Hey Reader,
And just like that, it’s June. The days are long, the weather is finally nice, and while my allergies are out of control, I’m loving a long walk around the lake.
It’s interesting though, this particular energy that June can bring. It’s part “anything is possible” as summer drifts closer, and part “you better make everything happen, time is running out.” As the first half of the year wraps up, there’s a message in the collective atmosphere (sometimes subtle, sometimes very in your face) that this is the moment to recommit to everything, to audit your January goals, and to buckle down and get it all done.
I felt it a bit this week. Both the inspirational energy and that pull of urgency. I sat down to map out my summer and proceeded to plan as though I were three people with unlimited energy and no existing obligations. It looked great on paper - reasonable, even (said my brain). And then I had to look at it again (like, really look at it without my rose-colored glasses on), and get honest about what I actually had the capacity to commit to.
It was about 40% of my aspirations, tops.
Which, first of all, is useful information even if a tough truth to face. And second of all, points to something I keep coming back to over and over again in my own life, with my clients, and the way society is set up in general. We’re taught that if you don’t get everything done that you want to get done, it’s either a planning problem or a discipline problem. You just have to be ~better~, and then everything will work out.
But I think there’s something much more foundational in question here. The gap between who you are today and the aspirational version of you that any influencer or motivational speaker will tell you you can be (it’s only $XX.99 to buy my system!) might actually not be something to resolve. I think it’s an opening to question the very framework we are using (being sold) to measure ourselves within the first place.
That's what I want to talk about this month.
You can also read this as a full article on the blog [click here]. But if you'd rather stay here, keep scrolling.
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What if time isn't the neutral measuring stick we think it is?
Earlier this spring I read a novel called Alone With You in the Ether by Olivie Blake. It's a love story, but underneath the love story is a sustained meditation on time — what it actually is, how little we understand it, and how completely we have organized our lives and our self-worth around a version of it that might be more convention than truth.
One of the things the book surfaces is that not everyone experiences time the same way. Neurodivergent brains often have a fundamentally different relationship to it. And even for those who don't, time moves differently depending on what we're living through. In flow, when you're deep in something that has your whole attention, it simultaneously speeds up and slows down. When you're bored or trapped or waiting, it drags in a way that feels almost physical. We've all felt this. Time isn't the fixed, neutral, evenly-moving thing we treat it as. Not to mention that depending on your privilege, access, and resources, you may have a lot more time or a lot less time than other people do in any given moment.
And yet. We use it as the primary measuring stick for whether we're succeeding at being alive.
Are you where you should be at your age? Did you accomplish enough this year? This month? This week?
The entire architecture of self-improvement — the goal-setting, the audits, the recommitting — isn't wrong. These can be genuinely useful. But they tend to rest on an unexamined assumption: that time is a straight line, there is a fixed destination you should be moving toward, the distance between here and there is a measure of your worth, and *no matter where you are* you should be further along by now.
But further along toward what, exactly? And according to whom?
***
The performance trap (and why you can see it clearly and still feel the pull)
Immediately after I finished that book, I read another Olivie Blake novel, Girl Dinner, which is a very different kind of book. It's messy and funny and cringe in the best way, and it kept pulling me back to a question I think about a lot: what does it mean to perform a version of yourself, and what are you actually hoping it will get you?
The book circles around what it means to be a woman; or, rather, what it means to perform “womanhood” (and subsequently “girlhood” and “sisterhood”). It engages with whether those concepts are even real or just another set of expectations we've absorbed so completely we mistake them for identity. And there's this particular trap it names that I recognized immediately: the woman who Has It All. The one who is successful and beautiful and healthy and present and productive and fun and a perfect parent and also somehow serene about all of it.
We know, on some level, that she isn't real. Even the characters in the book know it isn’t real. We all know the game is unwinnable. And yet, we want to win it anyway. The whole book is about what lengths you’d go to to win the unwinnable game. Because if you could just get it right, perform it perfectly enough- maybe you’d finally feel like you belong. Like you’d earned your place. And the frustrations and overwhelm of life would finally fall away and you would have *arrived*.
Whew.
This isn't just about womanhood, though that's where the book lives. It's about the broader architecture of performing a self that is acceptable, successful, and legible to the people around you. And the painful awareness that you can see the trap clearly and still feel the pull of it. Knowing it's constructed doesn't make it feel less real. Knowing the game is rigged doesn't make you stop wanting to win.
