How to Embrace the Summer Slowdown (summer series 3)

Scottie Durrett  0:00  
Scott Hey, my beautiful mama, welcome back to the podcast. My name is Scotty. I'm so glad you're here, and I'm actually really excited to record this specific episode for you, because as we're wrapping up the end of the school year, and it's a lot mean, it's it's always just one of those seasons that I think has the potential to wreck us as moms. And if we're not careful, we could end up rolling into summer, super burned out, and also just still on the habit of being on that go, go, go train and never really slowing down, never really giving ourselves and our kids a much needed, much deserved, not that you have to earn it break, and That's what summer's for, right? Seasonally, summer is a time for resting, and the days are longer and it's slower, right? Because it's so hot outside, you actually move slower, right? So it's actually designed for our prehistoric, just human nature, that this is a season for us to Slow the fuck down. But oftentimes our ego out, out talks our body, and we convince ourselves that the only way to have a great summer with our kids is to have everybody booked from sunrise to sunset in some sort of camp or adventure or play date or dinner party or trip. I'm not dogging on all those things. It's important for us to have such a variety of things that light us up. But if we're not careful, we can continue with the pace of life and the habits that have crushed us during May, and we can carry that into summer. So I want to just shed some light on all of this, because if you're already googling things like sleep away camps near me, and you've only been home with your kids for a few days, I first of all, I see you. I've been there. But this doesn't have to be your only your kids being away from you and out of the house doesn't have to be the only way that you create peace and inner Zen for yourself. You know, because Summer's here, yay, we've just worked our asses off to get here, and I know that you've been thinking to yourself, if I can just make it through the end of the school year, I cannot wait to be home with my kids and to slow down and take a break from the routine. And you know, of course, we all want it to be magical and fun, but it can feel very chaotic and we can exhaust ourselves, and before we realize it, we're starting to wish the summer days away and to get our kids back into school so that we can get a break. So welcome to episode three of the summer detox series helping you reset your nervous system. Because it's summer now and it's full blown. Oh, I just spilled my coffer. Now you get to see the real behind the scenes of what it's like to be a busy mom who's in her own recording studio. I want to talk to you about the summer because I want to hear, first of all, how is it going for you? Let me know in the comments what your real life summer moments look like and how you're feeling if there's anything that you're feeling anxious about, or if there's anywhere that you need some just a sounding board to help you figure out, like, how am I going to balance everything now that the some like, the routine is often the kids are home, 24/7, because, I mean, we all want summer, the switch from school to home and the all the time to be at home with our Kids, but we're also used to having a routine, having space, having structure, having our kids, if you choose to send them out and not homeschool, you, then your kids are leaving the house, and now they're home. 24/7, asking for snacks every 12 minutes and leaving, you know, a big mess in the kitchen every time they go in. We love them, but it can make getting your own shit done feel really impossible. And if we're being honest, a lot of us are even busier in the summer than during the school year, because you're now driving your kids probably to three different camps and three different play dates and three different beach days, and now you've got family visiting and friends visiting, and you want to keep everybody entertained so they stay off video games, so you can stop the whole screen time, fights all the time. And I know you're like me, that if you're productive, you sleep better and you feel better, and it leads to better activities, right? It's okay to have some days in front of the TV and slouch around. I mean, your kids have also worked as hard as you have, right? Recognize that let them heal. But I also know you don't want them sitting on video games, 24/7, right? And but we have to be mindful that we can go into doo. Doo, doo, go, go, go mode for summer. All of a sudden there's camps to get to, beach bags, lunches, you know, getting the snacks in and all, you know, the sunscreen, and you're not ever giving your body and your nervous system system a break, or your kids, and you're tapped out, right? And then, you know, with your kids, if you have drivers like me now, you're having different conversations and arguments about curfews and are they following your rules, and are they cleaning up the freaking kitchen when their 12 friends come over late at night? So today I want to call a timeout. I want to help us reframe summer, because I don't want you to be fried. I don't want you wishing the days away and counting down for the first day of school, just so you think that's the only time you can feel like yourself. This is meant to be a season of healing, of joy, of slowing down, of getting vitamin D right, like this is when we all wish for sun when we're going through, you know, lack of sun during the winter. Now you're here. I want you to enjoy it, but one of the things we want to let go of is trying to make it one perfect and trying to be the that trying to believe that the only way to have a great summer is to be doing, doing, doing. Your kids aren't asking for it. Neither is your students. Central nervous system. So let's zoom out for a second, like I was saying before summer is this season of expansion, of energy, of light, the days are long, the Earth is abundant, right? We just came off of the spring. It's the season to feel, to connect, to be outside, and nature does not rush. Drops right? Like crops are not growing faster because we're anxious. The sun doesn't sprint to sunset. Your body likes, just like nature also wants that space to slow down and breathe. So summer really is, if we can think about it, it's a time to live. It's a time to be not hustle harder. So maybe, just maybe, this summer, it's not asking you to do it all, and maybe your kids aren't either. Maybe are just asking the question, Are you the one putting that pressure on if it's true, that's fine. It's just awareness. It's great news, because it means you can change how you're showing up if you want to. I was talking to a mom at my son's baseball game this weekend, and she was, we were just kind of shooting the shed, and she was like, honestly, it's day three, and already my son is driving me crazy. And she was trying to register. She was on the her phone, trying to get her kids signed up for some part time work, or get him involved in like some sort of outreach program, just so she could get him out of the house and get him out of her hair. And I get it. When everybody's home, 24/7 everybody takes up a lot of space. There's a lot of energy, a lot of combative energy. We all have different energies that we're bringing into the rooms. And so not only is there just a ton of spice going on, but then it's really hard to get even just a few uninterrupted minutes. And so it can just exhaust you. It's just a different routine. And so as a way to combat that feeling of like, how am I going to get through it? Our habit, our default, is to do more, plan more, book more and push harder. So we try to make sure, in order for some summer to be good, we want to keep the kids busy, out of trouble, out of our hair.

