If the Light Lingers Too Long
“Go and find yourself first so you can also find me.” — Rumi
At first, we welcome it.
The light. The longer days. The loosening.
The freedom disguised as ease.
We think we’re craving vacation, warmth, and play. And maybe we are. But often, what we really want is to be let off the hook. To be excused from performance. To stop pretending we’re not tired.
And summer, if you listen closely, is not just about bright joy. It’s about what gets revealed when the light lingers too long.
Because the thing about light? It exposes.
No one tells you how tender you might feel in July. Or how unanchored you can become when there’s nothing left to chase.
There’s a reason so many of us scroll more in the summer. Or drink more. Or cry in the middle of the day and don’t know why. The sun doesn’t fix things. It just turns the volume up.
The Body Knows First
There was a summer where I tried to stay bright. I filled my calendar with things that should have made me feel alive: late dinners, open windows, long walks through overheated streets. But something wasn’t right. I kept waking up tired, even when I’d slept. I felt overstimulated by joy I wasn’t fully feeling.
One afternoon, I found myself standing still on a sidewalk, just outside the corner coffee shop. My bag was heavy, the air was thick, and I couldn't remember what I was supposed to be doing next. I had nothing left to give. Not because I had given too much, but because I hadn’t paused long enough to receive.
That’s the part no one warns you about. The ache that sets in when you’ve outrun your own presence.
When the light stays, the body reacts before the mind can make sense of it.
You forget how much noise you’ve been absorbing.
You sweat through your resistance.
You stop pretending to be fine.
I’m not interested in telling you to rest. I’m interested in asking: What is your body trying to say that you’ve been trained not to hear?
This season, I’m returning to scent, not as a solution, but as a signal. I reach for my No. 3 Uplifting Outcomes blend not to be lifted, but to remember I’m alive. It smells like a cliffside far from the signal. Like something wild that grew without permission. Like freedom that didn’t need to be asked first.
There’s wisdom in instinct. There’s divinity in sweat. You’re not a machine. You’re not a brand. You’re not a self-improvement project.
You are living. Lush. Longing. Worthy of being met where you are.
Not Everything in Bloom Wants to Be Seen
There’s a certain kind of pressure in summer, the kind that doesn’t ask you to become, but to be visible while doing it.
The heat swells. The light intrudes. The world celebrates the bloom, but never asks if the bloom is ready.
Have you ever watched a flower open too fast? Bent by its own hunger for light, straining toward something it didn’t understand? It happens in humans, too.
We tell ourselves this season is about becoming radiant. But maybe it’s about breaking open in silence. Maybe it’s about letting yourself come undone, not in the dark, but in full view. Not hidden, but unperformed.
Sometimes summer is not the climax. It’s the soft, golden unraveling. The moment you stop growing and start letting go.
Summer in Three Acts
We try to make sense of summer through calendar months, but time doesn’t move linearly when you’re unraveling.
It moves like heat, swelling, stalling, surprising you.
But if we had to name it:
June: The Dissolving Structure
The meetings slow. The school year ends. The rituals of productivity begin to collapse. At first, this feels like relief. But beneath the surface, it’s a loss of identity. When you’re not needed, who are you?
July: The Swell
The heat is heavy now. Desire rises. Fatigue spreads. Emotions swell. There’s no hiding from your own interior. This is not the month of clarity. It’s the month of truth.
August: The Unmaking
The days remain long, but the sun starts to hang lower in the sky. You begin to see what the fire didn’t burn away. What remains. What never mattered. What quietly saved you. August is a holy undoing.
In the Company of Wild Things
Somewhere between stillness and collapse, nature keeps offering metaphors. I once stood near a wild orange grove in high summer. The fruit hung heavy, unrushed. Bees moved lazily through the heat, drunk on abundance. Nothing was urgent, yet everything was ripening.
There’s a scent in that kind of place, bitter rind, warm air, a trace of dust. It doesn’t ask you to feel better. It reminds you that time, too, is sensory. That ripening has its own rhythm. That clarity doesn’t always arrive clean, it arrives layered, aromatic, and slow.
Maybe that’s what summer is for. Not momentum, but memory. Not the next thing, but the truth beneath what’s already here.
If the Light Lingers
If the light lingers too long, let it not be a burden but a mirror. A way to see what’s been trailing behind you, quiet and unclaimed. Let it call you inward, not to disappear, but to re-enter softer, with your senses intact.
This season may not give you answers. But it might just return you to your essence. To the scent of something wild. To the part of you that doesn't need to bloom to be real.
Let This Be the Value
Not answers.
Not how-tos.
Just the permission to feel strange in a season that insists on joy.
To admit you’re overstimulated by light, exhausted by happiness, and aching for something you can’t name.
To return to scent, not as fragrance, but as reminder.
To stop reaching for clarity and start paying attention to what your body already knows.
To slow down without collapsing. To soften without apologizing. To feel deeply without performing insight.
To pause, simply because you can.
Let This Question Linger
What is the light revealing that I’ve been trying not to see?
If the light lingers too long, may it at least lead you back to yourself.
And if you need a place to sit with all that’s rising, I’m here—for slow coaching sessions, for aromatic readings, for the space in between.
Let the Season Hold You.
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