That tension between seeing clearly and still feeling the pull is important. I don't want to gloss over it, because it’s actually the point. So much of wellness culture would have you believe that awareness is the finish line. That simply being able to see what’s going on is enough to be free of it. Name the conditioning, release it, move on. But that's not how it works in a body.
***
Why this lives in your body, not just your mind
So why doesn't awareness set us free?
Because these concepts of linear time, the aspirational self, and the performance of having it all didn't just land in your mind as a set of ideas. They landed in your body. They got woven into your nervous system through years of experience, feedback, and relationship. Your system learned, very early and very practically, that fitting in meant safety and belonging (fundamental needs as humans). Your system also learned that performing the “right” version of yourself kept you connected to the people you needed, in good standing socially, within your family, your community. You found out early that standing out, or falling behind, or failing to meet the standard carried real social risk.
Your nervous system is very good at its job - to keep you alive, safe, and connected (at any cost). It doesn't stop doing that job just because you've read the right books or done the inner work or can articulate exactly what's happening and why you want to change.
Let’s look at a small example of how this can get complex, quickly.
Say you’ve been shaving your legs your whole life. You learned it’s just what you do, regardless of how annoying or time consuming it is. And one day you decide you don't want to shave your legs anymore. You're done with it. You let the hair grow out and for a while it feels genuinely free and empowering. It's a little bit rebellious, a little bit of a homecoming... a reclaiming of your own body.
Then someone invites you to the beach for a party. And something in you immediately says: I need to shave my legs.
It’s not cognitive - it’s a visceral part of you that learned what was acceptable and conventional and who knows how to protect you in very specific ways.
When it comes to actually shaving your legs for the party:
You might do it. Because there's something about fitting in that allows your system to relax, even when it feels like backpedaling.
Or you might not do it. In this you may feel true to yourself, and also notice a low hum of vigilance underneath that freedom. Is that person looking at me? Someone might comment. And whether that comment is celebratory or critical, you feel it land in your body either way as a judgement of who you are.
This is not a personal failing. This is a nervous system doing exactly what nervous systems do.
To be clear: neither option is good or bad, better or worse. They are simply decisions made from where you are and what's available to you in that moment. You might face the same situation many times and make different choices depending on the day, the season, what you need. There is no "once and for all."
Because it is more complex than “this is me” or “this is not me”. And you don't exist in isolation. Your nervous system isn't just shaped by your inner world; it's in constant conversation with the people around you, the rooms you walk into, the relationships you carry. The same choice can feel completely different depending on context.
Those unshaved legs might feel like pure power in a room full of friends who celebrate unconventionality. That same body walking into a family gathering where relatives have always had opinions about how you look, and share them loudly? That can register as a threat, and frankly, might not be worth dealing with. Not because you’re being less true to yourself. Because you're a human being embedded in a web of relationship and history and expectation that is also running this same loop.
Some contexts will genuinely be harder than others. That's not a failure of your inner work, it’s just true.
***
The practice of honest self-contact
So what do we do with all of this?
I want to come back to where I started: sitting with my summer plan, looking at the gap between my “ideal on paper” plan and my actual capacity, and what that moment really asked of me.
It would have been easy to do one of two things:
- To look at that plan and feel defeated. I could take that gap and see it as evidence that I'm behind, that I'm not who I used to be (never mind that she was constantly over-caffeinated and burned out), that I’ll never make it. I may as well give up and throw the whole thing out.
- To override what I was seeing and commit to the full plan anyway, running on the fumes of optimism (delusion) and the internalized cultural pressure of a fresh summer start. Leading, inevitably, to overextending myself, failing to meet my own expectations, and end up defeated and frustrated anyway.
Yeah those don’t sound appealing to me either. (And yet… how many times have I done them? How about you?)
Don’t worry: Obviously there’s a secret third option 😉
Because what I’ve learned, slowly and not always gracefully, is that I can’t go back to a version of myself that had more capacity and bandwidth. Especially because most of that bandwidth came from overriding myself in the first place. I also can’t pretend I’m a version of myself that exists outside of reality - a version that has no limitations, needs no rest, who is Perfectly Healed™️ and has it all figured out forever. I’ll never be her, and the more I can practice accepting that (and acknowledging the parts of me who still want to be her), the easier it becomes to see the other pathways available in *this* moment.
The only place I can actually meet myself is here.
And being here with myself (really here, not a story about here) requires more than thinking. It’s not just time blocking and color coding and figuring out the perfect plan. It requires honest contact with your actual capacity, your actual energy, your actual attention span. Not what you wish it were. Not what it used to be. Not what it will be someday. What it is today, in this body, in this season, in this particular constellation of demands and relationships and context.
