As summer’s sultry, languorous vibe settles in, time seems to slow and expand. We have places to go, things to do, people to meet, and yet the heat stagnates and stifles.

While this can feel frustrating when we are trying to get things done, it also provides an opportunity to reconsider the value of taking a slower approach. For healing and self-awareness, for example, compassion, curiosity, and patience can yield subtle and profound rewards. Rainer Maria Rilke puts it beautifully in this passage:

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

Be patient with your heart, love the questions, live the questions. In other words, regard your issues, blocks, imbalances, and ailments tenderly. Pay attention, stay present, and with steady curiosity let them reveal their true nature. Then follow where that awareness takes you. There’s no sense in rushing; we can’t “live” the results until we’re ready anyway.

This feels like a perfect summer project: all of the growth, none of the sweat. Let me know if you agree! And if you could use some support in learning to love and live what is unsolved in your heart, get in touch.

In other easy breezy news, I’m holding a second workshop on intuitive decision-making on Tuesday, July 23 from 7-9PM EST. Are you hearing a big “YES”? I look forward to seeing you there. More details below.