What if summer didn’t have to be a tug-of-war between doing what lights you up and keeping your business moving forward? What if joy and productivity could actually fuel each other?

In this episode, Nancy and I explore the tension and possibility that arrive with the start of summer. Our June theme is all about balancing play and productivity in ways that feel intentional, spacious, and alive. We reflect on what surfaced for us in May (hello, black sheep wounds and scarcity fears) and share how those insights are guiding our approach to this next season.

We also invite you into the conversation with three journaling prompts to help you set intentions for your summer. Whether you’re craving more creativity, deeper rest, or just some summer fun, this episode will help you name what matters most and plan accordingly.

Here are the 3 reflection questions to guide your June intention-setting:

1. What business projects do you want to work on this summer?
2. How do you want to have fun this summer?
3. How can you infuse playful energy into your work this summer?

In this episode, we also explore:

✨ Updates on May’s goals and how we’ve been working with them (13:06)

✨ Our personal examples of obstacles and how we’re actively clearing them (23:15)

✨ Why summer is the perfect time for intentional integration (32:48)

✨ How perspective shifts are helping us see things more clearly (41:02)

✨ The projects we’re focusing on this summer and making room for joy (45:12)

If you’re feeling pulled in a dozen directions this June, this episode is your permission slip to find your own rhythm. We hope it helps you feel more grounded, creative, and aligned as we transition into summer.

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We’d love to know what you think! Take a moment to fill out our listener survey, and share your thoughts on this behind-the-scenes experiment. We’re so excited to co-create with you. 

Want to join us?

• 🌞 Portland locals: Email maegan@maeganmeson.com to join our Summer Solstice Ritual in the park (June 20th)
• 💻 Work with us via our 3-month Catalyst private mentorship: deeplyrested.com/coaching
• 🌲 Our next retreat is happening Oct. 9–13—sign up for the newsletter to get first access: deeplyrested.com/newsletter

To watch the video of this conversation, check us out on YouTube: https://youtu.be/qyU2Eruzsas 

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[00:00:33] You can expect gardening metaphors, personal stories, perspective shifts, literally and metaphorically, and an invitation to infuse your business with more joy, ease, and aliveness this summer. I really hope you enjoy this deeply rested conversation.

[00:01:18] Be sure to subscribe to this podcast and join our weekly newsletter@deeplyrested.com slash newsletter. Now it's time for the show.

[00:01:41] Nancy: Hi, Maegan.

[00:01:48] Nancy: Thank you so much.

[00:01:52] Nancy: to be here. Good. I'm doing well this morning.

[00:01:58] Nancy: I took a little garden tour this morning and

[00:02:03] Nancy: all the things are popping up. I've got dahlias in various states of coming out of the ground. I'm most excited about all the corn that's popping up. I planted it all by seed and that's just my favorite thing to watch grow every year.

[00:02:27] Maegan: I mean, I love corn. Just to be clear, I'm a fan.

[00:02:32] Maegan: It is a battle with a wind, meaning like you watch them, like you watch the resiliency of the corn.

[00:02:52] Maegan: What great teachers Yeah. Nature's going to knock. You just have got to right yourself and get on with it.

[00:03:00] Maegan: I also did a garden tour this morning. I love that. We had the same morning, I was just like on the ground. I love taking portrait mode photos on my iPhone. Like how cool is that? We can just take these amazing photos with our phones and I was just taking photos of all my little blooms and I was just like, you look fucking fabulous.

[00:03:20] Maegan: Oh, I'm sure the neighbors walking their dogs are like, that lady is out to lunch. Like oh. There is something wrong with her. I don't care. It's so precious, this time, which I imagine we're going to talk more about today too, right? This time of year when we can fully feel the transition of the season, like the growth is happening. I love that so much, thank you for sharing that.

[00:04:19] Nancy: Yeah, I wore polka dots for the occasion since we're talking about fun and play.

[00:04:26] Nancy: Exactly.

