Summer; Stressful or Spacious?
Why is summer feeling so damn heavy right now??
Hello Beautiful Being, do you feel it too? I have found myself in so many conversations lately where people are sharing feelings like dread, anxiety, overwhelm, and just plan over it moving in to this summer. And it’s barely even started, like seriously, today is the first day!!
What the heck is going on? I’m feeling it start to creep in too. My breath is high in my chest, I’ve got to do lists floating around here big enough I could bind them into a book, and I’m really starting to worry that I won’t be able to fit it all in and I’m already forgetting something, and I haven’t even left the freakin’ house!
And then tonight, in our women’s circle, I had one of those conversations that shed a crap ton of clarity on the situation for me. It gave me a way to step out and see all this whirlwind slow down around me. So, here I sit trying to piece it all together in hopes of slowing down the whirlwind around you.
deep breath….shoulders down…
I realized that the world right now is worried about fitting in all the STUFF, packing all the STUFF, doing all the STUFF, planning all the STUFF, making up for all the STUFF we’ve missed out on for the past 2 years and we’re so concerned about the STUFF we haven’t slowed down enough to know what the freakin’ STUFF is. What is the STUFF?!?! What does that even mean. So here’s the plan:
Step 1; Define STUFF
Step 2; Figure out how we want the STUFF THAT’S IMPORTANT TO US to feel
And this is where I get excited, like pound the keys a little too hard while I type this excited. I realize I have all the tools I need to make this situation better, to make it fit, to make it feel good. I have the power and the ability to move my breath down deeper in my chest, I can slow my fingers down as I type, I can do the STUFF I want and feel the feelings that nourish me. I can take the to do list and cross things off not just because they are done, but also because I don’t actually want to do them, because they don’t fit anymore. I can start to see the manic pace start to slide in to magic presence. And as a bonus I get to keep having these discovery conversations in like minded and like hearted groups of women that know there is a different way.
I recently facilitated a gathering called Setting up for Summer. My intention for the time we spent together was to create a space for the women that showed up for themselves to build a plan for their summer that was going to allow them to remain mindful and aware of their own wants and needs. We wrote the stories of our upcoming summers by answering these questions:
o How do you want to feel?
o What do you want to do?
o What are you willing to do for others?
o What do you need to ask for this summer?
Reclaiming our power this way is a wonderful practice, but as with anything we practice if we want to get good at it, we’ve got to do it over and over again. We easily forget how much power we really have in any situation. It’s even easier to forget when the world around us is telling us how we should be, and the world out there is loud. Too friggin’ loud!!
Every so often I come across something that makes me angry. I’m not sure if angry is the exact right emotion but it’s the closest thing I have to describe it, so we’ll go with that (in honor of my need to do things 80% perfect and to leave 100% for those that have the time for that sort of thing!). The past couple of weeks it’s been this lovely little gem floating around social media…
Cue self-destructive need for perfection, exhaustion and self-criticism. OMG just STOP!!! Stop with the messaging that as a Mom I have 18 chances to cram an Instagram perfect summer into 60 days where we do all the STUFF, eat all the STUFF, see all the STUFF, buy all the STUFF….just freakin’ STOP!!
As Moms we don’t need more messages that cause us to run around making everything happen for everyone, as women we don’t need to be making sure that we are reaching for the next thing before we even look down to see what is already in our hands. This message needs to go!
We need to write our own summer story, one that encompasses slow, simple summer moments. Like biking to the park, quiet cabins in the morning, and coffee in the back yard as the sun marks the start of a beautiful day. We’ll stumble, we’ll slide back into overwhelm and worry, we’ll check our phones on the beach too much and collapse at the end of the night into another glass of wine and a chocolate bar. And then we’ll pull out our summer story and remind ourselves that 80% is perfectly imperfect. That there will be other summers, that a summer spent in the back yard is a summer well spent. That we are worth the work it takes to say NO, to make sure our summer feel how we want it to feel, because it’s just that…it’s OUR summer.
When I sat down to write this my intention was to check something off my to do list…
Write summer solstice newsletter to engage audience
I’m still checking it off, not because it’s done, but because I don’t want to do that anymore. So go google some summer solstice reflection questions if you think that might be helpful in your journey.
What this is now…
The first chapter of my summer story, the part where I set the stage for my mindful summer. I allowed my jumbled thoughts to fall out on the paper, I poured a glass of wine to congratulate myself for releasing the need to produce something useful and sat settled with the fact that this summer is going to be glorious, it’s going to be gorgeous and if my kids eat hotdog buns with ketchup on them 3 days a week for the next 2 months that’s the 80% of perfect I can get behind.
If you are at all interested in continuing this conversation, if you want to make a plan to trade the shoulds for coulds, to share the story of your summer with a curious cheerleader let’s do it together. We can do it one on one or in a group of women on a journey to embrace the magical mess of their daily lives in the Awesome Women’s Ensemble, where women come together weekly and daily to be their most awesome selves!
I’m really curious, what’s your summer story?