Wait, How Is It Already August?

Every year, there are a few times when I wake up and think, How did the year fly by so fast? How is it already August?

And the next thing I think is: “what have I actually done this year?”

Usually, I can list several accomplishments in my professional and business life. But on the personal side of things…I often struggle to fill in the blanks, even though I’ve made downtime a priority.

If you’ve ever paused in the middle of your year and thought, “how did I get here?”, that moment is telling you something. Or if you get through a weekend, and suddenly it’s Monday again, and you’re thinking, wait, what happened between Friday and Sunday?

Usually, it’s one of two things.

1. You haven’t given yourself permission to step away from your routines and actually enjoy your life.

2. Or maybe you are making time for enjoyable things, but you’re not actually present while they’re happening. You’re doomscrolling while watching your favorite TV show. You zoned out during the fantastic dinner. You’re still thinking about work at happy hour with your friends.

Either way, you weren’t actually there.

• Why asking the question "how did I get here?" is actually a warning sign.

• A couple of tools to make time for joy, and actually stay present while you're in it.

• One subscription I’m obsessed with right now that makes my bookworm heart genuinely happy.

• A small tip for turning down the noise on social media without deleting the apps.

Last week, we had a virtual House Party to celebrate 500 episodes of the podcast, and we made joy jars.

While we were putting together the joy jars, I asked everyone a question. What’s one thing they used to do before life got hard that they no longer make time for?

One by one, women who attended started naming things: reading, dancing, music, writing. Things they used to make time for, without even thinking about it, that quietly stopped somewhere along the way.

The truth of the matter is that, somewhere in the middle of just surviving life, parts of themselves were left behind.

But we didn’t just talk about it and leave it there. We used the hour to reclaim those lost parts, in small ways. And we started with a slip of paper, a jar; an easy container you can reach for at any time.

One of the things I took from the gathering was the fact that so many of us are living with the lie that joy will somehow arrive later in our lives. But here’s the truth:

It won’t.

Not because we’re bad planners. But because later never actually shows up. Life doesn’t clear out and hand you the room. If you don’t make it happen on purpose, in the now, there will always be another excuse lined up to keep it delayed. More stress, another challenge, someone or something else that needs your attention. The list never ends.

And soon delayed joy over time becomes more than a phase. It becomes your whole life. A life filled with mornings where you wake up and go, where did the days, months, years go?

If you’ve been feeling checked out, or you’ve made room on the calendar for everyone else but you, here’s a simple tip. Spend 15 minutes looking ahead to the week and find at least three moments to schedule joy this week. Carve out the time to intentionally practice joy.

If you’re waiting for permission to give yourself joy, hear me out. There’s no one else who can give you that permission but you. Not putting it on the calendar means you’re living half a life, and it’ll keep you stuck spending more years asking what happened.

If you’re struggling to actually be in the moment when it’s happening, remember: planning for a joyful moment but not being present for it is almost the same as not making time for it at all. It doesn’t give the moment a chance to land in your nervous system, to actually change the way you think, move, and breathe. You’re getting joy in dribs and drabs, and you deserve more than that.

Give yourself the moment back. Actually be in it, whether it’s taking the biggest breath you’ve had all day, or if something’s on top of your mind, saying it out loud, whether through journaling or talking to the people you’re with, so it stops being the thing pulling you away. Ultimately, the anxieties or whatever you’re thinking about aren’t going anywhere. They’ll still be there in the next hour and the next day, so you might as well have the moment. You might as well sit in the moment in front of you. It prepares you better for what’s coming than skipping it ever will.

Three things you can do right now:

• Call the friend that makes you smile, just to check in.

• Dance in your living room like nobody’s watching.

• Set the mood: put on some music and savor the snack or dessert you’ve been telling yourself you’ll have later.

A life without joy is a life half-lived. Giving yourself permission to make room for joy is the biggest gift you can give yourself. Start doing this today and watch everything change.

P.S. People talk to you about joy all the time. Nobody teaches you how to actually have it. So many of us know suffering. We know pushing through. Almost nobody hands you anything on what joy looks like as a real, working part of your life, something you build in on purpose, instead of something you hope catches you on a good day.

That’s what the Salon is. Once a month, we get in a room and actually practice it, together, so it stops living only on the page.

Book of the Month fills me with glee every first of the month. You get five to seven fiction picks to choose from, hardcover or audio. It’s the most affordable way I’ve found to keep hard copy books coming if you’re a bookworm like me. If you join through this link, you get a deal, and I get a credit (this isn’t sponsored, but I do get a small treat if you sign up).

The other thing I’m loving is turning down the noise. I’ve been overstimulated by social media and simultaneously addicted to TikTok, so this month I’ve stopped going to my FYP (for you page) entirely. Now I only go to my Following tab. It takes me manually switching this over every time (TikTok love you being overwhelmed). But sitting with content from people I actually chose to follow, at a deeper level, has been regulating in a way scrolling never was. If someone’s on there and I don’t know who they are anymore, I unfollow. Try it this week. Go to your following tab instead of the algorithm and see what it does to your nervous system.

So that's it for this week. May you find fifteen minutes just for yourself. Wishing you a week filled with living in the moment!