Shifting from Surviving to Thriving at the Summer Solstice

For those of us observing the Summer Solstice, we’re marking not only the initiation of summer but also a new cycle. And of course we can’t forget that today is the longest day of the year, so from tomorrow the days get increasingly shorter as the dark overtakes the light. The Summer Solstice is a celebration of life, light, and abundance.

lIFE, DEATH, AND REBIRTH

One of the most beneficial changes I’ve ever made was starting to live seasonally. The impact that flowing with nature’s rhythm has had on my mental, spiritual, and physical health can’t be understated. To me, this means accepting that we don’t pass through life in a linear way. It may feel like it because we focus on the passage of time day by day, year by year, but actually evolution moves in a non-linear spiral that constantly shifts between Life, Death, and Rebirth. When we start flowing through life in a cyclical way just as we move through seasons as the wheel of the earth spins, we give up resistance and our general life experience starts to flow more fluidly.

At the Spring Equinox we were initiated into a collective Rebirth cycle as we woke up, planted seeds of intention, and planned for longer, more hopeful days. Today, the Summer Solstice welcomes us to the next step on this journey where we sow our seeds and rejoice with the earth’s bounty. At the cross-quarter festival of Lughnasadh in August we’ll enjoy the fruits of our labor as the summer season peaks and we begin to harvest. Today though, we initiate a collective Life cycle. We quite literally shift from a season of surviving to a season of thriving.

If Death cycles, which commence at the Autumn Equinox and progress through the Winter Solstice and the cross-quarter festival of Imbolc, teach us to shed, release, and recover, Life cycles are for, well, living. Remembering that there can be no death without a birth and no birth without a death, we understand that a Life cycle cannot exist without a Death cycle, just as we can’t stay awake for 24 hours a day. Flowing with this natural rhythm means we can both honor the medicine of Death cycles and joyously celebrate Life cycles!

HEALING AND LIVING SEASONALLY

As a healer I can’t help but notice that healing seasonally and living seasonally are remarkably similar processes. When we commit to processing and healing our wounds - though often we don’t make a decision, these wounds just become too much to bear and we’re forced to intervene - we experience a metaphorical death.

A cycle comes to an end and we release, heal, and rest (the part of the process that I call an Underworld Journey). Eventually we emerge, reborn into a new cycle of conscious and autonomous thinking. Pain transmutes into empathy and self-compassion, our wounds become less raw. Once our nervous system feels safe in this new iteration, we start to live again. This new life, however, is not like any previous Life cycle because we’ve died and been reborn. Past Life cycles reflected our past selves including past desires, values, and beliefs. But since then, we’ve been through the Underworld. We’ve lived through a Death cycle as well as a Rebirth cycle. Now it’s time to thrive in our current selves!

“Solstice is a time of bounty and abundance, of pure vitality. New flowers surround us with tantalizing scents and color; fruits form, grow, ripen, and glisten. This is summer. The days are long, free, and open. Bees, birds, and butterflies flutter about. At night, if you’re lucky, you can watch fireflies glow, lighting the sky with magic. Earth delights in a full expression of life, and so shall we.”

-Fiona Cook, The Wheel of the Year, An Illustrated Guide to Nature’s Rhythms

What is the Summer Solstice?

Those of us who observe the old ways may know the Summer Solstice by the name Litha, others yet may prefer Midsummer (which is misleading because it’s actually the first day of summer). Regardless of what you call it, the festival marks the longest day of the year; in fact, the word ‘solstice’ derives from the Latin words meaning ‘sun’ and ‘still’ (Fiona Cook). It is the zenith of the Wheel of the Year, the ancient Celtic/Germanic calendar that has seen a revival in recent years. It occurs around 20/21 June in the Northern Hemisphere and around 20/21 December in the Southern Hemisphere. Half of the earth is tilted towards the sun while the other half is tilted away from the sun. Each half will switch positions over the next six months as the wheel turns. In other words, after Litha, the days become gradually shorter until the Winter Solstice (a.k.a Yule), though it doesn’t immediately feel like the darkness is approaching because we still have several balmy, languid days ahead.

