Slowing down to the speed of summer

One of my touchstones for gauging how fast–or slow–I’m living, is noticing if I have a vase of fresh herbs and flowers on my desk. When I’m living the life I desire, I create the time to meander in my garden and pick colorful and unusual flowers or plants to enjoy in my home office.

What’s your touchstone or benchmark that lets you know you’re moving at a speed that feels just right for you? A signal that tells you you’re living in alignment with what matters most?

For the last 16 years I’ve been self-employed. And it took me more than half of that time to figure out that I get to choose the speed at which I live, work and play.

When I finally “got this,” I realized … summer is an especially sacred time for me. It’s a time when I crave–and need–to slow way down. To embrace expanses of unscheduled time, to enjoy spontaneity, adventure, more time in nature and less time online. As delicious to me as homemade peach ice cream–I lap up spaciousness and big open creative windows where I get to sit with ideas, meditate on my career and personal hopes and visions, integrate all I’ve learned from the past six months, explore new ways of being and reconnect with soulful friends for long hikes and late night swims. Summer is when I recalibrate and am reminded of who I am and what I love.

So often I’m moving too fast and without realizing it, I let external activities dictate my internal speed–rather than the other way around.

I’ll be 50 in January and my sweet son just turned 13. I find my relationship to time is shifting. I perceive and experience it very differently than I did years ago. I realize that being in this body and getting to choose how, when and where I direct my energy and gifts is a precious gift. And if I move too fast and don’t take time to gestate and savor the “pearls” from my life, I’ll not only exhaust myself, I’ll miss out on the beauty of the lightning bugs because I was spending too much time rummaging through my cabinets looking for the right jar to put them in.

Interested in reading more about slowing down and living intentionally this summer? Check out (from my blog archives):
What is your intention this summer?
Is it time to unplug?
Slower is better

GET SUPPORT:  Ready to slow down and name and claim the life you desire? Join like-minded women in a supportive, nurturing and empowering environment!  July 10-12 I’ll be in the  cool Berkshire Mountains of MA at my favorite retreat center (the largest in North America): Kripalu Center for Yoga & Health for New Way of Being: Women’s Self-Renewal Retreat. Lodging is almost sold out–register today!  P.S. Kripalu not in your budget this year? Take a mini online retreat!

Subscribe here to Live Inside Out, a weekly blog written by mindfulness speaker/author and Career Strategists president, Renée Peterson Trudeau. Offering custom self-renewal workshops/retreats, training, books/telecourses and individual career coaching her work has appeared in The New York Times, Good Housekeeping, Spirituality & Health and more. Thousands of women in ten countries are becoming RTA-Certified Facilitators and leading/joining Personal Renewal Groups based on her award-winning curriculum.  She is the author of The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal and Nurturing the Soul of Your Family: 10 Ways to Reconnect and Find Peace in Everyday Life. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and 13 year-old son. More on her background here.