I’ve been MIA from social media/ my blog for a few weeks now. I’m sure my social-media-absence has caused a huge gap in your 80,408 unread emails/ Facebook notifications and that you’ve missed my verbose blog posts terribly.
My MIA-ness had been wonderful to tell you the truth, Bloody Good Chap and I zoomed over to Bali for a few weeks for my first actual holiday in 8 months!
Man did I need it!
Sure, you may say, I seem to be travelling all over the place all of the time, which is true, but everywhere I go, my laptop comes.
I often end up working more overseas than I do when at home. With less social commitments and life-admin to distract me, I often end up working like a mad person, late into the overseas night.
So this trip, the laptop stayed home, and apart from checking in on my awesome Bloody Good Life LIVE group who just finished up their 10 week program with me, I was totally off work and offline…
I deleted Instagram, I deleted Facebook, and I just avoided connecting my phone to the wifi whenever possible.
It was bloody magical.
I cannot recommend it more highly.
We arrived back to busy, cold Melbourne a couple of weeks ago and hit the ground running, last week I ran 9 corporate workshops in 6 days!
And you know what, thanks to 2.5 glorious weeks of slowing down and switching off, I felt fine.
Nervous, as usual, but also, totally on top of all the work and all the hundreds of people I presented to.
I didn’t freak out when the tech techniess did its standard buggering up of all the things mid-workshop, I didn’t freak out when running 4 emotional intelligence workshops back to back the day I got my period (a time I usually lie horizontal all day).
I didn’t freak out when one of the workshop organisers forgot to tell me the workshop I’d prepared needed to be 20 minutes shorter than planned. And I laughed when a very loud angle grinder started up just outside the paper-thin room where I was running a stress reduction workshop on-site for a bunch of engineers (while a huge underground train tunnel was being drilled underneath us!)
In the past I’ve been on holidays where I accidentally take the awesomeness of being on holiday for granted,
where I let my mind constantly wander to “what next… what should I eat next, what should I read next, where should we go next?”
Before we left for the holiday, my mind was sprinting faster than it had been in a very long time, I could feel that my focus was narrowing and my ability to see the good in everything and the possibilities in the world was becoming more limited than it had been in years. I still felt “fine”, but “bloody good” was not an everyday occurrence.
So I went into the holiday with one mission.
Be grateful.
Savour every experience.
Slow down.
And actually practice making space to FEEL how good it feels to be on holiday and to be completely free, moment to moment.
And by jove, it was one of the best, most relaxing and refreshing holidays I’ve ever had.
And I’ve come back more resilient, more inspired, more chill, and more on-track than ever.
In and of itself, taking time off isn’t enough.
Our mind is wired for survival, not happiness. Productivity, not pleasure. Planning ahead, not joy. Even when we’re on holiday.
We have to actively CHOOSE to direct our attention in a way that helps us make the most of our experiences, rather than letting our mind yank us through life like the mad man he is.
So next time you have a day off, a week off, even an hour off…
Pause for a second.