Throughout the ancient world, the solstice was a festival during which sun and fertility deities were honored. For example, the Romans paid tribute to the goddess Vesta while the Celts exalted the goddess Aine. In Ancient Egypt, the solstice commenced flood season when the waters of the Nile River overflowed and fertilized the surrounding land. To this day the sun still sets between the pyramids of Giza on the solstice, just as it sets between the stones of at Stonehenge in England. Even in our modern world Midsummer is observed by several cultures, perhaps most famously in Scandinavia. Depending on what spiritual or cultural paradigm we subscribe to, the Summer Solstice is generally observed through rituals relating to the handing over of the light to the darkness in a nod to the cyclical nature of the earth. Fires, the sun, bountiful feasts, and blooming local flora play a starring role in solstice celebrations.

Celebrating Litha with Pure Pleasure

There are so many gorgeous ways to observe the solstice / Litha! For me, this festival is all about sweetness. Last year I visited a quaint English village with a friend who mentioned a podcast by Florence Given called Floss’ Guide to Living Deliciously, and I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. We spent that whole weekend discussing the merits of constructing the most sensuous and delicious life possible. Now that the Summer Solstice has rung in a new Life cycle, the idea of living deliciously is even more resonant! I find myself looking for ways to make each and every moment a little more pleasurable.

Did you cringe when you read the word ‘pleasure?’ Take note of that, it’s part of the medicine that Litha serves. Why are we uncomfortable with the idea of pleasure? (Get your mind out of the gutter we’re not talking about sex) Pleasure can be sooo hard for some of us. While some have no issues receiving all the abundance they deserve, resting when they need to, and truly enjoying life, others just aren’t able to. Maybe we don’t believe we deserve it. Maybe we’ve been taught that we have to work hard to earn our pleasure. Unfortunately many of us don’t feel safe in the moments when life isn’t being an asshole. It can feel like a trick to our nervous system if we’re accustomed to living in survival mode.

This is such a common issue yet many of us wouldn’t even know how to answer the question, ‘What does thriving look like for you?’ I invite us to change the wording and consider what living deliciously would look like because the answer to that is at the core of what it means to thrive. Living deliciously feels a bit more palatable to a defended nervous system. Personally, when I’m living deliciously, I’m free. I’m waking with the sun, not to an alarm clock or anyone shouting my name. I’m buying fresh peonies not the wilted carnations on sale, and then I’m enjoying them with a glass of champagne because that’s my wine of choice dammit. I’m wearing a smoky perfume that reminds me of a very delicious time in Paris. I’m burning the candle I love, not saving it for when a guest comes over. I’m hanging sun catchers in my bathroom so it’s full of rainbows because why not?

Life is short folks. Every minute of it is a choice. There is absolutely nothing that we are forced to do. Yes, there are consequences to not doing certain things, but we still have a choice. Some people have more options than others, but regardless of whether we’re rich or broke, we can choose to live blandly or live deliciously. Let’s constantly ask ourselves, ‘What can I do to make this experience more delicious?’ Can we wear the sequins; splurge on the hand soap we really want; play some jazz while we meal prep? Can we honor the solstice by inviting friends over for frozen pizzas and cocktails just because it’s fun and because life is about thriving?

Shifting from Surviving to Thriving

Okay okay, this is all easier said than done. While I like to consider myself a Libertine, I’m also a Virgo Rising, a trauma survivor, and a therapist so I know better than most people how difficult it can be to thrive.

