go this season?
• What kind of rest would actually restore me—not numb me—right now?

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Transcript

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You are listening to The Mind Her podcast where mindset, leadership and personal growth come together to help you create a life in business you truly love. I'm your host, Mandy Casey, and today I wanna talk to you about something that might be slightly controversial. And it's this concept that February is the new January, and I totally disagree. Let me explain. I don't think winter is a pause necessarily. I actually think it's a preparation and so many people want to just let go of January because they took the time to rest and recover from the holidays. And they say they're gonna start again anew come February 1st. But what if winter isn't a pause? What if January wasn't a pause, but that rest was actually preparation for the growth that you're gonna experience in the coming weeks? You see here in Oklahoma, we are deep in winter. We actually just had our first real snowstorm of the year, the kind that shut down the school for an entire week. Life slowed down whether we wanted it to or not, and it made me think about how we perceive winter versus what winter actually is because we tend to think, or I tend to think, I guess I should say that winter starts in November and December when it's holiday season and it's getting cooler and it's nice and cozy. It's, you've got this end of the year energy, but winter doesn't technically begin until December 21st. So when this snowstorm hit, I realized we're barely a month into winter, and yet so many of us are already feeling behind because it's January, it's a new year, it's the messaging we're surrounded with. It tells us to go and move and execute and act. And listen, I love goals. I talk about vision all the time, and I am a big proponent of intentional living, intentional leadership, and intentional growth, but also we're human beings. You guys. We're not machines. We are part of nature. And nature works in cycles. That's really what I wanna lean into today, is the cycle of nature and where we as humans fit into this. So, I wanna take a lesson here from plants because they don't fight the seasons. If you know me at all, you know I love house plants, and if you don't know me, you just learned a fun fact about me. My house is honestly cluttered with plants. My husband is like, please do not bring another plant home. We have nowhere to put it, but what I love about plants is how honest they are about seasons. We think of plants often, like in the spring. You put them in the ground. In the summer, they're vibrant and thriving, and in full bloom, when it turns fall, the leaves start to let go and fall away. And in winter they're dead. Except that they're not. Most plants, especially perennials, are very much alive. During winter. They might look dead on the surface, but at the cellular level, something important is happening. In the fall, plants prune away what is no longer needed, and in the winter, that energy is redirected underground. So botanically speaking, growth above ground slows or stops during the winter, but the roots continue to grow deeper. The root systems actually strengthen and dormant buds form at the nodes literally preparing new growth points. So when I cut back the leaf on one of my house plants, those little nodules, that's where new growth will emerge later. The plant is preparing even when nothing visible is happening. Trees do this too. Root growth actually continues during the winter. It just slows down. So it might look like a dead tree on the outside, but it's actually preparation. The seed's already planted. Winter isn't about starting over, but it's really about strengthening what already exists. So why does this matter for us right now? I think this is where most people get tripped up. We hold this belief that because it's a new calendar year, we should immediately be in motion as if like the date on the calendar or the turning of a page means something new. We should be taking action or seeing results and feeling energized, but yet our bodies and our nervous systems and nature itself are saying something different to us. This is why I love something Jenna Worthen recently shared. She runs the mom who works community and will actually be a guest on the podcast in the coming weeks. She said online. that winter is a season for hibernation, that her reset really starts when the light comes back. And at first I was nodding my head agreeing with her. I'm like, yes, I totally see that. But also, what if hibernation is her Reset? Rest doesn't come after the change. Rest is the start of the change. It's when we give ourselves permission to do something different. Winter is not the pause after the growth. Winter is actually the preparation for the growth. So today I wanna talk to you about four ways that you can practice wintering well. Like what does this actually mean? What does this look like practically in your real life? So today I wanna tell you four practical ways that you can winter well, like what does this actually mean in real life, and how do we mirror what's happening in nature? So the first is rest, but be strategic about it. And when we say rest, we often think of doing nothing, maybe sleeping, but. Honestly, a lot of us rest by scrolling or binge watching or numbing out, and then we wonder why we're still anxious or exhausted. That's not restorative Rest, real rest is intentional and purposeful. Every year I talk to a group of high schoolers about coping mechanisms versus coping strategies. And you see, a coping strategy is where you think about how you wanna feel after you implement the coping mechanism. And if there's a disconnect there, if you use the coping mechanism. At the end of it, you don't feel the way that you desired something's off, right? So I think we can approach rest from the same perspective. We can create a rest strategy and think about how do I wanna feel? What does rested actually mean to me? What does rest feel like in my body? And if the scrolling or the