It’s 5 a.m. and I’m sitting here writing you. I’m up because the pain in my hips woke me. It’s pain from the chemo drugs.
Funny things happen this early in a suburban house. There’s a newborn daddy longlegs spider running across my keyboard (fresh hatch of the day?).
My cats lay on my desk looking at me, mystified. Why is the human up?
I try to text my friends, but no one texts back. (What’s wrong with them? Don’t they know I’m up?!)
And this morning’s crop of email is not especially interesting. I unsubscribe from much of it.
I flash back to 12 years ago, when I was also typically up by about 4:30 a.m. to work on writing my first book.
Back then I was hugely pregnant with my daughter. I was also tired and aching, and I had to be at my 9 to 5 job by 7 a.m. on-the-dot each morning.
Now here I am about to take that baby from 12 years ago to her first day of junior high three hours from now.
We stayed up in bed last night going through her classes, her schedule, which friends were in her classes, and importantly (but devastatingly), which “hot guys” were not.
And it got me thinking how life is a continuous craving of new experiences.
Junior high is such a big deal! Her head has been swimming in it for weeks. She’s been wishing the summer away, waiting for today.
(I’ve also been wishing the summer away, but for a different reason.)
I think about how we all wait and hope for new experiences to pile into our lives, rushing through our current moments as we anticipate what we hope comes next.
“Make it different and better than the last [job, relationship, vacation, put-your-wish-here],” we pray.
Why do we do this? Do we really just want to avoid repeating bad stuff? Or is it even more fundamental? Why is it that present moment mindfulness is so dang difficult sometimes?
Maybe what we’re really saying about our lives is: “The newness has worn off. Please give me something that lights me up and excites me. I’ve done all this before. I don’t want to go through it again.”
And that’s the mixed blessing of aging.
We don’t have to face the intense insecurity of junior high (or many other “firsts” like it) again.
Instead, we get its opposite: the hammering feeling of, “I’m worn out, this is so repetitive, when do I get a change? A real change? Is this it? Is life just more of this over and over? Endless family problems? Endless days at the same job? The same emotional patterns on replay year after year? Etc. etc.”
Some of us call this feeling stuck. Some of us feel ground down. Some of us call it the pessimistic lack of hope that we’ll never have a good relationship, or a good career, and to hell with it. We’re resigned.
We recognize that everything we get from here on are just variations of the things we’ve had before.
Sure, we did the high school or college experience. We did the first apartment. We did the first marriage. We did the kids. We did the first important job. We maybe even did the divorces, or the retirement. Now what?
How do we lift ourselves above this hamster wheel to feel actual excitement or hope that yes we can really can enter a new era where things get different and exciting again?
The way I’ve answered this is to feel that even though I’m more experienced with whatever’s coming next for me, I still feel that the latest set of people, circumstances, or timing around it will open possibilities for getting to know myself and my life at a deeper more intimate level.
It’s all about going deeper, not necessairy about constantly getting “more or newer.”
I’m ready to get intimate.
I’m ready to step in and embrace instead of stepping out to observe.
Getting intimate means I know I’m going to see a lot of the same stuff come round again, but what I do with it is going to be different and deeper each time.
And as I watch myself go through events, I get to know who I am though them.
As a manifestor and Flowdreamer, this means I consciously and emotionally select and cultivate the kinds of events I want to get to know myself through.
The value of my experiences doesn’t stop just because I’ve been through them once, or twice, or even a dozen times.
Each new variation is opportunity.
It’s no longer about what I achieve, it’s about what I become.
Think about all those people still caught up in the “achieve’ cycle. And now think about people who’re either consciously or unconsciously in the become cycle. Who’s more interesting? Who’s in your circle of friends?
Don’t get me wrong- the “become” mindset can certainly lead to some big achievements too! That’s the irony.
Because we often select experiences that help us to “become” something richer, more interesting, and more intimate, we often get external results from it too: results like thriving careers, relationships that finally hold the richness and intimacy we’re after, and even an appreciation for, and forgiveness of, our own selves.
Flowdreaming is a path to becoming. And (ironically, or coolly!) it’s the ass-backwards way to achieving. And it works like crazy.
So today, think about whatever boring, repetitive experiences you’re pushing through.
Now reframe them: Think instead about what you’re becoming, not what your achieving (or not achieving).
