Lessons Learned From a Summer Vacation

Several years ago, my husband and I took a big risk. We both left the supposed safety of working for others and earning regular paycheques and decided to invest in ourselves. We started our own ventures. Our long-term goal was to create careers that would allow for plenty of travel. We’ve both dedicated most of our adult lives cultivating our professional lives, which has translated to putting off vacations in favor of business trips with a few days of fun built in. I appreciate everything we’ve learned as we grow our dreams and the places we’ve visited for my workshops, retreats and for my husband’s business.

This summer, we were able to embark on our first extended family vacation in several years, with the specific intention of reconnecting and exploring a part of the world we haven’t seen yet.

We chose Scotland and London and spent two weeks touring the Scottish Highlands and several days trekking through the vibrant and busy English city. I didn’t know what to expect. I went with an open mind and heart, eager to experience a new environment. I knew it would be great to be with my husband and daughter without the daily interruptions we all contend with in our over-scheduled lives, but I couldn’t have anticipated just how truly wonderful it was. While the experiences we had were all enjoyable on their own, it wasn’t the where we were that made an impact on me, it was the how I was while I was there.

This is what I learned from my summer vacation and how I intend for the lessons to support me in continuing to create a life I don’t want a vacation from.

1.     The present moment really is a wellspring of renewed energy, vitality and inspiration

 

I teach this truth in the context of yoga classes and to my private clients. When focused completely on what we are doing in the moment, with full immersion, acceptance and non-judgment, we experience life in a meaningful way. For me, being present feels like stepping into a refreshing and restorative flow of trust. The habitual internal worries and “shoulds” that usually plague my days melt away. Intentionally spending time in a new environment provided me the opportunity to focus on all the novel aspects of the unfamiliar world around me. I drank in the sights and sounds with all my senses; I didn’t want to miss a thing. The thought that I may not visit there again inspired me to make the most of every minute.

What if I brought this way of being back home with me? There is beauty all around me every day that I appreciate very much, but as a creature of habit, I tend to take the same routes in my daily travels through the city and despite my intentions to stay present, I miss many moments while my mind makes lists, plans and grievances.

While travelling, I had plenty of plans to make and things to think about, but I consciously chose to put them aside to deal with on my terms. If it wasn’t necessary to think about in the moment, I let the thoughts go until I decided I wanted to think them! I took the power back by using a visualization given to me by a therapist; if a thought or worry arrived that wasn’t serving my needs in the moment, I imagined I could place it in a lidded glass jar. That imagining meant I would deal with it later when it suited me, or, if the thought was simply a habitual worry that would never serve a purpose other than making me feel bad, in the jar it would stay.

2.     Choose Love

In the roles we play in our daily lives, my 16-year-old daughter, my husband and I experience our share of ups and downs. Depending on what’s happening in the interior world of each of us, conflicts bubble up. A break from homework, work and household responsibilities showed me how much of our conversations revolve around the business side of family life; what must be done, earned or learned.

Each of us has our own full lives, and a lot of our communication is squeezed in between events, or when the door to my daughter’s door opens. Our dialogue is often focused on what must be done and by when. The striking difference between vacation and home is how my focus shifted away from worrying about my daughter to simply loving her. Because we were together for so many hours in a day, I made a conscious choice over and over to choose to love her. I looked for reasons to love her and ways I could show her love. I’ve heard it said that love is an action, and it was an action I was consistently choosing to make.

When I’m at home I pay a lot of attention to the completion of tasks, my daughter would say there is too much attention paid there. A vacation or a retreat allows us the privilege of shifting from what we “have” to do and focus on what we want to do. From there I see how much pressure I put on myself to complete tasks and take actions. That pressure is based in scarcity thinking; that I will not have enough time, or that my worthiness is somehow attached to my accomplishments. Being in scarcity is constricting, fear-based and steals my precious energy. Choosing love means relaxing and accepting what is. It means choosing connection over expectation. It means a present moment with my family fulfills and revitalizes me more than folding the laundry on a specific timeline ever could.

3.     High Vibe- Don’t Leave Home Without It

There’s a lot about life we can’t control. But, we do have a say over how we show up to it. I know that what we think creates the life we have. If we head into our day angry at someone, we’ll inevitable find more reasons to be angry. If we leave the house feeling unworthy, we’ll find evidence all around us to prove it. I’m not saying we need to be upbeat all the time, negative emotions are a part of our experience and I fully support feeling our feelings, questioning and learning from them, rather than wallowing in them or making them mean everything.

While we were travelling, I asked my family if they would agree to try a little “appreciation rampage” every day before we left our hotel room. This is a concept from those who follow the principles of the “law of attraction”; the idea that like attracts like. For example, if we move through the world feeling abundant in health and wealth, we have a better chance of receiving more of what we emit. At the very least, when we’re feeling excited and grateful, our day to day experience just feels better. When we feel better, we think better and make choices that serve our continued self-esteem and well-being.

Here’s what we did. Before heading out for the day, we took turns sharing what we appreciated. It could be anything about our trip, our lives, each other, or ourselves. Big things, little things, it doesn’t matter, and the more the better! For instance, some of our sentences of appreciation sounded like: “I appreciate our ability to take a trip like this”, “I appreciate how air travel has made this part of the world accessible to us”, “I appreciate the prosperity in our lives that allows us to travel”, “I appreciate the conversation we had last night over dinner”, “I appreciate the existence of fish and chips” etc…

By the time we headed out into our day, we were all smiling and feeling so grateful, no matter what mood we may have woken up with. We were also more aware of that which we appreciated. We had set an intention in the morning to focus on what was going right, and we continued to notice our surroundings with gratitude all day. I believe this is in part why our trip went so smoothly, and special moments and opportunities seemed to unfold before our eyes.

Now, when I drop my daughter off for her brand-new year at school. I ask her to turn down the volume of the soundtrack to the Broadway Musical version of “Mean Girls” so she can share what she appreciates before she steps out of the car. I love listening to her share about what she loves, when so often I hear what’s not going right in my teen’s world. I can’t control what happens while she’s at school for the day, but I know she walked in feeling wonderful, and I appreciate that moment fully as she turns to give me a smile on her way into class.