It’s June | Summertime When Living is Easy
Every June I think about the lake. The joy of swimming. Immersing myself into nature.
There is a particular lake in Austria close to where I live when I am there. The water is so clear and still it almost feels like a held breath. I swim in this lake, Mattsee, as often as I can, in long, slow stretches that turn into 45 minutes before I notice.
Last summer I started using a swim buoy, not because I felt unsafe but because my niece Celina asked me to. She worried about her auntie out there alone. I love her too much to argue. So now I float along with a bright pink friend trailing behind me, and honestly, it is one of my favorite things in the world - the swimming.
I also think about that lake in months when ease feels harder to find. Even the start of this summer, somehow, has not been all light. There have been waves I did not see coming. Anxieties surfacing where I expected only joy. Parts of me knocking on the door, asking to be heard. The strange truth about summer is that the light reaches into corners that stay shaded the rest of the year. Sometimes what gets illuminated is harder to look at than expected.
This is the work, though. Letting them speak. Letting them surface like fish rising to warmer water - visible, present, asking only to be seen. Only what is seen can shift. The rest stays buried, doing its work quietly in the dark.
"There is a place in you where you have never been wounded, where there is still a sureness in you, where there's a seamlessness in you, and where there is a confidence and tranquility.“ - John O'Donohue
Here is the thing about swimming. It teaches you something land cannot.
In water, your body lets go of the gripping it does not know it has been doing. The shoulders soften. The breath lengthens. The mind, finally without a phone in its hand, becomes simpler almost monosyllabic. Stroke. Breathe. Stroke. Breathe. The lake holds you up if you let it. It is one of the few things that demands nothing and gives everything.
This, I think, is what June is asking of us. Ease as a body-mind-soul practice rather than a vibe to perform. The body softens when it stops bracing. The mind rests when it stops anticipating. The soul comes back into the room when the other two finally make space for it. They are not separate, these three. They are one current.
And the body is the easiest entry point. Move. Stretch. Float. Walk barefoot. Lie in grass. The body remembers how to be alive much faster than the mind remembers how to be quiet.
Three Invitations for June
Find your water. Whatever form it takes - a lake, the ocean, a pool, a long bath in the evening light. Get yourself into water this month, regularly, and notice what your body does without being asked. June is the month to let yourself be held by something larger and worthwhile than your to-do list.
Let what is rising rise. When a thought surfaces that you would rather not look at, try this instead of pushing it under: let it float. Greet it like an old friend you had forgotten about. Ask it what it needs. Fixing is not the task. Listening is. Most of our hardest moments soften the moment they are seen with kindness.
Slow your pace deliberately. Summer wants you to move at the speed of light through grass - long, slow, unhurried. If you find yourself rushing through June the way you rush through every other month, that is your signal. Walk slower. Eat slower. Stay at the table longer. Let yourself feel slightly bored. Boredom is often the doorway to peace.
"To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work." - Mary Oliver
Three Reflection Prompts for June
Take a moment for yourself and contemplate …
What part of you has been asking for air lately, and what would it feel like to let it speak?
Where in your life can you trust the water to hold you, rather than gripping the side?
If ease was already available to you this month, what would change first?
The HWELL Takeaway
Ease is the willingness to keep floating even when the water gets choppy. To let the light reach the places that have been dark for too long. To trust that your body, your mind, and your soul are not three separate things to manage, but one beautiful, intelligent, deeply alive system that has been longing for you to listen.
This June, find your lake. Bring your bright pink friend if someone you love asks you to. Float more than you push. Breathe more than you brace. And remember that the most radical act of self-care is sometimes to do less, see more, and trust that summer has been waiting for you all along.
The water is warm. The light is here. You are allowed to be at ease.
💚 Gaby
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