As I wrote to my newsletter readers this morning, I’m refusing to let another summer pass me by.

Year after year, summer is my busiest season, with speaking engagements and retreats. Being a single mom of a teenager has certainly added a new level of complexity.. and when you add in creating a new family with my sweetheart and his sweet boy… can someone give me a paper bag to breathe into, please?

I’ll admit, I’m prone to collapsing into victim mode and whiny excessively about how, once again, there will be no time for fun this summer.

No time for poor little me.

Oh no, Jenny Jen, not that old story. I call TIME OUT.

So instead of whining my way through another summer, I decided to write a summer manifesto and possibly foment a summer riot of ice cream-chin-drips and firefly-winks plus a few lazy games of croquet – or at least a daily porch sit to watch the grass grow.

The Let’s-Not-Let-Summer-Pass-You-By Manifesto

Summer is not a burden. It’s a reminder: life is sweet. Step outside and allow the astounding gift of nature to remind you that you don’t make the sun rise or the flowers bloom and thus perhaps, just perhaps, the world does not rest on your shoulders. Smell the breeze, feel the sun on your skin, notice the colors; life is here right now. Nowhere to go, nothing to get to.

Play is not just for kids. Spend an afternoon with an old person who hasn’t kept playing, who has decided to keep putting off pleasure, and if that doesn’t motivate you to get out the Frisbee or tee up the Pickleball, then nothing will.  Or find a Laughter Yoga club or play kick the can in the twilight. Only don’t say you are too old or too busy. Please.

Forget the big swathes of time. Instead, grab the invitations to savor when they present themselves. Even one minute of actually tasting that succulent peach will change your day. You know life is short. You’ve lost people you love. Use that to stoke your courage to leave the computer and make a fort with your kid/grandkid/neighbor’s kid or pick berries and bake a crumble or…

Whatever you say there is no time for, there’s the perfect place to start. Listen for your complaints and your “If only I had time” remarks. When you hear one, drop the complaint and do the can’t, the impossible. It won’t be perfect but then part of the joy of summer is being messy and imperfect. Taste the sweetness rather than the dourness of sourness.

Do something outrageous. Hopefully, you have a memory or two of an outrageous feat from a summer past. Mine would be a three-week three-hundred mile canoe trip a thousand miles from anywhere. That’s not possible this summer but a little guerilla art with my teen is or a day hiking on the Olympic peninsula or just working at the beach instead of in my office is. What would be a little outrageous for you? Or more than a little?

It’s not about nostalgia or recreating your childhood. What feasting on summer is about is remembering that your life is a choice and you can let it become a burden and a list you never catch up with or a crazy Dune Buggy ride over the Florida Keys bridge, bugs in your teeth, wind in your hair, blue water as far as the eye can see.

Join me in reclaiming a bit of your summer by simply saying YES in the comments. If you also want to add what you will do to enjoy summer this year, I’d so love to hear!

Now I’m head outside for lunch!

Choose Your Life Monday is an invitation to name what pattern you will lovingly notice this week and to do so in community. Join in when and however suits you.

Note: We updated Wordpress and the fonts are all wonky.  Pretend this post looks pretty instead of odd. I’d appreciate it.

Good Work Jen

Last week I declared I would lovingly notice when my reptile brain is ruining the show and I’m feeling completely alone and I will resource.

I did!

It worked!

Did you know your brain is structured to look for what’s wrong? “It’s Velcro for negative experiences and Teflon for positive ones,” as Rick Hanson writes Buddha’s Brain (available in October, I’m reading an advance copy and loving it).

We evolved by paying attention to what’s wrong, what’s scary, what’s out of place – we didn’t stroll on the savannah admiring the flowers; we constantly scanned for predators, ready to flee for our lives.

Worked then, doesn’t work so well now.

We have to train ourselves to notice and savor the positive, and thus rewire our brain to be more content, peaceful and happy.

It isn’t hard – take five seconds to keep your attention on how good that first sip of morning tea tastes. Take ten seconds to experience with your whole body the hug of someone you love. Gaze into your pet’s eyes and let the love you feel for him or her warm your heart. Let it in, relax your body, and imagine this goodness sinking deeply into you, like warm sun does after a swim in a cold lake.

Try it right now.

Train the brain to savor the good, that’ s my new motto.

How Training the Brain Helps Me Out of Hiding

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about coming out of hiding. What I didn’t know then, that I know now, is why I hide.

I hide because I judge a lot of what I do as not significant enough.  Not important enough. Not original enough.

I blush to write this.

These poisonous thoughts, served with a side helping of comparison, have lead me to all sorts of twisted second guessing, redoing projects to make them “the best,” overworking, and other boondoggles, including not putting my work into the world with more consistency and directness.

Where I ever picked up the idea that important = I have no idea.

What’s really funny? I’m at my best when I’m being funny and light. I feel most alive – and effective – when I’m being light, even silly, and caring versus serious and caring (my voice got deeper just writing that last bit).

Weary of Significance

I am, thank God.

Being tired of a pattern is the best possible news because this is when I, finally, let go.

Ahhh… give it up. Stop struggling. Stop trying so hard.

Who Cares if It’s Important?

Declares the Comfort Queen. No more losing my way in the labyrinth of significance.

(I wonder what waits in the center of the labyrinth of significance – the Minotaur of Pomposity?)

It’s not up to me to decide what important is, by the by. I show up, tune in, attempt to express myself honestly and in ways that are of value to my readers. The rest? None of my business.

Of course, this is easier said than done.

I need a practice.

Since my practices are often about paying attention, this week I will

lovingly pay attention to when I am second guessing, over working or otherwise prevaricating

and

I will lovingly look for the thought – which comes in many shapes and flavors – that what I’m doing isn’t important enough.

I’ll be a significance spotter.

Then I will laugh at myself, with tenderness but of course, and get on with the work at hand.

Enough with the importance, we’re burning daylight. (John Wayne from The Cowboys, a favorite childhood movie of my dad and me.)

Oh, and I’m also treating my work as a day job instead of a sacred calling – more on that soon.

What will you notice this week? With love, with lightness, with a soupcon of drollness, what are you loving about yourself this week?