[00:04:32] Nancy: If you ever wanted to know more about me, polka dots and corn

[00:04:39] Nancy: And crawfish, that's really important. Yeah.

[00:04:56] Although listeners, Nancy and I have been talking about,we want to just get more comfortable on these podcast interviews, you know, like my favorite podcast are the ones where people just sound like themselves. And you and I have talked before about like when we stop recording and then we start talking about how the recording went, all of a sudden we just sound totally different,

[00:05:33] So, maybe this is a great quick moment to plug our listener survey, which we link every episode, in the show notes of every episode. We want to hear like, what are you liking about this? It's growing, it's evolving and we want listener feedback to know, like, do you like it when Nancy and I have a little chat? Or are you bored outta your mind? I don't know and you can tell us.

[00:06:00] Maegan: Thank you so much. I will admit I haven't looked at it yet.

[00:06:06] Maegan: Oh, it's great. What's like the best thing and what's like the thing that you're seeing like maybe, hey, we should change this.

[00:06:49] Nancy: Maegan just makes me look at the feedback instead.

[00:07:03] Nancy: funny.

[00:07:24] And you know, that's when kids get outta school. Summer vacation starts and I do think there's like a larger social commentary about that, about how our society is out of sync with the natural rhythm of the seasons. How most people's spring break is in the dead of winter.People who have spring breaks in February or early March. It's like, what? It's still winter. What are you doing? And summer vacation begins in spring and. There are all of these ways we can see how our society is out of sync with nature's rhythms and I think that's worth naming because it shows up in our businesses too.

[00:08:27] So, something that Nancy and I wanted to offer up this month is really an intentional transition. A transition from spring into summer, both in our life and in our business. So thinking about: how can we use June as a month to start having summer fun, but also to be really deepening into what intentions we want to set for nature's summer which starts on June 20th on the solstice, and then summer really is the end of June, July, August, September. So that's what we're going to do today. We're going to talk about how we are transitioning into summer, and we're going to have a really specific conversation about how we can find a balance between a play in productivity during the summer months. What do you think about everything I'm saying right now?

[00:09:44] Maegan: Yeah, and it's like, I feel that too. I think so many people feel that tension where you feel the big energy of summer and you want to lean into it, you want to play. But I do think it's worth zooming out a little bit and recognizing that summer is such an expansive season. We have, you know, so many hours of daylight. There's so much energy, there's so much growth happening. Like our internal capacity during the summer month is expanded, which means I think that there's actually room to do both, like that there is room during the summer months to play and be so connected to the vitality of our lives.

[00:11:03] Nancy: Yeah, yeah. Definitely.

[00:11:21] Nancy: Yeah. Yeah, sounds great. So our theme for May was removing obstacles and finding flow and for us what that meant was really intentionally taking the time to do the inner work necessary to be able to even first identify what the obstacles getting in our way are. To identify them, acknowledge them, and then start taking action to let them go, release them, so that if they come back in the future, which let's be real, they likely will, but they might not loom as large and they might be a little easier to deal with and overcome the next time around. So yeah, that was the theme for May.

[00:13:06] We have three reflection questions we want to offer you today that you can use to review what happened for you in May, and you can just think about them while you're driving to work or you can journal about them, you can talk to a friend about them. You can use these questions however it feels most helpful for you. Here are the questions.

[00:13:32] Two, what did you do to remove these obstacles or heal these wounds, however you want to think about it?

[00:13:44] Because like you said, it's unrealistic to think that one month of focused attention and then poof, like we have no more blocks or limitations. No, they will be with us forever, which is partially why it's helpful every now and then to really slow down and say, I'm going to focus on this process. How do I want to meet my blocks when they emerge so that it becomes more second nature and we're not bypassing, we're not avoiding like we know exactly how to be with the inner work that is moving through us while we are working on our businesses, right? While we're living our life in the world. Finding that balance. So those are the three questions.

[00:14:24] What did you do to remove the obstacle?

[00:14:31] Nancy, you want to share an example of what showed up for you last month?

