Midsummer Reflections + Journal Prompts: Immersion & Integration

I love summertime for all its visceral experiences that bring me out of my head and back into my body. Like driving on back country roads with the windows down on a midsummer evening, the setting sun warming my bare skin, still cool from a swim. The sound of a favorite song blending with the car’s engine and the steady rush of air streaming by our ears as we glide between corn fields and cow pastures.

Noticing the bouquets of wildflowers that adorn the road banks and really savoring them, knowing that they will be here for a few weeks at most before they fade away and the next flush of weedy opportunists rise up to take their place. Knowing that we have already passed the crescendo of the summer solstice, our longest day of sunlight all year.

From here forward the darkness and cold will return slowly, a little more each day. Until the sun lowers in the sky and our shadows lengthen. Until all the beautiful plants and flowers, now bursting with life, will begin to die and decay, retreating underground for another winter’s sleep.

Something big has clicked for me recently.

I’m probably not the only one who has been finding it really hard to stay present in my body. To really be here in the messy reality of the world when it would be so much easier to escape and forget. In this collective awakening, nothing feels comfortable or certain. It has been so hard to navigate, for all of us who are here and paying attention.

Living through these times has felt a bit like traversing a rushing river, trying to keep my body high and dry above the rapids that could sweep me away. Stepping gingerly from one slick stone to another towards a destination I can’t yet see. I’m scared to fall in. None of this feels safe. But this river is so wide and I’ve gotten so weary that I’m finding myself wondering what it would be like to just let myself to fall in – to become fully immersed in the churning waters and allow the current to take me away…

Because all of this is temporary. It seems so obvious but have you ever really thought about the fact that from the moment we are born we are all dying and really let yourself feel the reality of that in your body? Really feel it?

That got dark fast. But this has been all I can think about lately.

If we know we are dying and accept that at any moment, the people, places and things we hold dear could all be stripped away…

Then what is the point of clinging to a false sense of safety and security? Of cautiously avoiding missteps and hiding from our desires because we want to be seen as “good”? Of ignoring the call we hear, telling us there’s something deeper and truer out there for us? What is the point of staying so small and afraid?

You know what I realized?

That person who is cautiously treading from stone to stone is not me.

I am the rushing river. Like the river, I am from the Earth and of the Earth. In the same way that a river can bring vital, life-giving water and also terrible, damaging floods, who I am is inextricable from the complex duality of all existence. Within me, I hold the capacity for lightness and darkness, creation and destruction, growth and decay, beauty and grotesquery, life and death.

And this is true of each one of us, whether we are willing to face it or not.

We like to think of ourselves as “good” people who make “good choices”. But none of us are all “good” or all “bad”. We each hold the capacity for both. So we need to stop looking for comfort and validation in those labels because it’s all an illusion. There is no real safety, no guardrails keeping us on track. There is only us and the choices we make, moment to moment.

All this has reminded me of a favorite affirmation I used when I was preparing to birth my daughters into the world. “The contractions can’t be stronger than me, because they ARE me.”

The rushing river can’t be more treacherous than me, because I AM THE FUCKING RIVER.

I am treacherous, I am serene, I am powerful, I am nurturing, I am destructive, I am creative.

I am here in my body.

I am a mighty river and will no longer allow myself to be dammed with fear.

The journey of becoming whole is about being open to understanding duality and paradox.

It’s both a learning and an unlearning. A learning to expand our capacity to hold more than one truth at one time, and an unlearning to no longer seek to suppress or ignore one part of us over another. Embodying wholeness requires us to develop a more complex and nuanced understanding of ourselves and the world around us, beyond what can be seen as black and white, “good” and “bad”. It requires integrating seemingly disparate sides of our humanity and bringing them closer together, into a kind of flexible, compassionate balance.

It has helped me to think of duality as two ends of a spectrum with a tension, or interplay between them and not as two static, opposing concepts. Here are some examples:

Darkness // Light

Human // Divine

Yin // Yang

Creation // Destruction

Positive // Negative

Masculine // Feminine

Ambition // Contentment

Individuality // Conformity

In our society, we like to assign labels and categorize things for our own comfort. These things can make the world seem simpler and easier to digest but they also separate us from self-awareness and the fullness of understanding. Any part of us that is less desirable, especially those that have to do with darkness or destruction, we tend to want to avoid or repress. To not look where it hurts. Carl Jung referred to this concept as our shadow self, or the unconscious parts of our personality that our conscious ego doesn’t want to identify in itself.

We are living through a very confronting time in human history. For us to be able to identify and bring into balance the workings of the world around us, we first need to learn how to do so within ourselves. We need to find our footing in this practice of looking into the shadows and finding the root of what is wounding us so we can move forward with healing.

Some journal prompts for your own midsummer reflections

Shadow work is something I find immense purpose in. I am always seeking to deepen my understanding of this work, through talk therapy, reading books and articles and processing my thoughts and experiences in writing. Here are a few journal prompts to consider if you are feeling the nudge to face the things you are most afraid of, to look where it hurts.

When I’m going through a stressful time, how do I respond? What are my actions, impulses and behaviors and how do I feel about them?
What are some situations or things that trigger stress or anxiety within me? What is the underlying fear that is causing this reaction?
Think of someone you know in real life, or through the internet that you find “cringey”. What are the specific behaviors or traits in them that you find distasteful? What do you think those behaviors or traits say about that person?
In low moments, what are the worst things my inner critic says about me? What do I worry other people are thinking about me or judging me for? Do I judge other people for these same types of things?
After you’ve written these out, take a deep breath and ask yourself objectively: Is any of this true or even partially true? Where can I take accountability and where can I offer myself grace?

This can be very, very hard to do, but remember that you are not alone in this. It is important to meet yourself with non-judgement and self-compassion in this process. We all have parts of ourselves that we don’t want to accept or acknowledge. Shedding light on them and in time, embracing ourselves for the complicated, flawed, imperfect, messy humans we are is the first step to healing our relationships with ourselves so we can then begin to heal our relationships with others and the world around us. Even if all our worst fears about ourselves have a thread of truth in them, we are still worthy of love, respect and belonging. Our worth and dignity as human beings is inherent, not conditional. If you disagree with that statement, then that is where your own work needs to begin.

Midsummer Reflections + Journal Prompts: Immersion & Integration

The journey of becoming whole is about being open to understanding duality and paradox.

Some journal prompts for your own midsummer reflections

Further reading