Scottie Durrett  8:57  
But pause for a second. Does any of that feel good. Does it feel so good to just keep being so busy and being stressful in the summer and racing from thing to thing? Is it? Does it feel good for you? Does it feel good for them? Have you asked them if they even want to be this busy, or are you just in the habit of booking, booking, and they're in the habit of just doing what you have booked for them, because sometimes boredom, blank space, empty space, chilling out, laying on that pole, float, pool floaty for a few hours. That's not a problem. That's a good thing. That's a portal to being present, being in the moment, and that's when imagination is born, right? Like that's when we can tap into our creativity, and it's where central nervous regulation begins for you and for your kids. And it also just feels good to not have so many responsibilities. My daughter. Is starting college in the fall. And if you've been following with me for a while, you know, she's a very skilled and accomplished, you know, nationally ranked horseback rider. She's choosing to go to a school that does have a riding team, but it's a d3 team, so it's more she's not going to the school for that team. And I asked her if she wanted to go out for the team. And she said, You know what, I actually just want to go to college without any responsibilities. And I was like, Oh my gosh, that is such a great mindset. Because when you look at her four years of high school, her life has predominantly been schoolwork and horseback riding, with some chill time travel and friends sprinkled in there, but the majority has been school, and this, this passion and a lot of responsibilities, great life lessons there. I'm so glad she's she doesn't regret any of it, but moving into this new chapter, she just wants a little less responsibility. I'm wondering that's a great question to ask yourself and your kids, as you're rolling into summer, do we need a break from all the responsibility? Could we just take a little bit of time or build in if we're going to do camps and sports and all these activities, could we also build in the flip side of that right? What is the other side of the coin that helps us heal, that helps us restore, that helps us find joy and creativity and emptiness. I mean having blank space in your mind highly overrated, and we're not in the practice of it. So our SIS, our central nervous system, our own brain, our own body, isn't in the habit of slowing down, right, but it's such a good thing for us to pay attention to so that we can give our nervous systems a break, because when we over plan and overdo, we signal to our brain. There's always more to do. There's always more to fix. There's something could always go wrong. Stay alert, stay focused. And the body responds with tightness and tension and overwhelm. And, you know, irritability. So you might look fine, but your system is on high alert. And I talked about that in the previous episode. Our fight or flight system, our alert system, incredibly important and keeps us alive, but it's not meant to be functioning. 24/7, so can we learn to loosen our grip a little