So much of our existence is about surviving. Our ancestors planned the harvests to ensure their survival during the barren winter months, just as many of us now plan our short weekends to ensure our soul’s survival as we run on the hamster wheel of modern life. While most people reading this won’t regularly struggle to have their basic survival needs met, our spiritual and emotional needs are a different story. It’s worth noting that the human nervous system (read brain) hasn’t yet evolved to distinguish the difference between a physical threat and an emotional one. Whether our body is in danger or we’re feeling emotionally activated, our brains react the same way - with a survival response because it believes that we’re unsafe. For those of us in stressful jobs or unconscious relationships or if we haven’t fully processed our wounds, our nervous systems are literally fighting to survive every day.

This is unsustainable.

When the body has been in survival mode for a long time it isn’t just a matter of flicking a switch to feel safe again. Regardless of whether things are going well on the outside, the nervous system can’t just relax because we want it to. Stress hormones adrenaline, cortisol, and noradrenaline are meant to be temporary to enable us to get out of harm’s way. If we sustain high levels of these hormones for long periods, not just a matter of minutes, the nervous system becomes dysregulated and remains hypervigilant, never mind all the long-term consequences such as high blood pressure, cancer, heart disease, anxiety, depression, and emotional dysregulation.

Just because things start going well in our lives - just because we quit that toxic job, we’re in a healthy relationship, we’ve recovered from our illness - doesn’t mean that our brain trusts it. It wouldn’t be much of a protector if it disarmed itself as soon as the sun came out, now would it? Moving between states is a process by which we gradually move from fight/flight to preparing for fight/flight and eventually to rest/safety.

How EFT ‘tapping’ Can Help us Thrive

Obviously I’m entirely biased as an EFT therapist, but I don’t think there’s a better way to shift out of survival mode than through EFT ‘tapping.’ There is an exercise that all EFT practitioners are encouraged to do themselves called the Personal Peace Procedure because it ensures that we’re dealing with our own issues.

One of the phenomena of EFT is that as we clear certain issues we pull up the roots of other issues that share the same core wound. Therefore, we can actually shift multiple issues by working through only a couple. Can you think of a better way to shift from surviving into thriving?!

Note: If you’re new to tapping, check out this brief video explaining how to tap on yourself while going through the exercise below.

Personal Peace Procedure

Step 1: In a notebook, number the lines 1 to 100.

Step 2: Start filling the lines with every memory; ‘issue;’ difficult emotion; limiting belief, problematic relationship; fear or phobia; and ailment in your life.

Note: if anything is too activating to write, just give it a title like, ‘This Memory from when I was 6’ or ‘This horrible experience.’ Put an asterisk next to it and consider that this is best worked through with the help of a professional.

Step 3: Once complete, go back and read each line. Sense into what’s happening in your body when you think about it. Write a number from 0 to 10 next to each line, rating the intensity of the feelings that it brings up.

Step 4: Starting at the lines with the highest ratings, choose one issue to begin with and tap through it, periodically checking what number the intensity is. Keep tapping through it until the intensity is a 2 or below. This might take a single sitting or it might take a few. Keep paper nearby and take note of things that come up, this will be a good resource when you start to notice patterns.

Step 5: Once you’ve cleared the first issue, go back through the list and in a different color pen, rate the intensity of the feelings coming up about each line again. Notice whether the numbers are the same, have gone higher, or reduced.

Step 6: Choose the next issue and repeat Steps 1 to 5 again, taking note of how the intensity of the other lines has shifted after each issue you tap through.

The purpose of this exercise is to see that as we clear the most intense issues and feelings, the intensity of the other issues reduces naturally.

You will not need to tap through all 100x lines, I assure you. Reducing the intensity of a few is often enough to unravel the other issues because they all share common denominators that will have been worked through when tapping on related issues (whether they seem related or not)!

Next Steps

If you feel called to shift out of survival mode, feel free to book a Discovery Session with me to learn how EFT can serve you. You can also peruse the Healing Network, an offering of diverse healers and coaches who may resonate with you. I also invite you to just live a little more deliciously this season! Introduce some sweetness, slow down, and feel the throbbing heartbeat of the earth as we commence a new Life cycle. How can you, just at this moment, live a little more deliciously?