Hello you,
It’s summer.
It’s a time that can feel radiant and joyful. A time of languid lounging, play and pleasure-seeking in the sweet sunny embrace of Leo season.
And sometimes it can feel a little like being in a room with four radios, all tuned to different stations, with their volume turned up way too loud. It can feel like everything all at once. Your energy, attention, and capacity pulled in too many directions at once.
Personally, I’ve been listing in the direction of option B. What’s been saving my arse is the resurgence of my personal practice.
I’ve been wrestling with it for months now, like some slippery me-sized fish. Trying to find what’s needed for me to devote to actually doing the practices that I know turn down the volume on those blaring radios.
It took months of experimentation but I’ve found my groove. Every day I wiggle my body around, I breathe, I rest. Every day I do the things that bring me back to myself and get my feet on the ground. The things that enable me to express myself and reconnect to aliveness.
This is what worked. The three foundations that have enabled me to root into a daily practice, even in the midst of that chaotic high summer energy:
1.
Make it so fucking simple
Like, laughably simple. Take all the ‘shoulds’ and decision making out of it. Choose one thing to do, and one time. Give yourself that as a non-negotiable supportive structure so you don’t need to scale a wall of decisions every time you want to practice.
If you’re not sure what supports you right now, choose something and get your scientist hat on. What sparks your curiosity right now? Devote to doing it for 30 days, stay curious, see what happens.
2.
Let a little be enough
Yes, long deep dives are amazing. It’s a true delight to be able to sink completely into a practice and feel your experience unravel and shift as the time passes. But if you only have time to do that once a month, it’s probably not going to sustain you for long. A daily practice is more transformative, even if it’s ten minutes.
For example, I have a twenty minute playlist that’s the structure to my practice. I start at the beginning of the first song, end at the last one. That’s it. That’s enough.
3.
Show up and be open to what arises
There will be days when you don’t want to do it. That’s so normal. It would be weirder if it didn’t happen. There will be days when you start your practice and smack straight into a wall of resistance. That’s normal too.
What if you practiced anyway?
What if you showed up with wide open arms and a wide open mind and just let whatever is here be here. Things don’t have to be anywhere near perfect for a practice to have deep impact. You’re doing this to meet yourself, exactly where you are. Some days that’s going to involve meeting yourself in grief, frustration, anger, self doubt, sadness, numbness, and that’s just as important (more so, I’d say) than when things are feeling fun and easy.
PS – I’m taking on new one-to-one clients at the moment, ready to dive in August and September. If you want support to build your own practice, something you can lean on to stay connected with yourself no matter what life throws your way, book in a discovery call