Speaker 1  12:19  
bit? Will you like? Could we aim

Scottie Durrett  12:23  
to learn how to let go, let our hair down? And could that also be enough so that the signal to your body, to your brain is this is also safe, we can shift from fix it and do it, mode into our in our mode, rest and relaxation and receiving a little receiving, a little slowdown. And when we do that, we activate that parasympathetic nervous system, the rest, the digest, the heal mode, the creativity. That's not Woo. That's not new either. That's biology. So can we, as a mom, set this energy in the house that it's okay to slow down. It's okay to not be busy all the time. It's okay to do nothing. In fact, doing nothing is doing something really important and letting go of perfection and trying to stay busy all the time. It's actually nervous system regulation. It also allows your kids this beautiful freedom for them to go and adventure on their own. If you're not planning everything for them, then they are having to go plan stuff for themselves. It'll be fun for them to discover, what do I like? What do I need, what do I want? Because right now they're just riding on your coattails, which has been great. You're fucking amazing. But there's this beautiful opportunity during the summer, because there isn't as much pressure, there isn't as much responsibility, to also let them discover what it feels like for them to not be so busy, what comes up for them, and then telling them that this is good enough, chilling out, not being on the go all the time, that's also good enough, and it's healing, and it helps your nervous system have practice to handle when things don't go the way that you want. It's giving your body a whole new set of information for it to live with. Because throughout the school year, we're very regimented. We're very structured. We have a very clear routine. So our body and our nervous system and our brain is becoming educated on how to live in that very rigid, structured, busy life. But we that's not sustainable all the time. So we also want to give our nervous system and our brain and our body the practice of what it looks like to let go of the busy to be okay with doing nothing, to be comfortable with sitting with our own thoughts, and to be comfortable being alone, and to be comfortable being bored, and to comfortable being comfortable handling conflict with your kid over the screen time, right, and laughing when. You wake up in the morning and you got to go wake your kid up so they can help you clean the kitchen. This is all medicine for the body and the soul, because joy doesn't just live perfectly in those executed days. It lives in the freedom of us just being, being together, being human, being, being alive on this brand new day that we've never lived before. And so how can you how can you let go of this habit of always being busy and trying to curate this perfect schedule, this overbooked, perfect schedule for you and your kids this summer? Number one, let's drop the pressure to always think we need to create these core memories. Memories don't happen in the ordinary, right? They happen in those random, off key kitchen dance parties when you have these uncontrollable giggles on this the walk with the dogs, right? Like that's what they're gonna remember. Sure, they're going to remember the trips and the photos, but that's not actually those curated Instagram moments. That's not really what makes them become themselves. That's just an experience, and it's incredibly important, but those core memories are the ones you can't plan and curate,

Speaker 2  16:21  
right? But they don't have to be so perfect.

