Vacation time. Finally! Before taking off for the well-deserved break, we finish all the important projects and prepare everything for our leave. Then, we manage to force ourselves not to check the inbox for three days in a row, which feels like a very difficult exercise. In the back of our heads, the monkey mind goes wild as usual, but we decide to focus on the holiday program. It is not easy…. Gosh, the amount of work we will have, when we get back. It just never stops, an endless circle. Is this really what I want from life….
Know this one?
What is going on here? And where is the Stop-Button to thinking?
In our system we are evaluated according to the outcome we bring. Figures. We need to reach certain objectives in order to stay. Comply, achieve, go along. Feeling is inadequate, and yet, obviously, we feel anyway, even though we pretend to be cool. Stress builds up like in a pressure cooker. Unrecognized, our thoughts become negative. We start judging situations over-critically, get irritated more easily when dealing with challenging or triggering situations. We interpret others words negatively, feel attacked more easily, struggle more and more like a hamster in a mouse-wheel running faster and faster.
What we don’t see, is our part of the story: what is going on unrecognized in our minds day in and day out. Once on vacation, the program runs just the same: Thoughts over thoughts over thought. We just don’t know how to shut up. And the quality of thought becomes lower and lower, and so does the corresponding emotion. Our surroundings seem to be the reason, but in reality, only we are in control of how we respond to situations.
Learning to “train the relaxation muscle” and practicing using it is essential for health and happiness and burnout prevention. We work much more effictively, when we take a break regularly and learn to really shut off, to then reboot the hard-drive and be much more focused. We don’t lose so much energy in thinking about who said what and why and what threat that could mean or who is doing what wrong. We focus on what has to be done and what is in our power.
If you know this vacation-mouse-wheel thinking, it is time for a change! Introduce a daily mini-practice of some kind of relaxation exercise such as Walking Meditation in nature, ChiKung, Tai Chi or Meditation and learn to raise awareness in every moment.
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The Walking Guru - Self Empowerment in Action 
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