The Noise Of Summer. How To Self-Care When You Are Busy.

I have always thought summertime was noisy.

If you are someone who prefers audio, like me, then you likely notice the same sounds that are the stuff of my brain in the summertime.

The buzz of the bugs.

The gentle whir of everyone’s air conditioner running.

The large vrrrroooooom of motorcycles out enjoying the weather.

Summertime is noisy.

And for me, this summer has been noisy in so many other ways too.  I am a mother of two, and in the US that means camps, projects, lessons, adventures, and time stolen from quiet contemplation day by day.

I don’t mind this time with my children, they are two of my favorite humans on the planet—and I feel honored every day to care for them.  But that doesn’t come without tradeoffs. 

I have been thinking this summer about how to teach my kids how to slow down and pause when life gets wild, and I decided that I had better start a series of blogs on self-care and slowing down in the summer.

This is the first of those.

We are going to talk about noise.

Firstly, what are we talking about with the word noise?

Noise, in this context, is anything we consume over the time of our day.  It is activities, people, places, music, social media, phone calls, tv, that we let enter our brains over the course of any given day. 

Over time our brains can get used to the typical things, the usual activities, and they become less stressful over time.  But just like novel movement, the noise of summertime feels and reacts differently in our bodies.

We are often called to share and participate in activities during the summertime that we are not bothered again with until the Christmas season rolls around.  Family gatherings, dinner dates with friends, and travel that exists not just for your own leisure, but for an obligation as well. 

This is the Christmastime game but with hot weather and popsicles.

And we need to filter some of this noise so it doesn’t affect our overall sense of meaning and purpose, and our personal nervous system, and allows us to roll with and enjoy some of our favorite summertime-only activities.

Noise and Nothing.

 In Jenny O’Dell’s book, How To Do Nothing, she talks about modern society’s relentless need to fill our hours with things.  The doing of things, the experiencing of things, the work, activities, and realities of things.

One of the things I have observed in my own work as a yoga therapist is that the one thing that makes people nervous, especially people gendered and raised as women; is when I propose that they embrace the idea of structured “nothing” time.

This is a time in our days or weeks when we set aside a block of time to cut the noise.  We limit our social media noise, we press pause on our latest podcast, and we do…well…nothing.  When productive humans like myself hear the idea of “nothing” their brains immediately go to “I can do something productive for myself, like get a <insert thing> or read that book I have been meaning to get to”.

But what I really mean is to schedule some time to face the idea that you didn’t schedule anything to do.

Nothing is something that often makes me nervous too, so if what I suggested sounds like the worst afternoon in history, hear me out.

Our brains need less noise.

They need to take a moment, embrace the quiet, and reset.

When there is less noise in your life, the magic thing is that you all of a sudden get to listen to that inner voice you have inside you that has been shouting for ages a you haven’t been able to hear over the noise.

The Discomfort Of Quiet.

I think there is something important to acknowledge here—quiet is sometimes very loud.  Scientists actually recently released a study about how loud quiet actually is, and the results are in.  Quiet takes up auditory space. 

And there is something deeply uncomfortable about quiet.

Often we don’t acknowledge that the source of our busy lives lies in the unconscious desire to not listen to our own inner voice.  Sometimes it is because that voice isn’t very nice.  But often it is because that voice is telling us things we might not want to hear, but need to. 

There also seems to be a vacuum that is felt when we pause the noise and do nothing for a bit.  In yogic philosophy, we would unpack the idea of attachment, and ask ourselves how attached we are the noise and the busy. 

I have found that after times of incredibly stressful busyness, it is difficult for me to pause.  I invent more work to do, more projects to execute, more things to be done.  Just one more thing and then I will rest, I say. 

Maybe you do the same?

So what do we do?

My final suggestion to you about the noise is this: find your inner editor.  Edit your noise and busy until you have switched from having an intensity-filled noisy life to a session where all the noise and busyness around you meld together to make music.

Sometimes the music will get a more intense tempo, but it is partnered with the chilliest of down-beats so you are making the most satisfying fusion of jazz and salsa. 

 So my first suggestion to you this summer is to edit the noise.  Rethink all the things you said yes to in March when summer felt like that friend you always love to party with when they come to town.  Say yes to the things that feel like music, and no to the things that feel like noise. 

You really don’t need to do everything. 

Just the things that light you up.

And nobody is going to be mad at you about it, I promise.

Need some more strategies on how to pause this summer?  Join our virtual retreat from July 28-30th.  Grab your tickets here.