[00:15:21] So we've been doing budgeting, working with a financial planner and then another thing that I did. I'm going to pause for a minute of story time to explain how I came about this last thing that I did, to confront fears of scarcity and it goes back to when I was in college taking a photography class.

[00:16:06] And, she's like, you know, let's say you're photographing a still life on a table. You could walk up to it, stand in front of it, put your camera to your eye, take the picture, great. She's like, or you could do that, and then you could lay on the ground and look at it again and see. What that perspective looks like.

[00:17:05] You know? And so one of the things that came around for me was looking at this obstacle and transposing it into a gratitude practice. And so every time I felt that scarcity kind of bubble up in my body, I was like, okay, we're going to flip it around and I'm going to instead look around at everything around me, the people around me, my home. Like all of the things that I've got in abundance and really show gratitude for that. So it was a little bit about perspective shifting and then, taking actual grounded action steps, but yeah, it's been feeling really good and has helped a lot. So that's what I focused on in May.

[00:17:51] Maegan: When you said story time, like I immediately felt five years old. I just want to say oh. Like, I just immediately felt like I was five years old at the library listening to story time and your story didn't disappoint.

[00:18:26] Wow, that is really powerful. It makes me want to just slow down and reflect on things like, where are all of the different places that fear shows up in my life. It is often scarcity related, but could be other things too. And, how can I flip the perspective and maybe replace it with gratitude and then just see what happens. Yeah. There's a real sense of curiosity too, as I listen to your story of like, I'm going to do this, and then I'm just going to see what happens.

[00:18:58] Maegan: Thank you for sharing. That's so juicy.Okay, i'll share an example of, one of the things I was working with last month slash my whole life slash the rest of my life. I think I named it in the last conversation what I lovingly referred to as like my black sheep wound, right? Just this kind of childhood experience of. One of these things is not like the otherAnd how that kind of wove itself into my DNA, right? This belief that I don't belong or that who I am or what I want isn't a fit for the community.

[00:20:55] I accommodate, right? I like to take the essence of what the soul wants, and then I shapeshift it into something that is somewhat connected to what I actually want, but is wrapped up in a costume. It's like wrapped up layers of what I know other people definitely will want. I think Next Level Therapist is a great example of that. The program that we ran a couple of years ago was great and I loved so many things about it and was so effective and successful and it wasn't actually what I wanted to do. It was a little bit I wanted wrapped up and what would sell and what I knew other people to say yes to. Is this making sense?

[00:21:40] Maegan: Okay, so this May. Black sheep wound. I'm aware now that this wound is showing up as this limiting belief that, people don't want what I want, which leads to this people pleasing and this perfectionism, right? I want to please everybody else and I want it to be really dialed in and buttoned up. And every time I do that, it takes me further and further away from the prayers of my heart, which are to create these transformative and to deeply healing retreat spaces for people to come and have profound experiences that they can then take and integrate back into their lives, into their businesses, that will make everything better for them. But then most importantly, ripple effects out into the world. And I can see it in my mind, right? I can see how this vision has the ability to create a really powerful systemic change in the world.

[00:23:14] So the outer work that I did was to take action. To chop the wood and carry the water, so to speak, to make the retreat vision a reality. I was like, if this is what I want, if this is what I want, then we need to just do it.

[00:24:33] I can feel that limiting belief, like disintegrating. Just a little bit at a time so that's the outer work, the taking action and inner work . Just this past weekend, I did a big mushroom journey, which is a sacred medicine that really is so helpful for me in my process. It helps me to clear things out. Starting to feel with this particular story and wound being like, I've done so much work around this. I've done all the therapy, like I've done cognitive work, I've done emotional work, but it still feels like dead skin stuck inside of my body. And when I start to feel that way, it's a really good, like little aha for me, that this relationship that I have, this particular medicine really helpful in clearing out what I have processed, what I have digested and what is no longer serving me. And in that journey, something that really became clear to me I didn't see so clearly beforehand was that I was still carrying a lot of grief in my body about all the losses that I experienced in 2024. I just went through a lot of loss.

