Hello Soft Monday.

why I am cushioning Blue Monday with softness, and your invitation to join The Softening in late winter.

Hello I’m Lyndsay, I am so glad you have found your way here…

Welcome to Story & Thread., a cosy, welcoming place to be inspired by the quiet power of noticing beauty & wonder. Here we explore our creative lives through the lens of the seasons, and what it means to tell our stories with meaningful PR.

All subscribers will receive regular thoughtful posts about creativity, mothering, home and garden through a soft seasonal lens. You are invited to become a member of The Beauty Thread., to join a creative community for online seasonal gatherings, guides, co-working spaces and soon, guidance for crafting a considered PR kit for your creative business.

“When the wind of winter blows over the uplands and moonlit spaces.

Come ye out to the waste of snows to the glimmering fields and the silent places.”

—Lucy Maud Montgomery.

Dearest reader…

I wanted to drop into your inbox today to propose today as ‘Soft Monday’, a much-needed reframe of ‘Blue Monday’, the name given to the third Monday in January in the northern hemisphere.

Labelled ‘Blue Monday’ in 2005, thanks to psychologist Cliff Arnall’s research into the third Monday of January being “the most depressing day of the year”, it was first used in a press release written for a travel company aiming to boost holiday sales.

Although undoubtedly a successful, creative PR campaign, and there being undeniable truth embedded within the combination of factors that Arnall points to to draw his conclusions¹, I prefer to think about what, short of a holiday, we might need instead. Rather than bracing ourselves for “the most depressing day” ahead, perhaps we can find the joyful moments by approaching the day with softness…

If you wake in darkness, can you linger for a moment in the cocoon of your warm bed, pulling the layers of fabric around you before getting up?

Can you turn on lamps, twinkly fairy lights, and light a candle at breakfast to bring your day into soft focus? Can you draw the curtains to witness the watercolour light of dawn gradually reach through your window?

Can you choose your outfit based on its cosiness (perhaps with a hint of colour), to bring you a well-worn sense of comfort during your day?

Make something warming and hearty for breakfast (with candles lit…). Boil the kettle and savour your first drink of the day as a silent ritual and promise to yourself in the inevitable chaos of a Monday morning.

Add the layers you need and slip out into the January day. Feel the cool winter air meet your skin and envelop your body in it’s cloud-like canvas.

Notice the clear birdsong, the low light lengthening, the handfuls of green shoots punctuating the earth, and the pearlescent snowdrops lighting your path…

I would love to hear how your day unfolds with softness…

Introducing The Softening in late winter.

Today feels like a good time to tell you more about The Softening in late winter — an invitation to gather together around my (virtual…for now!) kitchen table with good coffee, a steaming pot of tea and pastries at 11am-12.30pm GMT on Wednesday 25th February 2026.

We will spend time together, in cushioned comfort and cosiness, to explore how we can find more softness in our lives, allowing us to sink deeper into the muted magic of late winter.

Alongside an invitation to the gathering, will be an accompanying magazine-style guidebook for all members of The Beauty Thread. and an email edit for all subscribers, detailing all of the ways we can find softness in this season.

The Softening is a move toward mellow over sharp, gentle over glaring, quiet over loud, smooth over rough, suffused over intense, dreamy over fixed. We can choose softness as a way to meld, merge, yield and breathe rather than to brace, tense, force and push. It is learning that there is power in allowing ourselves to bend rather than break — that rather than signalling weakness, there is unshakeable strength to be found in softness…

Call for contributions.

An important reason for creating The Softening was a pull towards softness and sharing, curation and collaboration, in community. I was delighted by how The Softening in late autumn came together, each contribution a gift of support, like spells to conjure a truly collaborative cauldron of warmth and delight.

You are invited to be a part of The Softening in late winter by contributing your interpretation of one (or more) of the following themes:

late winter or ‘winterspring’, rest, roots, nourishment, conservation, water, sound and listening, resonance, inner strength, shelter, depths, darkness, dreaming, potential, preparation, mystery, reemergence — all through a lens of softness.

You could share a ritual, prompt, practice, poem, piece of writing or your own creative interpretation of the ideas above to convey a sense of softening in late winter as we look towards the beginnings of spring.

It could be video, audio, written, and/or shared during the online retreat at 11am - 12.30pm GMT on Wednesday 25th February 2026.

Please send your submission to lyndsaykaldor@gmail.com by Friday 13th February 2026.

The Softening is intended to be a movement, a way of being, a remembering, a return, and a retreat. I hope you will join me…

Much (soft) Monday love,

P.S. You can check out The Softening in late autumn below…

1. Arnall’s research for ‘Blue Monday’ took into consideration, gloomy weather conditions, a lack of light, the amount of days left until payday after festive spending, and the struggle at this point in January to stick to New Year’s Resolutions (a good reason not to make them in my book!).