Finding Balance in Summer’s Beautiful Chaos
Here in Colorado, summer has arrived! We wait all year for this stretch of warm weather, when the Poudre River sparkles, Horsetooth Reservoir hums with life, and weekends seem to naturally drift toward lakes, trails, and anything that brings us closer to nature, and especially water.
But as wonderful as summer is, it also brings a unique kind of chaos. School is out. Schedules loosen. Everyone in the family suddenly has different ideas about how to spend their time. And while the freedom feels delicious, it can also feel… ungrounding.
This year, my family got a very real reminder of that.
A Trip That Didn’t Go Quite as Planned
We recently took a trip to San Diego, a place we’ve visited many times over the years. We’ve done all the sightseeing, all the touristy things, all the must‑see spots. This time, we intentionally chose it because we didn’t want an itinerary. We wanted rest. We wanted ease. We wanted to spend long, lazy hours on the beach doing absolutely nothing.So we didn’t plan. Not even a loose outline. Just: beach, ocean, sunshine, repeat.
And then… we got sunburned. Badly. We were the classic pasty‑white Coloradoans who forgot that the California sun is not messing around. We thought we were being responsible with sunscreen, but apparently we were not even close. By the end of day one, all three of us — my husband Josh, our teenage daughter Amara, and me — were glowing like overripe tomatoes.
Suddenly, our dreamy, unstructured beach vacation needed a pivot. And that’s where things got interesting.
When Everyone Wants Something Different
With our skin on fire and the beach no longer a simple option, the three of us had very different ideas about how to spend our time. Josh wanted one thing. I wanted something else. Amara didn’t know what she wanted.
And because we were all already carrying months of stress — Josh and I had both recently taken on more work than we could reasonably handle, and Amara had been navigating the intense final stretch of her sophomore year plus shifting teenage friendships — our patience was thin. Our nervous systems were frayed. Our capacity was low.
There were tense moments. There were disagreements. I took more than one “I need a minute” walk.
But eventually, we found our way back to balance. A giant beach umbrella helped. So did the reminder that we were there to rest, not perform vacation perfection.
We still made it to the ocean. We still sat in the sand. We still let the waves work their magic — just with a lot more shade and a lot more aloe.
The Healing Power of Water
Being near water has always been medicine for me. The ocean, especially, feels like a reset button for my entire system. There’s something about the rhythm of the waves — the rise, the fall, the return — that mirrors the natural rhythm of the body.
Water is scientifically known to calm the nervous system. The sound of waves activates the parasympathetic response — the “rest and digest” state — lowering stress hormones and slowing the heart rate. Humans have been drawn to water for thousands of years for spiritual, emotional, and physical reasons.
And then there’s the more “woo‑woo” side of water — the belief that it holds memory, that it carries emotion, that it cleanses not just the body but the energetic field. Whether you lean scientific or spiritual, water has a way of reminding us of what matters.
It teaches us flow, that nothing stays stuck forever. The waves teach us to release, reminding us not to cling. Water shows us impermanence, as every shoreline changes over time. And it demonstrates balance, as the tide spends an equal amount of time rising just to fall again.
Standing at the edge of the ocean in San Diego, even with our sunburns and our imperfect vacation moments, I felt myself soften. I felt my breath deepen. I felt the months of stress begin to loosen their grip.
The Lesson: Balance Isn’t Static
Now that we’re home, life feels more balanced again, and not because everything is perfect, but because I remembered something important: Balance isn’t a fixed point. It’s a practice. A recalibration. A willingness to adjust when things feel off.
Just like the tides, we’re meant to ebb and flow. Just like the shoreline, we’re meant to shift. Just like the waves, we’re meant to release and return.
Summer makes this especially clear. The joy, the chaos, the freedom, the lack of structure — it’s all beautiful, and it’s all a lot. Finding balance in summer (or really any season) isn’t about controlling everything. It’s about noticing when things feel out of alignment and choosing small actions that bring you back to center.
For me, that’s water. For you, it might be stillness, movement, breath, nature, or something else entirely.
Returning to What Matters
Our San Diego trip wasn’t perfect. But it was exactly what we needed.
We rested. We argued. We laughed. We recalibrated. We remembered that we’re human. We remembered that we’re a family. We remembered that everything — stress, schedules, moods, sunburns — is temporary.
And I remembered that balance isn’t something you find once. It’s something we return to again and again, like the waves crashing to the shore and then returning to the sea, just to do it all over again … and again … and again …