May, Between Sunlight and Soul-Searching:

 

May often arrives sudden – a good example is this blog being late!  One moment we’re layering coats against the cold, and the next, the air is mild, the days longer, and the pull of sunshine outside is irresistible. Time, it seems, gathers pace as the light and better weather returns. We feel it in our bodies: the quiet urgency to be outside, to make plans, to do. Yet alongside this energy is a quieter call  from within— to pause, to reflect, to ask how we’re really doing and what we really need rather than want .

 

Balancing the impulse for activity with the need for rest and reflection can feel like walking a tightrope. Work commitments don’t just stop just because the birds are singing louder. Social invitations pile up. And yet, something within might long for solitude, slowness, or even stillness.

 

Philosophers like Kierkegaard and Nietzsche spoke to this inner restlessness. Kierkegaard wrote of the “dizziness of freedom” — the sense that with so many possibilities before us, we can feel anxious, overwhelmed, or disconnected from meaning. Nietzsche invited us to confront life’s chaos with courage, to shape our own values in the face of uncertainty. Both urged us to live authentically, not by escaping discomfort but by facing it — to ask, what kind of life am I truly choosing to live?

 

In contrast, Carl Rogers’ person-centred philosophy brings us home. While existential thinkers press us to confront the anguish of freedom, Rogers offers a simple but profound reminder: that psychological growth and healing often come when we are received with empathy, unconditional positive regard, and congruence. When we’re met — truly met — by another, we can find our footing again.

 

In a world that moves fast awareness of our needs at any given moment, and the purpose of those needs is key. Sometimes, what we need is space to be, and a presence that allows us to rest into ourselves whether we are being social or taking time out.

 

As we navigate May — with its light, its beauty, its pressures — perhaps we can hold both truths. The existential invitation to live deliberately, and the person-centred assurance that we are enough, just as we are. We are not problems to be solved but beings to be understood. Most importantly, understood by us, ourselves first and foremost.