[00:26:28] So I wanted to share that here in this episode because I imagine that there are some people listening who did some really great work around one of their blocks, but it still feels like a rock in the river.

[00:26:58] and now on the other side of that, I'm feeling aware that it's not totally gone,but I'm feeling like I have a lot more distance between me and it, which is really nice. Like I have a lot more room to work now and I know that I just have to stay committed to continuing to circle back and to be radically honest with myself as a business owner, as a human being about like, what is keeping me stuck? Can I be radically honest and look deep inside to name what it is that's going on for me that needs to be transformed, that needs to be healed so that I can move forward.

[00:27:38] Maegan: I love that. Yeah. I love how it comes back to that perspective shift again. Like, the medicine helps you shift your perspective so you can see from a new viewpoint and all of a sudden all of these other layers are revealed that you couldn't see when you were just looking from this one perspective. Like the greatest gift of plant medicines. I think, right? Is that they help you see things from just like you said, totally different angles, totally different perspectives.

[00:28:07] Maegan: My pleasure.

[00:28:38] Nancy: Yeah.

[00:28:54] Nancy: Yeah, let's do it.

[00:29:12] Nancy: So as we were talking about before. So like when summer rolls around and I just want to play. You know, I don’t want to do any work. I just want to go outside and frolic, and swim and do all these fun things and that's, you know, not super realistic. but one of the things that I do think helps with that is like, like you were saying at the beginning when we infuse play and pleasure and joy into the work that we're doing to me, that makes me feel less of that pull, like it makes me feel less of that tension because I'm inviting those playful feelings into the work that I'm doing, and it's not so differentiated or delineated like, oh, this is work that feels like blah, and after that I get to go play. It's like, no, let's do a little bit of play in the work and then continue to play afterwards. So yeah, I think that finding that balance makes all of it feel easier.

[00:30:38] In this business we just want to erase the line between the professional and the personal so that we can see a more integrated whole, right? We can see a more integrated version of our lives because we know that like when we're weaving the things that we love personally into our professional lives, into our businesses, we're way less likely to get burnt out. To say yes to projects that aren't actually aligned with our spirits, with our souls. We want to find that integration, and I always like to say as a disclaimer that that doesn't mean you don't get to have work life boundaries, right?

[00:31:52] So this is another perspective shift, right? There's that resentment like that you are naming and I feel it too. It's so easy to get resentful in the summer months being like, I resent my work, I resent my business. Like I just want to be in the world. I just want to be playing. So we are offering a perspective shift which is that actually the summer is a really rich time to bring an abundance of creativity and fresh energy and playfulness into your work so that you can move your business forward in a way that feels awesome, feels just like a delight. Like you can get so much shit done in the summer and feel so delighted about it and have so much play in your personal life with your family, with your friends at the same time. That is the intention that we're setting for ourselves this summer and that we want to offer up to our listeners. Am I getting that right?

[00:32:48] Maegan: Okay, so we're going to do that in three ways. We're going to look at productivity, we're going to look at play, and then we're going to look at integration. I'm going to offer up a question for each of these bullet points, if you will. Productivity play, integration. We want you to ask yourself: what business projects do you want to work on this summer? Play, we want you to ask yourself: how do you want to have fun this summer?

[00:33:24] Nancy and I are going to go through each of those questions and we're going to answer them together for ourselves. As an example, we're just modeling how this conversation might happen, what it might sound like, knowing that it might sound totally different for you and your life and your business. So this is just us sharing our process as a way to model how this might go when you start to unpack these questions. Are you ready, Nancy?

[00:33:52] Maegan: I'm so excited. Productivity.. What business projects do you want to work on this summer? Now you can take this question and interpret it in lots of different ways. I want to think about business projects that really feel so fertile. So if we are thinking about our gardens, right, it's like the soil is so fertile right now. Things are growing and I want to think about projects where there's room for growth. I want projects right now where I'm going to see a benefit, I'm going to see a result, I'm going to see an impact and the work that I have at the end of the summer is just calling to me at this moment. Maybe for you, it's a project that's more about maintenance. Maybe it's about starting something brand new from scratch that's going to be really long-term. You're not going to see results for another year.

