How can you make your summer magical?

3 minute read

This is a magical time of year.

Even if the weather doesn’t always play ball, the longer days, the flourishing plants and flowers, the abundance of summer fruits - this bursting energy is special. It’s also special, because it is fleeting. I know for myself that the promise of a summer stretching ahead of me can then pass in a blink of an eye and before I know it, I am shopping for school shoes and taking warmer jumpers out again.

But this year, I am planning for it to be different.

I can’t do much about the weather, or indeed the passing of time, but I can have intention.

So, what does that mean?

Quite often, it can feel as though life is happening to us. The commitments, responsibilities, tasks and lists that never seem to end. And of course, they never will end. That golden, mythical time when all is done and we can relax and start to do the things we really want to do? It really is mythical UNLESS we start to do things differently. Because we are often choosing, again and again, things that we don’t really want. And as Henry Ford famously said, if you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.

You might not want to totally change your life, but you could start with how you want the summer, or the rest of the year if you are feeling bold, to feel.

My invitation, which is what I am doing for myself, is to get really clear on what summer means to you.

What do you remember loving as a child?

What do you love now?

Picnics, evening walks, day-trips, breakfast in the park…? Just take a sheet of paper and allow it all to flow. (Hint: this is the most potent part. Why? Because if you do this, you are actually setting aside time to be intentional, which is way more than half the battle..)

Then take a step back and ask yourself, in the context of your life as it is right now, what is joyfully manageable? It’s so easy, in this high energy of summer to fling ourselves head-long into socialising, making plans and saying yes to it all. Which can feel wonderful, until it doesn’t.

I got really excited with this brainstorming, and then I asked my son what three words he would use to describe the summer holidays and he chose ‘lovely’, ‘relaxing’ ‘peaceful’.

It really stopped me in my tracks. I was thinking about all the wonderful places we could go, and he wanted something more simplistic. Like the kind of summers I had as a child.

Maybe ask the people closest to you what summer means to them. It will be a much more beautiful and harmonious experience if all of you are feeling honoured.

And then sit with it.

Then, and only then, get out your diary and plan in the events, the space, the flopping-about - whatever it is.

And enjoy your summer - fully present.