Savoring the Moment: A Somatic Reflection on Summer, Presence, and Emotional Capacity
This article is part of our weekly TGIF newsletter series. To get these in your inbox weekly, sign up below:
Summer often arrives with a promise: warmth, joy, connection, rest. But for many of us—especially parents, caregivers, and those trying to balance work, family, and wellbeing—it can also come with a familiar, pressing weight: the pressure to make it all magical.
At Reset Brain and Body, we believe in tending to the nervous system, honoring your full emotional range, and reclaiming the beauty in everyday moments. And sometimes, that starts with something as simple as a bite of homemade ice cream.
A Toothache-Sweet Reminder to Be Present
In the middle of a chaotic, overstimulated day—meetings overlapping, kids shouting downstairs, my “desk” being the floor of the guest room—my almost 8-year-old beamed with pride, offering me a spoonful of his homemade ice cream. That single moment stopped me in my tracks. It wasn’t grand or curated, but it held something sacred: presence, joy, and an anchor in the here and now.
This is somatic awareness in action. Amid the overwhelm, my body recognized something true. That one bite grounded me. That smile reminded me: this is life. Messy, fleeting, sweet.
Summer Anxiety, Overplanning, and the Loss of Spontaneity
Many clients come to us in late spring already feeling dysregulated. Summer anxiety is real. The idea of “freedom” often gets lost in logistical overwhelm—summer camps booked six months out, babysitters scheduled like shift workers, calendars packed to the brim.
By the second week of June, you may already be asking yourself: Is this what I wanted summer to feel like? It’s common to feel both grateful and deeply ambivalent—longing for spontaneity while surviving the swirl of sunscreen, sibling squabbles, and unrelenting to-do lists.
This emotional tug-of-war is a nervous system response. When we’re disconnected from our intuition and overly reliant on planning, we lose touch with the natural rhythms of rest and presence our bodies crave.
There Is No Perfect Summer (And That’s Okay)
Through a somatic lens, part of our work is untangling the myth of perfection. Even the most “Instagrammable” beach days involve sand in the snacks and meltdowns in the sun. Your body knows this. Your heart does too.
True presence doesn’t mean avoiding discomfort—it means learning to stay with yourself through it. To stretch your capacity to feel joy and grief. To sit with guilt, longing, laughter, and fatigue. To be fully here, even when it’s not pretty.
Reclaiming Moments of Mindful Joy
What if the magic you’re searching for is already happening—in the texture of your child’s hair, the clink of a spoon, the cool sweetness of dessert shared with love?
Somatic therapy teaches us that we don’t need to force the perfect experience. Instead, we attune to our bodies, regulate through breath and movement, and expand our capacity to hold the full range of human emotion.
Try this:
Pause.
Breathe deep into your belly.
Notice one small thing around you right now that feels nourishing or beautiful.
This is your nervous system coming online. This is presence. This is healing.
Making Space for All of It
As we collectively navigate summer—with its contradictions, pressures, and fleeting joys—we invite you to practice allowing. Allow yourself to feel it all. Allow your nervous system the space to rest. Allow moments of connection to matter more than the picture-perfect plan.
This is the work of somatic living:
Breathing through the discomfort
Honoring your sensations
Grounding into the now
Letting go of the myth of "getting it right"
An Invitation to Slow Down
This summer, we’re practicing what we preach. We’re taking an intentional pause from weekly writing to listen more deeply to our intuition and inner rhythms. We invite you to do the same.
And as you do, we leave you with this gentle, healing question:
What is one small thing you do just for you?
Something with no productivity attached. No outcome to measure. Just something that fills you up, because you matter.
Maybe it’s a morning walk. A poem read aloud. A stretch on the floor. A second bite of that ice cream.
Hold onto it. Nourish it. Let it become part of how you return to yourself.
Support for Your Journey
At Reset Brain and Body, we support clients through seasonal transitions, somatic healing, parenting fatigue, and nervous system regulation. If this resonates with you, you’re not alone. Our team is here to walk with you—through the overwhelm and into presence.
Ready to reconnect to yourself this summer?
Explore our somatic therapy offerings or fill out a new client inquiry form.
This week’s Tools, Gratitude, Innovation, Feels
Tools: As I contemplated answering the above question this week, I finally settled on reading a (non-work-related!) book, ideally outside on my back deck. It's an act that is truly just for me, without any sense of outcome or achievement. I am reading some great books right now and love how the world just opens up each time I crack one open. Find your thing. Pursue it relentlessly. Protect it.
Gratitude: When I find myself in the dumps—typically when I'm sick and sleep-deprived—my mood suffers. I tend to have a depressing tint on everything. But the thing that always turns it around is refocusing my attention on gratitude. I just make a mental list of all the things I'm grateful for. While it isn't a miracle trick, it does lighten my mood enough to allow me to get out of a negative loop.
Innovation: Saying no, especially in the summer, is a superpower. I plan to use it a lot these next 11 weeks—protecting my sanity, my boundaries, my peace. I will not let FOMO or anyone else's expectations drive the bus.
Feels: Friends, we all just want to be understood in this existence of ours. I see this in each person I work with, in all my friends and family members. To be seen and then loved unconditionally is the gift we can offer each other. I want to take a moment and express my sincerest, deepest gratitude for the teachers at my sons' school. They see my kids and love them anyway, and fully. Teachers, thank you. You mean so much to all of us sending our children into spaces we cannot protect them in. Your presence and care helps tremendously.