[00:35:24] Nancy: I am very excited about those projects like you were saying, they both feel very fertile right now and it feels like there's just opportunities for possibilities all over the place. So yeah, those are the projects that are feeling really aligned and ready to be focused on.

[00:36:02] You know, what's realistic? We have three months of summer, and you're going to have a lot of personal things on your calendar as well. Be real with yourself. These are the projects that I want to work on. Here's how I want to work on them. Here's what's realistic for me to do or achieve over the next few months while I'm balancing being in the world, being in my life. I think being realistic about the expectations and intentions you are creating is key. Does that feel like, have we said enough about that for now, do you think?

[00:36:37] Maegan: Play.

[00:36:38] Maegan: How do you want to have fun this summer, Nancy?

[00:37:10] Maegan: Bringing nature in, that's or maybe it's more me going out.

[00:37:18] Maegan: I'm okay. I mean, both, both work. Yeah.

[00:37:21] Maegan: yeah. Really similarly, summer fun for me is being outside and that's in large part because Nancy and I live in a place for a lot of the year where when the sun comes out. Oregonians are outside.

[00:38:04] We have some of it here and that brings me so much joy. And in fact, it's funny, like my family's like, are you going to come to visit us this summer? And I am, but I have to like, fit my visit in around all of my concert tickets. And for a while, I felt guilty about that. Like, oh, but then I'm like, no, no, no. Like this is an infusion of joy for me and my life.

[00:38:50] When I'm on my paddleboard on a river or sitting at Topaz Farms at a, you know, summer concert, I am both full of presence and pleasure in the moment.

[00:39:22] That for me, in the summer, my rest tends to be very active, so it is like going to the river, spending time outdoors with friends, and going to see shows. It's active energy. So I have to make sure that I'm also counterbalancing it with, you know, getting enough sleep and having enough downtime, but deep rest in the summer equals fun for me. in my lived experience.

[00:39:59] The second thing is that you and I, we did this last summer, we decided to do it again this summer, which is starting the week after the summer solstice. We take Fridays off until fall equinox, and we set the intention that we are still working on Fridays and the work that we're doing is having fun outside. And that's just a perspective shift, right?

[00:40:24] Maegan: to be like, oh, I'm not working on Fridays. Perspective shift. Well, I am working and my job on Fridays is to go outside and have fun and to really experience the refilling of the well so that when we come back in, we have joy and love and appreciation for the projects that we're putting our energy into, which kind of of leads us into the third pillar here of integration. How can I infuse playful energy into my work this summer? How can I blur this line and bring all of these pieces together?

[00:41:09] Nancy: Well one example that is pretty tangible and, just like recent for me, when we're doing some work on the podcast, I think we've talked about that in previous episodes,but as part of that, I was listening to a marketing audio book. And one thing about me is that I tend to be able to think a little more deeply when my body is doing something else, kind of unrelated to what I am thinking about and so one of the ways that I kind of infused a little bit of play into that, like learning about marketing, which sounds really dry and kind of boring. newsflash, it was fascinating, but I was listening to that while I had my hands in the garden and like my hands were in the dirt and I was pulling weeds or clearing out some rocks from, a garden bed or whatever it was, I was just had my hands in the dirt while I was doing this like cognitive work task. And that felt really joyful and playful. And I was like, not only does it feel joyful and playful, but I felt like I was able to absorb more of the information and really think about it on a deeper level than if I was just like, I just have to focus on this marketing thing right now.

[00:42:55] Maegan: I love going, working outside, and this could be a really simple perspective shift for me. I am in my office right now, which is in the basement of my house, and during the winter, who cares? My basement has the same vibes as outside. But in the spring and the summer, I start resenting being down here in the dark basement and then I have to remind myself like, take your laptop and go sit in your backyard.