How will this new variation of whatever old experience you’re having push you into a new intimacy with yourself, or a new awareness of who you are?
Then ask yourself if you’re conscious of this process, and perhaps even guiding it through Flowdreaming or another practice ”¦ or if, instead, you’ve just been letting the boat steer itself?
Which sounds like a richer, more fulfilling ride?
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Tell me what you’re becoming, and what experience you’re currently using to become it by posting below.
XO with love and Flow!
Summer
P.S. A great playlist to help you along with this is called the Ultimate Self-Love and Self-Worth playlist. Its purpose is to help you open into yourself, see who you really are, and get deep with yourself.
It lets you release doubt, insecurity, self-blame, and all kinds of other emotional debris that prevents you from getting intimate with yourself, and re-engaging with your life. Check it out!
Thanks for this post Summer. It really resonated and helped me to reframe a difficult period I am going through. I needed to hear it and its arrival was timely.
As always, your messages are uplifting and inspiring. I’ve admired and listened to you for years and was saddened by the news of your illness. My very best wishes and prayers go to you as you are on the mend. 🙂 xo
thankyou summer you always inspire me with your beautiful positivity even when you are being completely honest . Listened to your healing podcast today in the bath with some essential oils as off work nto feeling well but feel much much better now so thankyou and keep being your amazing strong positive self on your own healing journey:)
Hallo Summer,
I was doing my administration yesterday, collecting all the invoices from different
company’s 🙁 The thought that came to my mind was, that all the new days of our lives are just copies of other dull, previous days, filled with the same boring tasks. Quite a discouraging and depressing thought. Then I heard a beep and checked my mail. Your message came in!!!
Now i think, that even if all days almost the same, I can make them expansive in my consciousness, bright(er), easy creating a beautiful company, where administration is just an easy small part of it.
greetings and all the best with you!!!!
Ps. By the way, my education and company both are realized thanks to your flow dreaming. Thank you for your beautiful gift.
cantelini
I feel relaxed and content at the same time I feel excited and open to possibilities. Thank you Summer, for this writing, I am on my “unstuck” journey and this has been a reminder that my “finding my deeper self” will infect yield the outcomes (relationships, career success etc) that I am “becoming”! Sending you love and gratitude (I hold my little boys most mornings now and bestow hem with a blessing ball of light) xxx
I enjoyed your post today – thank you. Life is full of transitions and you’re right that we should consciously choose how we view them: whether as a “replay” or as something we can “spin” differently.
Thanks for your wisdom and guidance.
I hope Lexi had a wonderful day and that the whole year is full of good things for all of you – and fewer spiders because they’re terrifying. I hope you feel better and better every day.
Hi summer, I feel I have become or becoming more at ease in trusting in my process, I have a deeper sense of peace that comes with age and life experiences. Staying in the present moment helps me appreciate each day
Listening to the birds sing, the rain fall, looking up to the sky and realising there is so much more than we know and believing that everything is happening as it is supposed to.
I trained as a humanistic counsellor 4 and a half years ago and really feel at home, I am working on a voluntary basis for a homeless agency, but am also building my private practice.
I have learnt to not focus on the outcome but on the seeds we plant along the way. I feel very strongly that if we work on getting to know ourselves, understand ourselves, being less hard on ourselves, we gain clarity and other relationships become easier. Connect with self and the rest will follow x warmest wishes to you x
I love this post Summer. I’m in a transition stage right now. Ending a 9 year job due to the fact that the business is closing, and trying to get clear on whether I do a MAJOR push to kick my side-job as a coach and energy healer into high gear or to pursue another steady paycheck job. As a single mom there is more to think about than just what I want to become. On the other hand I encourage others to live their passionate life and talk to women who have done that in my interview series. Maybe I need to re-listen to those for inspiration 😉
Thank you for your insight and guidance! I hope your daughter has a wonderful school year. I have one whose a senior in high school and one in 7th grade. No idea where the time has gone!
All my best!
You write so well Summer. You may not get this msg. I wrote you one upon your announcement of cancer and I got a msg of being unsubscibed. Just letting you know I think of you and all you’re experiencing and grateful you set an example of how to go forward in the midst of pain and fear. It’s so wonderful to hear your examples of looking at the beauty in everyday happenings and thank you for your fresh and positive outlook on living life.