Today is Solstice – a day in the northern hemisphere that marks the beginning of summer.

The word comes from the Latin sol (sun) and sistere (to stand still).

Usually, I’m happy to stand still during summer. To slow down enough to savor this season of warmth, bounty and play. To put my busyness on hold while nature busts out all around me.

But today, at least at the turn of Solstice, I am wanting to be a part of that fertile productivity. I’ll probably change my mind in the heat of August, but right now I am wanting to be fruitful.

Maybe it’s because of all the post-surgical resting I had to do during the spring.

Spring is not a restful time. Spring is about waking, sap flowing, budding, blooming, sprouting. Not napping between Perry Mason reruns.

I find myself entering summer already feeling out of sync. Feeling behind.

On the one hand, I recognize this as a construct. I had this notion in my head about what I was going to do when – you know, a plan – and that notion was interrupted. It had to be temporarily but quite necessarily set aside. Feeling in sync again is simply a matter of drafting a new plan. Any difficulty in doing that is just my attachment to that original notion.

that one big thing

On the other hand, I do think there is a certain rightness to the timing of things. And, deep down, I think we know it.

That vague sense of anxiety in one’s gut might be a sign that things are moving a little too fast. That quiet dissatisfaction at the back of one’s mind might be a sign that things are developing a little too slowly.

I think a great deal of our well-being comes from feeling in sync with the passage of time – our sense that what’s happening in our lives is in that sweet spot between too much and too little, too fast and too slow.

And, more importantly, that the right things are happening at the right time. It’s often those right things going undone – regardless of what else is happening – that result in overwhelm and disappointment, our sense that things are not as they should be.

Mona Grayson recently defined overwhelm as a sign of serious neglect: “It’s not that you have too much to do. It’s that there’s one Big Thing you haven’t been doing.”

And I’m coming to think she’s right.

choosing and changing

Most of the time, I long to slow down. Most of the time, I have to remind the Worried Hamster in my head that we don’t need to rush and push quite so much. And, although I feel behind, I still have no wish to step on his Hamster Wheel to Nowhere.

Right now, what I most desire is to be bearing fruit along with everything around me.

Not because of some plan or should or supposed-to. But because it’s the right time to do certain right things. And doing them is what is necessary for me to feel in sync. (In a way, it’s an act of self-care.)

Realization of this desire has some implications.

Like a plant, I have to put most of my energy and resources toward development of those fruits and very few toward leaves, roots and branches. Especially suckers.

Which means being honest with myself about what I want.
Which means doing the work I’ve been avoiding.

It means choosing.
It means changing.

It is both thrilling and frightening to say: this and only this.
It is both thrilling and frightening to say: now is the moment.

But the harvest is going to be sweet.

ask yourself

• What do you need to do to feel in sync with the season and the passage of time in your life?
• Slow down in some ways? Speed up in others? Focus?

• What fruits do you most want to put your energy and resources toward right now?
• What would be the right thing – your Big Thing – in this moment?
• How might acting on it reduce any anxiety, dissatisfaction or disappointment you may be feeling?

• What choices would you have to make to ripen those fruits?
• What changes would those choices bring?
• Does that prospect of change excite or scare you more?
• How does anticipation or fear keep you feeling in or out of sync with time?

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Inspired to take action on your Big Thing, but wanting some guidance and support in doing so? Join me for Project Front Burner. We’re turning up the heat starting July 7.

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