binge watching doesn't result in that, then we're choosing the wrong mechanism I think about this in my own life. There are days I come home from work where I am just completely exhausted. I have talked all day. I've led masterminds, maybe I've been on coaching calls, and like my voice, my throat hurts. And so I come home and if I end up telling my husband all about my day, and then I hop on a call with my mom, and then my sister calls and I talk more and more and more into the evening, I'm actually exhausted and not rested. I might think I'm chilling on my couch and I should feel better. I don't, there are days that I come home and I literally tell Patrick, I don't wanna talk anymore. Like, I love you, but I need to be silent and I'm gonna make me a cup of hot tea and rest. That results in me feeling restored and my vocal cords getting the rest that they need. Rest looks different for each of us. For you, it might be less screen time or less social interaction. It might actually mean sleep or just not making any more decisions for the day. Raise your hand if you deal with decision fatigue, because I get that physiologically this matters because chronic stress keeps us stuck in the fight or flight mode, but rest allows us to tap into our parasympathetic nervous system where that rest and digest mode come back online, and winter is the perfect season for you to honor that. The second way that I want you to winter well is to allow your roots to grow deeper. In winter. Our plants don't grow outwardly, they grow downward. So for us, that could look like learning. Maybe instead of pushing outward with action, this is the season that you deepen your understanding or you build wisdom. Maybe you strengthen an internal framework or you learn a new skill that you'll rely on later. Hear me when I say this, that winter isn't wasted time. This is root work. The third way that you can winter well is to let go of what's draining you. I am looking around at some of my house plants right now, and I see some leaves that are yellowing and falling away. They once served a purpose on that plant, but now they're draining precious energy away from the healthy plant. I think as humans we tend to do this as well. Sometimes we're trying to keep something alive. Maybe that's a role or a relationship or responsibility that's pulling precious energy away from what actually matters. I was reminded of this very recently in a silly way. I got frustrated on a customer service call last week. It was after hours. The office had already been closed and nothing could be resolved that night. But yet, even after hanging up the phone, I couldn't seem to let it go. What should have just been a quick annoyance that I could deal with the next day turned into hours of mental energy. I was ruminating about. It was. Frustrated. I lost precious time with my family and I caught myself thinking like, why am I giving this five hours of, of my life to a situation that I can't resolve tonight? So for you, letting go might be walking away from something that you're holding onto this issue that you keep replaying in your mind. It might look like forgiveness. It could be releasing the need to be right, or choosing peace over control. This is winter's work. I often say that we can look to our past to be a teacher, but our past doesn't define us. It creates wisdom within us that we can take and carry into our future when we start to look forward. So I think there is an element of looking back that's necessary in winter, but we don't stay there. We release what doesn't serve us. We let go of it and we look forward to what is to come. And the last way that I think you can practically winter well is to clear physical space to support your mental space. There's actually research to support what we intuitively know here. Clinical psychology calls this internal external congruence, meaning our inner world and our outer world mirror and reinforce each other. There was a study out of California that found people who described their homes as cluttered, actually had higher cortisol levels throughout the day. Not because clutters bad, but because chaos is information. For me, I think of this when my head is spiraling, right? If I'm dealing with a situation and I'm ruminating it over and over, my mental energy is on that situation, and externally, my dishes start to pile up. Maybe I haven't done laundry in days. The beds don't get made, and lemme tell you, I love a good maid bed this is a chicken or the egg kind of situation here, because sometimes once I clear the mental space, I can go clean and do the dishes and do the laundry, but other times I can't find clarity until I start doing the dishes. And it's like the cleaning actually creates clarity in my mind. So it goes both ways here. Winter is a really beautiful time for you to quietly start clearing out those spaces in your house that might be adding to some of that mental clutter you're experiencing. Maybe you start with that junk drawer or you clean out your linen closet, or you finally deal with that bathroom cabinet that you always swear you're gonna get to. But we always just keep adding to it. We joke about spring cleaning, but what if winter cleaning is really the preparation you need to grow in spring when we get the clearing? Of the physical space and the mental space. I think we get clarity and clarity makes room for growth. So in closing, winter is here, friends, whether we like it or not, and it will be here for another couple months. So instead of fighting it, I want you to ask yourself these three questions. What am I strengthening in this season? What am I releasing in this season? And lastly, probably the most important question is what's happening beneath the surface? That is preparing me for what's to come in the next few weeks, months, and seasons in the future. This is what it really means to be both present and future focused. Sometimes the most important work we do is invisible. And just like plants, what happens underground determines how strong the blooms will be. Until next time, I'm sending you so much love and gratitude. Thank you for listening.