[00:43:37] but I think the question well, I'm from Texas, you're from Louisiana. We also know the landscapes where it would be like, are you kidding me? It's miserable outside. I am not going to take my laptop outside. Okay, fine, but what does summer give to you in the place where you live? That's the question that we're offering up. What turns you on during the summer months, and how can you weave more of that into your work process?

[00:44:32] That is when the magic happens. Like when you feel that alignment, ooh, you start to love your work again and you don't feel this business that you started for freedom and has somehow morphed into a thing that is just draining you dry. We are offering up some suggestions this summer to help you come back into yourself to find that alignment so that you can really reap the fruits of your labor. You know, like you can really enjoy everything that your business wants to offer to youAnd infusing a playful energy into your work in whatever way that is going to look like for you, like that is the key to the kingdom. So we're going to leave it there. We're going to offer this up. What business projects do you want to work on this summer? How do you want to have fun this summer? How can you infuse playful energy into your work this summer? These are all intention setting questions and we really want you to take some time to answer them for yourself. If you feel like sharing ideas with Nancy and I, we would love to hear them. You can always email us, Maegan@Maeganmeson.com or nancy@Maeganmeson.com. we would love to hear like, what are you doing specifically? The integration question, like how are you going to infuse playful energy into your work? We would love to hear what perspectives you are using to answer these questions. I want to be inundated with people's creative ideas.

[00:46:38] Nancy: Yeah, I love that. I love that collaboration of sharing all this together and I would also just like to offer, if you're feeling a little stuck on the integration piece and not really feeling like you can see how to infuse play. Like maybe give yourself a gentle perspective change. Maybe lie on the floor for a minute and think about it again.Maybe stand on a chair and think about it again. Maybe, you know? So just finding ways to give yourself a gentle perspective shift and see what other things appear and emerge in a new point of view.

[00:47:21] Thank you for that suggestion, Nancy. I did this exercise with our mastermind group The Council last week and it was so juicy. Just to be like, we picked a problem or a question. It's like, yeah, lie the floor. Dance to this song. Do jumping jacks, like just to be silly, to bring this playfulness in and was really incredible to watch these shifts that our clients were having, and we did this over like 15 minutes, and shifts that were happening in that short amount of time, were really just kind of profound.

[00:48:14] Nancy: Love it.

[00:48:35] And one thing we want to share is an idea that is still unfolding for us, but we feel excited. There's a playfulness about it, so we're throwing it out there. Nancy and I decided, just the two of us, to do a summer solstice ritual together. Summer solstice is on Friday, June 20th. So we decided, hey, let's go to a park here in Portland and this will be our last Friday quote in the office and let's do ritual. A summer ritual for our lives, for our businesses, as a way to really step fully with intention into the summer months. And then I woke up in the middle of the night. And, with this burst of joy and this thought being like, we should just invite people to join us.

[00:49:59] I'd like to join y'all and then we'll send you the details and you can meet us at the park and we will play and do some really beautiful rituals to usher us into the summer season. That's thing number one. Thing number two, I am currently booking clients for my three month private mentorship offering called Catalyst. And I book clients seasonally. So starting in late June, early July, I'll be kicking off with a new round of private clients for the summer season. So if you are feeling the high energy of this season, if you are feeling a readiness inside of yourself to bring the next level, your vision, of your life to life, and you want my support and guidance in doing that, now is the time to let me know. You can read all of the details about my mentorship offering, and you can book a free discovery call with me so that we can meet each other and see if it feels like a good fit in the right time and you can find that at deeply rested.com/coaching and finally, the details for our October retreat will be announced so soon.

[00:52:12] Nancy: I mean, here's to some joy in play this summer here's to joy and play. Thank you all so much for being here, being with us. We will talk to you again next week.

[00:52:26] Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Deeply Rested. If you enjoyed this conversation, I would love to invite you to join the deeply Rested Weekly newsletter. You can sign up at deeply rested.com/newsletter. I hope to meet you in my inbox very soon.