Editor's Choice: June Favorites

Body. Mind. Soul. Idleness.

Emotion of the Month: Idleness

A confession: I am terrible at being idle.

I come from a long line of women who do things. Useful things, productive things, beautiful things, but always things. The idea of sitting in a chair for thirty minutes with nothing on my hands and nothing on my mind feels almost transgressive. Which is exactly why I am leaning into it this June.

Idleness is genuinely misunderstood. We are not talking laziness or avoidance. It is the deliberate choice to stop optimizing, stop achieving, stop being useful for a stretch of time and to sit inside the quiet that follows. The body needs it. The mind needs it. The soul needs it more than any of us are willing to admit.

To be idle is to let yourself be slightly bored. To stare at a wall for ten minutes and discover that something inside you uncoils. To eat slowly because the food is good, not because you are timing yourself. To walk somewhere with no destination. To swim long stretches in a lake without counting time. To sit on a porch and let the afternoon pass through you.

It is, in this particular moment in history, almost an act of rebellion.

June is for it.

"...how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day." - Mary Oliver, from "The Summer Day"

What I Am Leaving Behind in June

Heaviness.

The accumulated weight of months of effort, vigilance, low-grade worry, anxieties. The shoulder-bracing. The bracing-for-the-other-shoe-to-drop. The carrying that became invisible because I forgot I was carrying it.

June asks for lightness. So this month, I am consciously setting it down - not all at once, because nothing real happens all at once, but a little every day. Letting the summer energy come in. Letting the light reach what has been shaded. Letting myself be carried by something larger than my own willpower.

If you feel the same heaviness, consider this your gentle nudge to start setting it down too.

On the Nightstand for the Soul: The Gift by Edith Eger

Edith Eger passed on April 27th, just over a month ago. She was 98 years old, a Holocaust survivor, and one of the most luminous psychologists who ever lived. I am reading The Gift again in her honour, and once again it is doing what it did the first time: stopping me at unexpected sentences and asking me to look at my own life more honestly.

Eger writes about freedom - the kind that has nothing to do with circumstances and everything to do with the choices we make inside them. She survived Auschwitz as a teenager and spent the rest of her life teaching people how to release themselves from the mental prisons they did not realise they were living inside. Her writing is plainspoken, deeply human, and somehow always exactly what you needed to hear that day.

A line that has been with me this month:

"The biggest concentration camp is in your own mind, and the key is in your pocket.“ - Edith Eger, The Gift

Read it slowly. One chapter at a time, ideally in the morning with coffee. It rewards patience. And it pairs beautifully with the idleness theme of this month.  Eger writes about freedom as something practiced in small daily moments, not achieved in grand gestures. Exactly the work June is asking of us.

Movement for the Body: Swimming

After May's Lagree intensity, June asks for something else entirely.

Swimming is one of my favorite forms of movement. June is when I return to it fully. Long, slow stretches in the lake at Mattsee. The water holds you. The body, weightless for the first time in months, finally remembers how to soften. My swimming is one of the few forms of movement that asks nothing of you -  no resistance to push against, no rep count, no progress to measure. You just glide. 

The science is generous too. Swimming is one of the most complete forms of cardiovascular exercise that exists - full-body, low-impact, easy on the joints, and exceptional for cardiovascular health, lung capacity, and lymphatic flow. For women over 40, who increasingly need to protect their joints while still building endurance and muscle, swimming is close to a perfect movement.

But honestly, the science is not why I do it. I do it because there is nothing else in my life that gives me the exact feeling of being held by something quiet and old and entirely unbothered by my to-do list.

Find your water this June. Whatever form it takes. Get in.

Nourishment for the Body:  Raw Food in Summer

Years ago, I trained as a raw food chef in Santa Monica. It was among the most transformative things I ever did. I did not become a strict raw foodist. The training did, however, teach me to think about ingredients in a completely new way. Texture. Flavour. Colour. What food can do for the body when it is in its most natural state. 

