Permission to Let This Summer Be Whatever You Need It to Be

So as we kickstart this slow summer series, my focus here is on super simple ways for us to incorporate more of an intentional living this summer.

Ways for us to slow down.

Ways for us to really treasure the moment and the season that we are in, but do so in a purposeful way without trying to become someone that we're not.

So many of us are quick to fill our calendars, rush with all the things that we hope to accomplish and the person of ourselves that we want to be when the summer season comes, especially as a teacher myself, when I'm home with my boys during the summer, it can be really easy to give into that temptation to, um, have to curate everything, to have to optimize everything, to have to have everything done in the calendar full and all the itineraries and all of the camps and all of these things can add so much pressure.

But what if the summer wasn't perfectly planned? What if the summer didn't have to be packed with all these activities? What if the summer you didn't feel obligated to completely transform yourself? What if the summer instead could simply be exactly what you need it to be? We carry so much expectations as we head into new seasons, but especially summer.

Summer carries so much pressure and it can be hard to keep up.

The reality is the pressure that comes with summer is created by comparison.

It's created by constantly looking at other people and other situations without really taking into account the real facts, right? Anytime we're comparing ourselves to others, we don't have the full story.

We just are looking at what we think we know based on our own eyes and not knowing somebody else's walk and their shoes that they're in.

And we feel this pressure through our own false insecurities of our own areas that we feel uncomfortable with and insecure about.