In the days leading up to a vacation, all you can dream about is the sun shining on your face and the sand in your toes. It’s going to be glorious! You get to your destination and the reality sets in. The kids are doing their usual bantering in between requests so the “mom…mom…mom…” is constant, your husband is living his best life completely shut down from obligation, and let’s face it, your brain is going nuts.
Have you ever watched your brain on vacation? Let me tell you first hand, if you have a restless and achievement-driven mind like I do, it is absolutely fascinating. The second the calm sets in and you step away from work, it’s like the brain short circuits in an attempt to find a job. That’s when the real chatter steps in.
You are going about this all wrong, the kids should be self-sufficient by now. You should have done better with them.
Your family doesn’t seem as happy as they could be. You should have planned this better.
Why do you have to resent taking care of everyone on vacation, isn’t that your job as the mom and Chief Travel Planner? Seems a little selfish.
Wowzer. Sounds like a one way ticket to a miserable vacation if that soundtrack continues! But most people do allow it to continue, unconsciously. They don’t understand why they are miserable, they just know that all of a sudden this beautiful vacation feels terrible. They pick fights with their spouse and kids, overthink their decisions, engage in critical self-talk and end up wishing for the reprieve of work where even the complex problems seem much easier to resolve.
So the first step is acknowledging what is going on. Your active brain that solves problems all day long at work is looking for something to solve. Given the fact that you are in an actual paradise, nothing is coming up, so it’s going to create problems just so it has something to do. That’s all. Nothing has gone wrong here. It’s just a brain, looking for a job.
Next, take 3 deep breaths. The kind that reaches all the way down your chest and into your belly button.
Now ask yourself, how best can you support yourself and that restless brain of yours right now? You don’t have to dispute the soundtrack and start an argument going point for point about everything your brain is serving up. Instead, remind yourself that you are doing the best you can in any given moment and that other people’s emotions are not your responsibility to control or manage. You own your emotions, they own theirs. Yes, even when your husband is short with you, that’s because of his own thoughts, not yours. Don’t take responsibility for that.
Finally, direct your brain to what you need from it in the coming days so you can relax. Give it a job to connect to each moment of your vacation so you can truly experience the blessings. In the moments when it’s time to dream and disconnect, allow the space to create a vision of your future and what you plan to create. And when you find your brain pulling you back into problem solving, simply recognize and accept what it’s trying to do in order to remain efficient, then give yourself permission to go back into vacation mode. The more you practice bringing yourself out of your head and into the moment, the easier it will get and the quicker you will recover. You might even find that you start to crave the freedom of vacations, so much that you are barely back from one before you are planning the next. Sounds so much better than allowing your own thoughts to steal your vacation happiness. You in?