While the calendar says December, it doesn’t quite feel like winter here in Oregon. The weather has been unseasonably warm, and our local mountain remains closed because there’s no snow. Yet despite nature’s mixed signals, the end of the year approaches with its familiar rhythm of reflection and restoration.
Based on my conversations with many of you, 2025 has been profoundly difficult. Life-changing loss. Brushes with our own mortality. A pervasive sense of being unmoored. What’s made this year particularly challenging is that so many of us seem to be struggling simultaneously. Just when we need support most, our usually robust networks feel stretched impossibly thin.
And yet, here’s what I’ve learned: This is precisely the time to look outward. To show up for others. Not because we should (though we definitely should), but because serving others offers something we desperately need ourselves. It pulls us from the gravitational force of our own struggles and reminds us that we’re part of something larger. There’s research behind this, but you already know the truth of it from your work. Our healing often happens when we focus on healing others.
The Season of Small Rituals
I love the holidays, even more now with a toddler at home who transforms ordinary traditions into magic. Here in Oregon, we’re fortunate to have access to national forests where we can cut down our Christmas tree, a wonderful ritual that grounds us in place and season. This year, our son’s excitement about decorating the tree was infectious and inescapable.
For years, Julie and I have collected ornaments from our travels: a Father Christmas carved from driftwood on the Oregon Coast, hand-blown glass chili peppers from Taos. Each one holds a story, a moment when life felt expansive rather than constrained. Now we’re creating new stories like cookie-baking marathons where our son, unsurprisingly, wants to make every single recipe in the book. These small pleasures matter more than their simplicity suggests.
The Paradox of Giving
What we’ve been focusing on this season is how gratitude and generosity create their own momentum. My family got knocked around pretty hard this year. My anesthesia group covered countless shifts without complaint. You, my clients, offered extraordinary support when I needed it most.
Now we’re turning that energy outward. We’re supporting Oregon Adaptive Sports, which ensures everyone can access Oregon’s outdoor beauty regardless of physical limitations. We’re also giving to the Pediatric Epilepsy Research Consortium. They’ve been instrumental in our family’s journey this year, and their research lights a path for other families navigating similar darkness.
Here’s what I’ve observed (and the research confirms): Giving is one of the most reliable ways to feel abundance. It’s counterintuitive, while you’d think holding your resources tight would create more security. But opening your hands, letting resources flow through you toward others, that’s what generates the feeling of “enough.” For families who’ve worked so hard to achieve financial security, this can be transformative. The scarcity mindset that drove you through education and training doesn’t have to define your relationship with money forever.
The Wisdom of Winter
Finally, let’s talk about rest. I know for many of you working in hospitals, December feels anything but restful. The acuity is high, the census full, the needs relentless. But here’s what I keep returning to: We’re not machines designed for constant output. We’re creatures of seasons.
Winter asks us to slow down, to restore, to let some things lie fallow. This isn’t weakness or laziness, it’s deeper wisdom. You can’t be in harvest mode year-round without depleting the soil. The same is true for us. Sometimes the most productive thing you can do is rest. Sometimes the best financial decision is to spend money on restoration rather than accumulation.
As we close out this difficult year, I’m curious: What are you ready to let rest? What traditions, old or new, are anchoring you? What small acts of generosity are reminding you of your abundance?
Thank you for sharing this year with me, especially when sharing itself felt hard. Here’s to a season of restoration and to a new year where we remember that money, time, and energy are tools. What matters is how we use them to create meaning, connection, and presence.
