It’s May | Step Into Your Light
My grandmother - my Omi - used to say that when it rains in May, you should go outside. May rain makes your hair grow, she said. I never questioned it. I just went outside.
There is something in that. The willingness to step into the season fully - rain, mud, imperfect conditions and all - because the aliveness of it is worth more than staying dry. May has always felt like that to me. The month that embraces its own abundance, the month full of promises, the month that basically says: anything is possible, come play. The month where the light starts to feel personal.
This is the month where something in the body, the soul, and the mind wants to move for the pure joy of being alive. Longer days, more warmth, that particular quality of late afternoon light that makes you want to be outside (for me: my daily walk in Griffith Park), in your own skin. Strong. Present. Awake to what you are capable of.
I talk to my body in May - though honestly, always now. I tell her she is doing beautifully. I thank her for carrying me through winter. Sometimes I hug myself, arms wrapped around my own shoulders, and mean it completely. This practice came to me through The Class, and it changed something real. The body softens when it is spoken to with love. It opens. It remembers its own strength. And that strength - physical, cellular, deeply embodied - is one of the most radical acts of self-possession a woman can cultivate.
Expansion comes in many forms. Sometimes it is as small as stepping outside in the rain because your grandmother told you to.
"The challenge is not to be perfect. It is to be whole.“ - Jane Fonda
May is also the month where I feel - with strange clarity - how challenging it is to bring ideas to ground. To breathe life into them.
They are everywhere. The energy is rising. Summer feels close enough to almost touch - that particular quality of anticipation, the season where everything feels possible, where the world opens up and stays open. And then comes the gap between the dreams and actually making them real. The floating ideas that never quite land. The intentions that stay intentions.
This is deeply human. And it is worth sitting with rather than pushing past.
The question is which idea deserves your full presence right now. Empowerment is often framed as expansion - more, bigger, bolder. And yes, May wants boldness. But real empowerment has a root system. Vitality without groundedness burns out. Confidence without foundation wavers. The women who step most fully into their power are the ones who learned to hold fire and earth at once - burning bright and rooted deep.
Three Invitations for May
Move your body as an act of devotion. Go outside in the rain if you can. Let May's energy move through you physically - walk longer, dance in your kitchen, lift something heavy, stretch toward the sky. Strength is built in the body before it shows up anywhere else. When you move with joy rather than obligation, something shifts at a cellular level. Your mitochondria respond to it. Your mood responds to it. Your sense of what is possible responds to it. This is biology dressed as pleasure, and May is the perfect month to remember it.
Choose your one thing and go all in. The ideas are magnificent and they will keep coming. But one of them is calling louder than the others right now. You and only you know which one it is. Give it your full presence this month. Write it down. Block the time. Tell someone you trust about it. Commitment is the thing that turns a dream into something you can actually hold. It actually creates space. The other ideas will still be there in June, patient and waiting. The one you choose deserves your energy and May’s full support.
Speak to yourself as someone worth speaking to. Your body is listening to everything you say about her, to her, and around her. Tell her she is strong. Tell her she is capable. Thank her for the ten thousand things she does without you ever having to ask. Hold yourself - arms around your own shoulders, full presence, complete sincerity. This is what confidence feels like when it is built from the inside rather than borrowed from the outside. It is quiet and unshakeable, and it starts here.
“This very body that we have, that's sitting right here right now - with its aches and its pleasures - is exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake, fully alive.” - Pema Chödrön
Three Reflection Prompts for May
Take a moment for yourself and contemplate:
Where in your life are you playing smaller than you actually are?
What would it feel like to take up your full space this month, to play, to be wild and free?
Which one idea, dream, or intention is ready to be chosen right now? What is the very first step towards making it reality?
The HWELL Takeaway
May is generous. It asks very little and offers everything - light, warmth, the particular electricity of a season that believes in possibility. Your only job is to show up for yourself fully.
Move your body because it is the most direct conversation you can have with your own vitality. Choose your one thing because focus is a form of self-respect. Speak to yourself with the devotion you would offer someone you love completely. And step outside when it rains because your Omi was right, and because the women who bloom most fully are the ones who stopped waiting for perfect conditions.
Strength is already in you. Confidence is already in you. The fire is already in you. May just makes it easier to feel all of it at once.
Go outside. Get a little wet. Grow.
💚 Gaby
Follow us on Instagram
Share with friends: