Summer makes that easier to feel. We slow down, often due to the heat. And in that slowing, things start to settle back into place. We feel the pressure begin to lift as the heat becomes the main thing we have to deal with.

I notice it most in the small choices. Saying yes to the friend who makes me laugh until my stomach aches. Going to the beach or a river to swim, because being near water for me is the ultimate de-stressor. Resting in the middle of the afternoon when the heat makes everything else feel too much and giving myself permission to do that.

Small choices

For a long time, I treated rest like something I had to earn. I'd push through the tiredness, override the part of me that wanted to stop, and tell myself I'd slow down once the work was done. The work is never done. There's always another email, another thing on the list, another reason to keep going. Summer has a way of interrupting that. The heat makes you sit down whether you planned to or not. And in those forced pauses, I've started to notice how much I'd been ignoring.

That's the thing about being in alignment. It's the small choices you make that help you drop back into your body, feel calmer, and feel more nourished in yourself. It's a hundred tiny moments where you choose what feels authentic, rather than what feels expected.

Your intuition knows the way. It always has. The problem is we get loud, all-consuming lives that drown it out, full of noise and lists and other people's needs. Summer often turns the volume down a bit so you can hear yourself again.

Finding bliss

I think most of us know, deep down, what we actually want. We know which people leave us feeling lighter and full of joy and which ones leave us drained. We know the difference between the plans our whole bodies say a big ‘yes’ to and the ones we go along with out of guilt. We just get good at talking ourselves out of that knowing, because following it means disappointing someone.

When you start listening, things that felt unmanageable begin to feel within reach. The people who bring you joy, and you make time for them. The places that make your soul sing, you go to. The rest you've been denying yourself, you take. It doesn't require hard work, only listening to the cues our bodies give us.

I've just come back from giving readings on a retreat in Portugal, near Tavira. After work, my days were full of wild swimming, eating delicious cakes, watching the sun set and listening to the gorgeous songs of the frogs in the pool. Each morning I heard the cockerel crow, knowing I could go back to sleep until my alarm. It was total bliss!

Credits: envato elements; Author: olegbreslavtsev;

That, to me, is what abundance actually feels like. Not a bank balance or a busy calendar. A sense of completeness that comes from being in nature, doing the things that you love.

Summer invitation

We make it so complicated. We tie our worth to how much we produce and how tired we are at the end of the day, as though exhaustion is proof of a life well lived. Summer offers a different invitation. It asks you to trust that you don't have to earn your place by running yourself into the ground. To believe that joy isn't a reward you get later, but something available now, in the ordinary middle of an ordinary day.

Abundance isn't something you chase. It flows when you come back into step with your own body, your own knowing, your own pace.

So this is your reminder, if you need one. Now is your time. Not when things calm down, not when you've earned it, not when the to-do list is finally empty. Now. The people, the places, the rest, the joy. It's all here, waiting for you to slow down enough to notice it.

Even if it's only five minutes while you drink your coffee in the morning sun.

With love, Sally Heart