Flourishing
Summer has always felt like the season that takes up space. The trees spread wide, the air hums with life, and everything leans toward the sun. Thriving is not quiet. It is bold. It is a fullness that cannot help but spill over.
But here is what summer taught me: thriving is not only about brightness or bloom. It is about alignment.
I used to say yes to everything, gathering achievements like wildflowers, performing so well that no one could question my worth. That kind of summer burned hot and fast. It looked abundant from the outside, but inside I felt scorched. I remember lying awake at night, staring at the ceiling, my chest tight with the question I was too afraid to ask: What if this is all there is to life?
Have you ever felt that way? Like you are doing everything right, and yet your soul is still gasping for air?
My turning point came in a moment I never expected. On a girls’ trip to Mexico, I turned to my friend and asked if I even liked hot holidays. She stared at me in disbelief, unable to understand why I would ask such a thing. But the truth was I had been using trips as a way to escape the life I had built, not knowing if I actually enjoyed them or if I just needed them to survive. I sat there with a soda water and lime in my hand, and for the first time in a long while I let myself be still. In that stillness, I felt the faintest sense of myself returning.
That moment showed me what I had been missing. True growth is not what happens when we push harder. It is what happens when we live in integrity with ourselves.
Maybe you have felt this too. The moment you finally say no, or choose rest, or allow yourself to create for joy instead of approval — and in that simple act, something inside you exhales.
For me, wholeness began with small but brave choices. Speaking more honestly, even when my voice trembled. Allowing myself to rest without rehearsing excuses. Choosing creativity when it would have been easier to numb. Each choice was like sunlight, drawing out a different kind of growth.
Yet even summer has its limits. Too much sun scorches the earth. Too much heat withers the garden. In the same way, what looks like thriving on the surface can burn us out if it is not balanced with rest and care.
This season reminded me that thriving is not a solo performance. The garden does not flourish because of one flower. It thrives because of the relationship between rain, soil, roots, and sunlight. Interdependence is what makes abundance possible.
I began to see this everywhere. In classrooms, students blossom when teachers feel supported enough to show up whole. In families, one person’s healing shifts the way love moves through the home. In communities, small acts of generosity create momentum no policy ever could.
Living fully is not about having everything together. It is about remembering that our growth is intertwined. My well-being impacts yours. Yours impacts mine. The health of our systems, our schools, and our Earth cannot be separated from the health of our own hearts.
This is why summer matters. It is the season that teaches us to embody what we have learned, to live it out loud, and to let our growth serve more than ourselves.
I no longer see thriving as a prize at the end of exhaustion. I see it as a practice of alignment. A daily return to authenticity, love, and connection.
Imagine what it would feel like to step into your own season of summer — to stand in your fullness without apology, to let yourself bloom even if the conditions around you are not perfect.
Summer reminds us that true vitality is not a fleeting moment. It is a way of being that radiates outward when conditions allow.
So perhaps the real invitation of summer is this:
Will we have the courage to bloom in ways that not only sustain us, but nourish the whole?