Vacation- Every day

Vacation. Vacate. Getting the hell outa dodge. Sometimes it is easier to retreat. To say No. To "get away from it all."

What are we getting away from? The hustle and bustle? The internet? Cell service? Our jobs? Our kids? Our families? Food? Our habits, aka our physical self as we are used to it?

And retreat is fine. It's kind of like fasting. A place to reboot, recharge, assess. A place to make New Year's Resolutions after New Year's. And these moments where we change our momentum, where we pull ourselves off the wheel, are important. We gain perspective. We see that there are other ways to make it through the day. We see that maybe we don't need 12 cups of coffee to make it through the day. As we go on a self-imposed "fast" from our usual routine, we open ourselves to the possibility of change.

The downside of "fasting" is that often we don't learn how to eat. We know what not to eat - we know what we shouldn't do - drink 12 cups of coffee, but when plunked back into life as we know it, the buffet of life, do we know how to eat? Do we know what to do, to choose, to keep that feeling of the fast or the vacation going while we live in the world that we've created for ourselves to live in?

I'm using the metaphor for diet because we all eat. And it's important to make the distinction that knowing how to eat is different than knowing how to starve. Knowing how to eat is being able to make choices, to understand what makes us healthy, to know what really feeds us and embrace all. It means being in present moment and knowing that sometimes the "forbidden food" is what we need. What it really means is being inclusive instead of exclusive, where there is no forbidden foods. There are no "cheat days." We know how to eat anything we want, digest it fully, and not feel gross at the end of the meal. We want to learn how to live. How to stay balanced every day.

Often it is easier to go on a diet than to learn how to eat. To go on a retreat, than learn how to live. So we learn how to make daily life a retreat. We start to embraced "retreat living every day."  We start to pay attention that instead of NOT drinking 12 cups of coffee, we get a bit more sleep or put our legs up the wall or close our eyes for a few minutes instead. We take a moment to show appreciation or to find something beautiful (remember how we love to gush about stuff like this on vacation!) To say what is positive about a situation instead of jumping to the negative. To find the balance in everyday life is living on vacation every day.