January isn't rubbish, honest

How I've managed to come to see the start of the year as a time of hope

A quick note: I’ve turned on paid subscriptions - readers who pay will get access to writing from my working in progress, a travelogue and memoir about UK sauna culture

Call me oppositional. Call me a contrarian. But I make no apology for being a fan of January. I can see good reasons for not being so - the looming sense of long winter nights still to come; a crushing lack of funds after the blowout of the festive period; terrible weather. In fact, for so many years, I felt this way too.

Yet somehow, through a form of subtle mind creep, I have managed to reframe the first month of the year into a time of possibility. Scoured of the excess of the past weeks, there is a pleasing rawness to these early days, when everything is full of potential and the promise of good things to come if we can just bide our time and enjoy the moment.

I say this at the start of a year when I literally have no paying work and a massive credit card bill thanks to the purchase of a new car after my old one died on the flyover coming out of Brighton Marina. I feel as if I should be worried about these things. But for reasons I find hard to pin down, worry is not on the agenda.

A lot of this comes down to faith. Not in the big F sense of the word. Rather, that having been a jobbing freelancer for upwards of 15 years, knowing these peaks and troughs come and go. Admittedly, it’s been very much trough for almost two years now, albeit with some bright moments to go with it. But I have an unerring belief that things will come good. Call it naivety. But I like to think of it, to coin an album title, as radical optimism. I have come to realise that whether I stress about it or not, this is the situation I have been presented with. And so I deal with it the best way I know how. Be proactive. Do something to make me feel good.

I feel as if I should be worried…but, for reasons I find hard to pin down, worry is not on the agenda

To that end, my work hours so far in 2025 have been filled with writing. I am working on a new book about sauna culture in the UK, with the aim of travelling around the country to meet the amazing community that makes it happen and learn how the power of hot and cold can change my health, especially mentally. I wanted a project for the year and this is it.

This gives me purpose, even if the very real business of paying bills does need attending to. There are things coming in, but time needs to pass and people need to speak with people who then need to feed those things back down the chain and into my inbox. I refuse to give up hope, because then I’ll just do nothing.

This is a feeling I seem to get every January. This month in 2024 and 2023 were both duds when it came to work and money. But back then I did what I’m doing now and it worked. And so I plough on.

It’s not just about work, though. I have long felt January to be about approach. We all know it’s going to be cold, wet and most likely miserable. So rather than falling into self-fulfilling tales about this time of year, how about booking stuff in or simply doing what you love?

At Stanmer Sauna Garden, summer 2024 © Joe Minihane

This was what I did with some free time on Tuesday of this week. It was a stunning morning, all deep blue crisp light, branches stark against the sky, as I drove into Stanmer Park, just north of Brighton. I was going to Stanmer Sauna Garden to see my friend Bella, who runs this special rustic space. On my last visit it was midsummer and I ended up being whisked with birch leaves while lying completely naked on the bench of her barrel sauna. On this day, the sun was out but the temperature hovered around 3ºC. I parked up in a muddy spot next to some holly trees and followed the mulch covered path to a slice of heaven within spitting distance of the A27.

Bella welcomed me with a huge hug. We first me when I interviewed her for a feature I wrote about sauna’s curative properties for a health magazine. She is the most buoyant, singular and brilliant person you could hope to meet. She washed my hair in the plunge pool after the aforementioned whisking. In her own words, she loves to look after people.

That was very much true once I’d changed amongst the trees and found a spot inside, next to the door. In she came with water for a Lithuanian-style sauna blessing, during which all of the eight of us squeezed into the barrel dipped our fingers and made a wish for ourselves and for the surrounding space. This before the water was poured onto the stones and a blessing whispered. I couldn’t think of a nicer way to get the year going.

Over the next 90 minutes I alternated between the rising heat and the absurdly bitter bath which sat within the woods. By god it was cold. Bella informed me it had been out all night, so had frozen during the small hours and recently thawed. She then laid out a blanket in the sun and instructed me to rest, explaining this was as important as going through the usual rituals. Sunbathing in the first week of January is an acquired taste, but I can attest to its power.

During all of this, a huge logging truck pulled up outside the sauna. It turned out I needed to move my car which, in hindsight, was parked in the most appalling place, blocking two dirt roads and the work of council staff getting the forest in shape. When told, I chucked on my coat over my swimming shorts, slipped on a pair of too-small flip flops and, felt sauna hat on my head, dashed off to move it somewhere less inconvenient. It turns out you can do basic driving manoeuvres in this attire and will bring cheer to all of those you see thanks to how you dressed.

When it was time to leave, I came away feeling magical, lifted up by a process I find to be spiritually beneficial at its core. I might not have work or much money, but I am grateful for a full life that is filled with love and left full of hope.

I’ve made sure January is about doing. And in doing so, I’ve found a way for it to be not shit. It’s definitely worth a try.