This was supposed to be an invitation to register for my AWAKE workshop. Things change when you're living and working in nervous system aligned ways🫀

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Reader–

July is always a force. Fast and furious and full and fun and a fucking lot, if I'm being honest.

And this July was no exception. Especially as my kids get older, having them around more through Summer is both a sweet gift (!!) and an added layer on top of the many priorities that ask for my attention and energy.

We've been vacationing, we've been swimming, biking, hiking, visiting with old friends and new.

We've been shuffling to camps and birthday parties and BBQs and celebrations of all sorts.

Plus doing all the practices I know keep me feeling my most supported & stable (notice these still require intention and energy even though they're restorative longterm).

It's been FULL, in the best ways. Like, a heart brimming sort of full 💗

It's also been a lot!

It's been FAST. And fast can be good– resonant, grounded, exciting, connective and expressive. But fast is also the place where we can easily and unknowingly cross the threshold from resonant-fast to too-fast and wind up in fight, flight and/or freeze (enter stress and burnout).

Earlier this summer Kara Duval talked about making this the "summer of snail" 🐌

For obvious reasons, this concept resonated with many– summer heats up (physically and metaphorically) fast, and the pace quickly starts to feel unsustainable. So OF COURSE we're all craving a bit of a snail-like slow down.

Enter FOMO though, especially if you live in the Northeast like myself where there's this ingrained idea of needing to 'maximize' the warmer months.

For me, it's felt a bit like an inner tug-of-war:

REST, BE SLOW, SAY NO, DO LESS vs. GO, FROLIC, COMMUNE, PLAY, DO (before it's too late!)

Urgency vs. my body's physical limits... (which do you think will come out on top?? 🤔)

If all that "doing" wasn't tiring on its own, wrestling with how I "should" be spending my time through the remainder of Summer just adds to the heaviness that's been slowly building in my system.

I think we often get the idea that doing nervous system work will cure us of ever having to feel the discomfort of being pushed to (or past) our edges; liberate us from ever having to reach the point of realizing, "Hey, maybe I can't move at this pace right now, even though I thought I could, and something's gotta give."

But that's not at all the point of this work.

The actual goal is to broaden our range, so that we may be present and AWAKE to the full spectrum of life experience.

...to build the inner and outer resources to trust that when we cross the threshold from "good & grounded" to "spiraling, shaky and shutdown," we have the capacity and tools to ride the waves and land on our feet again 🌊🏄🏽‍♀️

Because we will cross the threshold.

Perhaps less often than we once did, but we're still human (and living in a fast world) at the end of the day.

We have to be realistic and forgiving with ourselves when we do accidentally overdo it.

I recently reached that point– realizing that I had too much on my plate to realistically meet all my goals and tend to all that needs tending without seriously burning myself out.

And truthfully, it still surprises me when I overestimate my capacity (can you believe!? 😱). Because this is something I've been working on for a long, long time.

It's practically baked into my DNA to be a do-er. Coming from a long line of farmers, and living through late-stage capitalism is a real recipe for chronic busy-ness. It's still sometimes tricky for me to decipher what the right amount of doing is at any given time.

But I'm learning.

I'm learning how to take regular pulses of my capacity, to welcome my needs before they volcanically erupt into burnout that seeps like lava into all areas of my life, destroying what's already good & alive.

I'm learning how to tend to both my desire to go fast, AND the parts of me that need deep rest.

I'm learning what a presence-filled range of slow, medium and fast feel like for me, so that I can more easily tell when I'm about to cross over into too much too fast.

I'm learning that for right now at least, I need to lean towards giving myself more space and rest than I really *think* I need, especially as I work to rebalance the scales and come back into some more inner stability.

In an effort to do just that, I decided to shift the AWAKE workshop from August 14th to mid September (exact date tbd), removing the pressure of marketing that right now.

I want to spend the next month enjoying my family, my clients, my garden, my community, and not stressing about splitting energy between that and marketing my tushy off. And I DO want to market this workshop well and right!

The more I prepare the content for it, the more I know in my bones how GOOD it's going to be! So stay tuned, make sure you're on the waitlist! And thank you for being patient with me as I attempt to model what it looks like to honor your body AND live a life that light's you up🫀

& here are some other mini but impactful ways I'm working to create more inner stability through the rest of summer:

• Saying loving "no's" or "not right nows" to plans that aren't inherently restful or easeful, and working with my partner on this to help keep each other accountable.
• Getting to bed before 10pm and limiting screen-time outside of client work and the occasional Gossip Girl re-run (please, do poke fun at me for this).
• Only posting on socials when I feel excited and in flow about it & upping my screen time limits so as to avoid falling into the doom-scroll trap when I am on insta.
• Giving myself extra time between podcast episode releases (as I said I would when I started the pod, so this is me holding myself accountable to that!)
• Limiting my coffee to 2 cups max per day, subbing in decaf teas and infused water as ritual and nourishment that doesn't rev up my nervous system.

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Notice how much of this ^ is about subtracting rather than adding. An often potent but overlooked way to support ourselves in times of overwhelm.

How might YOU make moves to tangibly strip things back a bit? To down-shift into snail mode through the rest of Summer?

Hit reply & share with me if you feel so inclined ↩️💫

And if you need support because all of this feels to heavy to hold on your own, book a free consult & see what it might be like to have partnered support on the journey home to yourself 👩🏼‍🤝‍👩🏻

xo
​Holl

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