March 1st - The Emotional Re-emergence

If January is all trumpets and resolutions, asking too much, too soon, and February is the long, quiet endurance in the middle, what does March mean? It certainly doesn't feel like a total beginning, but it definitely seems like a bit of a hinge month. A calendar-page threshold, finally reached. Maybe March presents more like a menu - to the return of a subtle, un-named appetite for life.

The first of this month arrived - at least it did on Platform 13 - with the same realisation as looking up at the clock, expecting late morning and seeing 4pm... What?. It's not exactly a feeling of panic, but certainly an internal scramble. It’s a seasonal dissonance for which we are never quite ready: it's not as though we were all absent for January and February, but they do seem a bit of a blur... And bang... March shows up like a written receipt.

There are seasons, you see, to our inner landscapes as well as the ones outside our windows. The pinch-punch of the third month, heralds the first signs of our essential, internal thaw. We stretch the psyche, and we instinctively turn towards the light.

Over the Winter months, that have now thankfully passed by, most of us will have experienced some pretty severe inner weather, even if we are not able to accurately label it. We know people who lost their dog to illness, another couple who took a stress-filled 4 months to move house, and a lady who misses her husband so acutely, the sadness shapes her days. For many it was a cold season, of carrying too much and a slow drift-away from self. Even for zealous optimists like Vanessa and me, it sometimes felt heavy and a bit, well... survivalist.

And perhaps this is what March offers up, more than anything: not the January demand for reinvention, or the 28-day shelter-in-place of February, but an invitation to re-emerge in March.

Emotional re-emergence is not newsy, or cinematic. It is also not a "vibe". It's almost measurable as the return of mental capacity. Lists are suddenly back in fashion, connections are sought and rekindled. Baselines shift from endurance to particpation. Our nervous systems come back online. Winter has certainly not vanished, but it is no longer the only game in town.

Right.. it seems like "change brings opportunity". At least that's what all the quotes on change and opportunity say...and this is where the advent of March stores much of her wealth. If we consider that Emotional Re-emergence is the work around building capacity after a bit of contraction, that it shapes situations, directs our attention and allows small recoveries - we are in the right place for change. We shall step boldly back into the waking world, with agency and awareness...

Now, if you are anything like me, you are a "measurer" of things - progress included. I like to know how far the car journey is, and how long the banana bread has left in the oven. In the same way, it would be nice if there were some good old metrics to measure around my emotional re-emergence. So here are a couple of ideas around how we might at least peek into our progress.

1. Do setbacks seem more navigable?

Quite a profound one, actually. This is not that life suddenly stops being hard or "interesting", but about difficulties and challenges start to feel less catastrophic. A sense of "This is unpleasant, but I am not totally under it. I've got this." That is real-time resilience.

2. Time taken to Return to Centre

Vanessa wrote a piece on this last month: https://www.platform13.life/post/emotional-fitness

It seems to me to be the cleanest metric of all - not whether or not we will get knocked off balance - we will.. but how long we stay there. Progress will feel like this: “That used to take me three days. Now it takes me an hour.”

3. Expanded Bandwidth

This is the "work flow" metric. The one where lists are re-born and raised. It is generally accompanied by an uptick in both the quantity and quality of our conversations,an increase in thought traffic and a palpable desire to re-connect with our people, plants and animals. The return of this bandwidth is a solid marker.

4. The Quality of our Responses

There should be no "marks out of 10" for Re-emergence, but let's just say it will more than likely show up somewhat qualitatively, in the space between the trigger and our reaction.

Can we pause? Can we choose? Can we respond with intention, rather than reflex?

Agency is not never feeling upset — it’s being able to say:“I know what this is. I know what I need. I’ll act accordingly.”

And perhaps that is the quiet point of our March re-emergence. It is to release some pressure, not to begin another performance. To frame a return rather than a transformation. We don;t need a big "And so then people, we must.." moment.

We are not suddenly becoming new people, or emerguing as butterflies from our Winter cocoon. Nor am I suggesting that winter simply packs up and leaves without a slushy residue - but that something in us begins to move again. The world feels marginally more inhabitable. The self feels a little more within reach.

Emotional re-emergence is not a single moment. It is a series of small returns. A decent conversation that doesn’t undo us. A re-set that doesn’t convince us we’re back at the drawing board. A nervous system that recovers more quickly than it did last month.

There is no right way to do this, or anything, really.

There is only the honest work of noticing: what is opening, what is strengthening and what feels convincingly do-able.

March, in the end, is not a demand letter, to get going in a particular direction or toward a certain goal.

It is simply the month that reminds us that our re-entry counts. That the thaw is real. And that coming back to ourselves - slowly, practically, deliberately - is its own kind of progress.