Scottie Durrett  16:27  
Sometimes the core memory happens when you're sitting outside doing nothing and just being in the same room or the same space as your kid. Number two, let go of the schedule, even if it's just once a week. Give yourself and your kids one day with no agenda, no itinerary, no timeline, no responsibilities, let the day unfold naturally and see see what happens, and give yourself a break. You don't always have to have people over to socialize. It's okay to be alone. It's okay to have nothing planned. And if you're super uncomfortable being alone, that is a really good piece of information. Very, very important. Very, very important. Number three, normalize having a whole lot of mess. Did you eat cereal for dinner? Did y'all skip your showers today? Did you bypass vacuuming up the dog hair today? Did your kids have some meltdowns? None of that is failure. None of it. It's just life. It's just life. Lifeing. Laugh at that, enjoy that, learn from it, let it be, let life sometimes show you what it wants from you versus you, deciding what life is going to be for you. That's a very surrendering type of energy. But it's also really, really peaceful, if you can just wake up and kind of see where the day takes you. And if that's really hard for you, again, this is really good information. Why is it hard for you to just shoot the shit? Why is it hard for you, for you to be alone? What is it about that quiet, that loneliness, that is making you uncomfortable? Dict like dig into that, because our life is mirroring what's going on inside of us internally. And so if your life is very busy and chaotic and you can't settle down, that's likely what's going on inside of your body. And it's just a learning. We can learn how to get out of that stress state into a non stress state, and it takes practice, but it's really healing. It's everything has two sides, right? And when you self regulate and show your kids, talk to them about like, why you're trying to do this, they're going to learn too. It's really, really helpful. Number four, speak kindly to yourself out loud when something doesn't go as planned, say, Okay, well, that didn't go as planned, and that's okay. Let your kids hear you. Model that flexibility and that grace and that you also have to deal with life. Life thing that things don't always go the way you think they should. Things don't always go the way that you have had hoped or want them planned. How are you responding to that? Show them, because that's going to help them learn how to do it themselves and also trust themselves in those unpredictable moments. Right? Number five, build in some buffer zones in your day. Instead of cramming back to back activities, leave some gaps in the day. This is where regulation happens. Your brain needs time to process what it's going through or what it experienced. And when we have white space, when we have that blank space that allows us to actually digest the information. And just a quick reminder, when you're living in stress, in fight or flight, you cannot process information, you cannot digest information or your food, and you cannot think logically or heal. So if you're busy, busy, busy, on the go, on the go, you want to create some of the. Like the other the other end of that swing the pendulum all the way to the other end, so that your body can then process everything that it just experienced in that go, go, go, part of your day, right? It's good to create some some downtime. And downtime is beneficial. Everybody's physical body likes downtime when you let go of the busy and the perfect. You then teach your body that it can feel safe in the moment no matter what's going on. You then model this resilience and flexibility and handling it when life lives and people, people, and you model that, and then your kids are watching you. You also freaking get your energy back. It's like, we cannot always be a cash out energy. It's just it's impossible. This is what leads to burnout. We want to create times in our life where we are getting our energy back, and when you slow down and you're not so busy, and you're not outsourcing your kids and outsourcing their energy. This is when you create real connection and not forced ones. This is when all of a sudden they might open up, because your kids, they don't need to be overbooked. They don't want a perfect summer. They don't need to go from morning until night. They want to have some time to freaking recover from the insanely busy, stressful school year they just had, because if you're feeling that, they're feeling it too. They also don't know how to communicate this. But their body is going to need some downtime, and so is their nervous system. And so we want to show them like we want to teach them how to do it, just like we would teach them how to ride a bike. We also want to teach them how to regulate their nervous system. They don't need to be booked all the time. They are incredibly capable of entertaining themselves, but we have to give them the opportunity, even if they come the first couple of days, they might come and tap you on the shoulder 100 times and say, Mom, I'm bored. Mom, I this summer sucks. I, you know, can I go back on the screen? And at first it might drive you crazy. Would you say, Look, I get it. What are some things you can go create? What can you go do? I can't wait to hear about it, but it's you got to show them that you trust them and that, ha, having freedom is good. It's we all want that freedom to do the things that we want to do. Freedom is rest. It allows us to breathe. It allows us to connect to our inner voice. It allows us to just be human without all those responsibilities. When you at the end of the day and you're like, oh my gosh, I cannot wait to go to bed and my head hit the pillow, because this has been a day your kid has had their own version of that. So we want to show them what helps us emotionally regulate and heal and recover. We want the to show that for them too, which means we also have to learn how to slow down. We also have to learn how to sit with our own thoughts and be bored and be quiet so we can teach them how to do the same thing. Your kid and your body do not need an overbooked overwhelming Go, go, go. Summer, it's okay to Slow the fuck down. This is actually what this season is for. How can we help ourselves slow down and build some of that into this summer, so that we get the benefits from this time of year, so that we allow our bodies to receive this slower schedule, the less routines, the less responsibilities. And if you're working out of the house, mom, amazing. How can you build that into your life? Right? We're not robots. We're meant to flow. We have to listen to that, and we have to show our kids that it's okay to be more than one version of ourselves. It's okay to be the tired version. It's okay to be the busy version. It's okay to be the motivated one and the procrastinator one. It's okay to move and ebb and flow with life based on what feels good to us based on what our body is telling us. So here's your summer soul challenge. Let it be messy, let it be real, let it not be overbooked, and let that be enough. No one is going to remember the color coded calendar, but they'll remember how they felt. They'll remember if they are freaking exhausted and dreading that next camp or they're going to remember, oh my gosh, I loved laying on the grass with my mom and, you know, putting the the blade of grass between our thumbs and trying to blow it like a whistle and check in with yourself, check in with your family. There's nothing wrong with sitting down with your family and getting clear like, Hey, what is one thing you hope you get to experience this summer? What are you looking forward to most this summer? What would you love to have going on in your life this summer, and what would you like to feel like at the end of the summer? Have have asked these questions of your kids, don't just assume and don't just plan for them. To create a conversation with your family so that everybody's on board one. It'll take the pressure off of you that you have to be the cruise director and the camp counselor, because you don't. It also is super respectful to have a conversation where you ask your kids what it is they want to experience this summer, and then y'all go after that. How freaking cool is that. And if look, if this episode helped at all, if it's gonna help you even just think for a second that you might loosen your grip. I would love for you to share it with another mama who needs this reminder. And remember presence always over perfection. And if your nervous system, if you're not sure how this is actually going to be applicable to your specific summer and your life, and you want some deeper support? I've got you. I'm offering clarity readings, breath work sessions, EFT sessions, and one on one coaching. So there's a lot of ways for you to get some good support from me, and I'm gonna drop everything in the show notes, but until next time,

Scottie Durrett: 26:00
take a deep breath, let the fuck goand let it be Mom. Let it be messy. You're doing so much better than you think, and you don't have to do so dang much you