The practice is learning to meet yourself in this moment - flaws, annoyances, judgements, wishes, and all - over and over again. It’s not a one-time thing, but an ongoing way of being with yourself.
You start by getting curious. Exploring yourself like you’re a fascinating specimen that you want to help thrive. You check in and ask a lot of questions.
Questions like:
Where am I in space?
What’s present in my body?
How are my energy levels?
What thoughts are rolling around in my head?
What have I already committed to?
What does that bring up in me?
What do I want to create?
What judgements, fears, excitements, uncertainties, expectations do I hold about that?
What standards am I holding myself to?
Are those working for me?
What are my values and how do I move from and with them?
The questions are information gathering-- not to problem-solve, but to gain understanding and connection within you.
When you over-commit- when you write the full fantasy plan and swear this time you'll execute it- you aren't being ambitious. You are abandoning yourself to an idea of who you should be. And every time that plan collapses under the weight of reality, it doesn't just feel like failure. It compounds the sense of being behind. It feeds the exact loop that made you over-commit in the first place.
If this resonates, I've created a free training on the cycle of over-functioning, and you can find it here.
The invitation I have for you for June is that of radical honesty with yourself. About time, about capacity, about the framework you've been handed and the parts of it that no longer serve you. About which contexts support who you're becoming and which ones ask you to shrink. About what you actually want, separate from what you've been performing.
It doesn’t mean you have to give up your ambitions. It doesn’t mean shy away from expansive, edgy goals and creations. It’s a calling to be so clear and real with yourself on what’s truly yours, and what it means to go after it without abandoning yourself in the process.
There might not be a 5-step checklist guarantee success. But success doesn’t come from a checklist, it comes from feeling ALIVE. From knowing that your true, core Self has ideas, projects, imaginings that only you can bring into the world. Caring for that Self, honestly and without performance, is what opens the door to all of it.
And if you’re not sure how to do that? Let’s have a conversation. This is exactly what somatic coaching can help you with - examining your frames, getting out of the cycle of over-functioning, creating more of what lights you up and accessing way more of your own aliveness (no burnout or abandonment required).
Love,
Kate
Upcoming Events + Experiences:
Virtual: On Friday, June 19th we have our free quarterly community gathering. Move into summer with intention, connect with your priorities for the season ahead, and receive somatic and energetic support to build capacity for what matters most to you. Click here to sign up!
In Person: In September, I'm hosting an autumn equinox retreat and would love to have you there! We'll gather in the heart of Minnesota next to a beautiful lake and spend our days immersed in nature, practicing yoga, making art, and traversing the portal of the equinox together - integrating what has been and making space for the season ahead. There are 3 spots left - is one of them yours?
Reading, Watching, Listening from May:
📚Books:
Total Count: 16
A couple of my go-to romance authors all had books release this spring so of course I read those.
The Night We Met - Abby Jimenez
Rules for the Summer - Meghan Quinn
The Love Haters - Katherine Center
I also loved:
Alchemy of Secrets - Stephanie Garber
Alone With You in the Ether - Olivie Blake
Girl Dinner - Olivie Blake
📺 Shows + Movies:
🏒💋 Off Campus - I feel about romance adaptations these days the way I first felt about Marvel and other superhero and fantasy adaptations 10-15 years ago - YES, MORE PLEASE!!!
🏥🩺 The Pitt - It causes my anxiety to spike sometimes but I grew up watching ER so I'm a sucker for a hospital drama, what can I say?
🔥🗿🌊 Survivor Season 50 finally ended and I was pretty thrilled with who won. If you're a Survivor fan please reply I want to know your thoughts.
😈🥊 Daredevil: Born Again season 2 - I LOVE Daredevil. And also, after the ICE invasion this winter, watching essentially the same thing play out on tv was a little rough.
🪐🚀 The Mandalorian and Grogu - I will watch every Star Wars thing. This was entertaining. Nothing groundbreaking, but certainly fun!
Re-watches: Spiderman No Way Home and Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness. Doing a little summer blockbuster prep 🤓
🎶🎧 Listening:
New Music Fridays - I decided I want to start listening to new music again - not just hits from 1995-2013 😆 I love these playlists!
Usually I listen to a lot of podcasts, but lately I just haven't. Not sure why; I'm sure I'll be back in a season of podcasts again at some point!
How about you? What are you consuming? What recommendations would you send my way?