Summer is the season for more raw food. The body craves cooler, lighter, more hydrating meals when the weather warms up. Raw fruit and vegetables retain higher levels of vitamin C, certain B vitamins, and many of the heat-sensitive enzymes that get destroyed in cooking. They are also rich in water content, fibre, and phytonutrients that the gut microbiome loves. Cooked food is of course not the enemy.  Adding more raw to your summer table is just one of the simplest, most effective dietary shifts you can make this time of year.

The book on my counter this June: Raw and Simple Detox by Judita Wignall. It is approachable, beautiful, and the recipes actually work. If you are curious about adding more raw food without committing to a full diet shift, this is the book. The featured recipe below is one of the ones I keep coming back to.

Recipe of the Month: Tropical Bliss Pudding
Adapted from Raw and Simple Detox by Judita Wignall

A fruit pudding you will genuinely dream about. Five minutes to make. Breakfast or dessert - it works for both.

Makes 1 to 2 servings | Prep: 5 minutes

2 cups (280g) cubed papaya
1 ripe banana, peeled
1 tablespoon (15g) raw tahini
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
Liquid stevia or your favourite sweetener, to taste
1 tablespoon (5g) shredded coconut
1 tablespoon (8g) cacao nibs

Place all the ingredients except the coconut and cacao nibs in a high speed blender and blend until smooth. Pour into a small bowl and top with the coconut and cacao nibs.

A note: Look for raw tahini made from sprouted sesame seeds for the most nutrient density. Sesame is rich in calcium, iron, B vitamins, and methionine, an amino acid that supports liver detoxification. The papaya brings papain - a natural digestive enzyme - and the banana provides potassium and prebiotic fibre. A pudding that tastes like dessert and feeds your gut microbiome at the same time. This is exactly what we mean by biology dressed as pleasure.

The pudding tastes like a small holiday in a bowl.

The Summer Table

What is on mine this June:

Fresh apricots from the farmers' market, eaten whole, juice running down my wrist. A bouquet of wild sweet peas in a small glass jar by the kitchen sink. A tall glass of cold hibiscus iced tea with rose water, the kind that tastes like late afternoons in a Marrakech courtyard. Cucumber slices in ice water with mint. The first heirloom tomatoes of the season, sliced and salted, with nothing else. A small dish of olive oil with flaky salt for whatever needs dipping.

The whole point of a summer table is that it asks very little and gives a great deal. Let yours be slow, beautiful, and largely undecided. The best summer meals are the ones you almost do not plan.

Where I'd Go This June: Traunkirchen, Austria

If you find yourself anywhere near Upper Austria this summer, go to Traunkirchen.

It is a small village on the shore of the Traunsee, tucked between water and mountains, and for several summers it was my happy place. I rented the same house year after year. I swam in the lake every morning. I walked into the village to meet friends. I read books in the garden until the light turned gold.

The Traunstein rises directly out of the lake - a dramatic, almost theatrical mountain that you cannot stop looking at. I climbed it a couple of years ago, taking the Hernlersteig route, which is the maximum my fear of heights will allow. The Naturfreundesteig is more direct, more vertical, and entirely impossible for me. I mention this because some of you will be braver than me, and some of you will be relieved to learn there is a more reasonable way up. Both routes lead to the same summit and the same extraordinary view.

But honestly, you do not need to climb anything to fall in love with Traunkirchen. Stay by the lake. Swim every morning. Eat the curd strudel (because sometimes we have to indulge) at one of the village restaurants. Watch the light change on the water at sunset. Do less. See more.

It is one of the most idle, most beautiful places I know.

The HWell Takeaway

"I love being bored. Boredom is such a luxury now.“ - Tilda Swinton

June is the month to slow down deliberately. To swim more. To eat with your hands. To read books that make you stop. To sit on a porch and let the afternoon pass through you. To be idle on purpose, because your body and your mind and your soul have been waiting for this all year.

You do not have to earn rest. You do not have to optimize your summer. You do not have to be useful every minute of every day. Sometimes the most radical thing you can do is exactly nothing, and let the lake, the book, the papaya, the village, and the light do the work while you simply receive.

Set down whatever you have been carrying. Let summer do what summer does. Trust that idleness is not a detour from the life you want. It is part of it.

💚 Gaby

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