June is here, the days are long, and the garden you planted in May is finally taking itself seriously. Everything alive is busy making more of itself. This is the season of growth — loud, visible, almost showy about it.
I want to use that to make an unusual recommendation. Now is a good month to ask yourself a question most of us avoid. Why are you doing what you're doing?
Not in a midlife-crisis way. Not as a productivity hack. Just honestly. What is your daily life actually working toward? And does the version of you who's living it on a Tuesday afternoon actually believe in it?
I ask because I see this in clinic constantly. People come in with symptoms that don't quite line up with a diagnosis. Fatigue that doesn't lift with sleep. Anxiety with no clear object. Sleep that won't come even when the conditions are right. Gut stuff that flares for no obvious reason. And often, when we follow the thread, we find someone who's doing everything right on paper but is quietly misaligned with their own life. The body is reporting something the mind hasn't put into words yet.
There's real science under this, and it's worth a moment.
Your nervous system isn't a passive receiver. It's constantly forecasting what should be happening and comparing that to what actually is. A huge amount of data about your internal state — how you feel, what you need, what's off — runs below conscious awareness. And the parts of the brain that integrate meaning and make sense of your life tend to come online when you're not busy. Which is exactly when most of us reach for our phones.
So you end up with this strange situation where you're processing enormous amounts of information about your own life, but very little of it gets to the surface. It just expresses itself sideways. As a symptom. As a mood. As a feeling of being slightly off without knowing why.
Some people call this the subconscious. Some call it intuition. Some would use a word like soul. Whatever you call it, it's real, it's intelligent, and most of us have stopped listening to it.
Which brings me to a simple recommendation. Try journaling.
I know — that sounds underwhelming. But it's one of the most reliable ways I know to give that quieter intelligence somewhere to land. It doesn't have to be elaborate. Five minutes before bed is enough. Write down what you noticed, what felt off, what felt right, what you couldn't stop thinking about. If writing feels like a project, use voice-to-text and just talk into your phone. If you want help making sense of what comes out, there are tools — including AI — that can reflect your thoughts back to you in useful ways. Use whatever works.
The point isn't a beautiful record. The point is letting the data your body has been collecting all day actually surface and get named.
People sometimes worry this kind of work is self-indulgent — that it pulls them away from the real business of their life. My experience is the opposite. When you know what you're actually working toward, your body stops fighting you. Sleep comes easier. Decisions feel lighter. The low hum of misalignment quiets down. Your physiology has been waiting for your conscious mind to catch up.
Summer is a good month to start. Growth isn't only metabolic. Some of the most important growth this year will happen quietly — in a notebook, before bed, while you figure out what you actually plan to do with your one wild and precious life.
—Stephane