This month we will meditate on the internal tug-of-war many women face between striving and surrender, especially in mid-year reflection. We will center emotional release, redefining productivity, and reclaiming softness as strength. As you may notice I was very unhurried with releasing this month’s theme exactly on July first. Partly, because I have been enjoying my time with family, resting, and allowing myself not to be hurried by the pace of society but also because I am more interested in writing meaningful messages for you to ponder rather than rushing to find words. I didn’t want this month’s message or theme to be amongst all the other noise of folks telling you how to show up, achieve, or do in this last half of the year. It can be exhausting when the blogs, the reels, the motivational speakers are begging you to do more mid-year and go harder to close out the season.
After writing this quote, I looked up the word dormancy in all its right and this is what it said: “Dormancy is a resting phase in a plant's life cycle — a period where visible growth stops, but vital life processes continue underground or within the root system. It’s nature’s way of protecting the plant until conditions are right again.”
As women, I want us to spend this month honoring the fact that we are simply enough and stop trying to show up as some mystical machine. You are not meant to be overworked, endlessly hustled, always on the go, and constantly climbing ladders. While it sounds advantageous, what is truly good for us, especially with all that is going on in today’s world is to slow down, savor the days, and surround ourselves with joy, love, and people or things that truly keep us grounded. Just because we are resting in the peace of the work we have already put in or the absence of chaos thanks to all we have cultivated, does not mean that we are not still growing, thriving, or being transformed! I want this month to be a reminder that you have already done enough. While goals can be encouraging, they shouldn’t be everything. While wholeness can sound attainable, we must acknowledge that the idea of it can often be the obstacle standing in the way of our personal progress.
So, with that said, we are embarking on a soft rebellion here. We are challenging and reconstructing our ideas of being enough this month. Summer is a season to silence the overwhelming agony of doing too much. So, in the spirit of avoiding doing too much we must define our capacity in a way that centers wellbeing, self-nurturing, and unfiltered peace. There is no pressure to perform or prove into the last half of this year. Do what comes to you with ease, place more focus on what fosters peace, redirect your attention on how much you have already accomplished without notice. What would a healed, well rested, fully free and happy version of yourself be doing in the last half of this year if it were left up to you? What have you been striving toward that is vain, unfulfilling, or keeps you on a wheel of never feeling you have accomplished the thing? It’s time to throw those things away.
This month, I want you to sit down and write out a letter to the woman who is enough. What does she look like? What does she do in her day-to-day life? How does she spend her time and with whom? What makes her feel valued? How does she celebrate her smallest wins? How does she feel in her body daily? What type of company does she keep? Where has she stopped overextending herself? Who has she stopped trying to please to no end or avail? What feeds her and doesn’t drain her of her vigor or vitality? What does being and doing enough truly look like for her? How does she know when she needs rest? How does her body, mind, and spirit speak to her well before she reaches a point of exhaustion or resentment from people pleasing? How does she really know when it is a season to slow down? Are you her already, if not, what would it take to become more of her?
If you get around to this exercise, please, please, share with me. I would love to see what the version of you who is doing and being enough looks like. Surrender to the soft power of knowing you are enough and doing enough this season and don’t let the mid-year mayhem force you into overdrive!
P.S. This month’s writing workshop: The Soft Rebellion: Writing Toward Enoughness will be held Tuesday, July 15th at 8pm virtually. Grab a journal, invite a friend to become a member of this community, and see you then!
Xoxo, Q.
Love this! I’ve been working on shifting from doing to being and it’s one heck of a practice. I look forward to spending time with the writing prompts as they are timely for me. Thank you for being!