What Does It Mean to Live Like Vacation?

What is it to live like vacation?

Well, I'm not one to rule anyone's life, but it is a choice to live like vacation.

If you want to face each moment of your day with enjoyment and peace, even if parts of that day includes work and chores, you are living like vacation.

Living like vacation means you maintain the vacation feel during your regular life.  You find meaning in everything you do.  You work efficiently with forward moving goals to prevent stagnation, and yet you find enough downtime to give yourself  more energy to jump back into your goals.

I Don't Want Change to Disrupt My Life

Yep, you've heard people say this in a few other creative ways.  You have said it.  I have said it.  A load of people in my practice say it.

I will only make changes that don't disrupt my life too much.

I just changed the radio station in my car from talk and news to classical music.  Whoa!  That's big!  Sure, I like classical music and I liked hearing it again realizing I missed listening to it.  Will it do anything else in my life?  I don't know, let's wait a long time and see.

So, I don't want to drag people down.  We should inspire each other.

But, nothing gets accomplished until you have a real commitment.  This is Step #1.  None of the other steps matter.  Without a sincere promise to yourself, there will be no change.

Change is annoyingly difficult.  We have to fight our comfort zone inertia.  Real change is crummy on the psyche until it is habit, then it is a "new normal" or the new sense of self expression.  It is the Live Like Vacation feeling!

Hey, Lisa, you said baby steps.  Now you're contradicting yourself.  It may sound like I am contradicting myself, however, let's take a baby step and then take a bigger baby set for each next step.

Do you need to renew your sense of commitment, this promise to yourself?
Let's do it.    (Part of the commitment problem may have to do with Step #4.  The unproductive may cloud your true self assessment.)

Who Gets Your Leftovers?

Thought of the day.  Who gets the leftover you?  You know, the exhausted, grumpy, I don't have another giving bone in my body you.

Don't give your family the leftover you.

Live-Like-Vacation!

Keep plugging away at it.  Take small steps.

Fight or Flight and Fizzle

How often do you feel the fight or flight reaction?  

Fight or flight describes the the response of an animal that perceives danger.  An animal has one of two choices to make to preserve its life.  It can fight or it can flee.  

Human living today doesn't have the same dangers as animals in the wild, although there are times when we are truly in peril such as a car accident, a weather disaster, medical emergency, etc.  

The body has its own defenses in place to give your  body more oxygen, more strength, and speed when the flight or fight response kicks in.  

The stressors of modern day life still incite the fight or flight response, but it does so too often and the reaction lasts too long.  This response should only be a few minutes and then the body soon relaxes.  

Too much flight or flight will impair the immune system and burn out the endocrine system, not to mention rewire the nervous system to overreact in a very hyperresponsive manner.  Sounds so fatiguing.  

So, a mechanism that is designed for survival becomes so overused, it eventully fizzles and  no longer provides protection.  

Remember the boy who cried wolf so often that no one came to his aid when he was in trouble.  They were so fed up with his false alarms that they ignored him.

We don't want our body's survival system ignoring us and ignoring our needs.  That's why we need to  take control of out plate and get rid of the unproductive.  

One tip I can share here is to look back at the second paragraph about an animal perceiving a danger.  We are not animals.  We have much more to keep track of in our lives besides food, safety, and reproduction.  So, the kicker here is how we perceive things that tend to upset us into a faulty flight or fight reaction.  

We can perceive things differently, that's a given.  

Also, in an extended fight or flight reaction, we tend to do things that hinder our health even more such as overeating, drinking, and getting poor sleep.  And, the cycle continues as the body gets more fatigued.  

Richard O'Connor, PhD, has written a number of very good books on the topic of perpetual stress. 

James L. Wilson, DC, also writes about adrenal fatigue.  

Check out these useful references.  

Control the World or Inspire the World

This is Holy Week and I'm getting some good pearls of wisdom listening to the radio.  I am listening to Relevant Radio.  I just heard a profound message from Dr. Ray Benedetto.

His entire segment was profound because this is the first time I heard of him.  He promotes character based capitalism, which is something the public probably has a hard time believing can exist.

He talked about "trying to control the world," which we know deep down is a rotten idea, yet we still try to do it.  In our own "I can do it better" selves we insist we can control part of something.

We are control freaks.  How do you know?  When you have a melt down.  The melt down is a sure sign of your controlling self.

If we want to live like vacation, we do need to pare down our lives and follow step #4: Knock out the unproductive.

We also need to use the principle of wiggle room.

Also there is one "control factor" that helps you return your life back to you, when we tend to pile our lives full with what other people want.  This is the principle of taking control of your plate.

So, this sounds as if I am contradicting myself, but there is a part of control that is actually a self discipline.  The principle of taking control of your plate is about not overloading your schedule.  It is about prioritizing and not taking on things that are going to be harmful to you and your family because over scheduling is unhealthy.

So, let's get back to the question of the day. Living like vacation means we are not escaping life but enriching our daily lives.

While you are involved in the world, are you trying to control the world or inspire the world?

30 Days Ago I Started a Blog

30 days ago I wrote about my vacation wake up call.

As soon as I came back from a very rare opportunity to visit a warmer climate and have a full week off with nothing on my mind, I resorted back to an insane life.

That's slightly exagerated.  It was not totally insane but as soon as I got off the plane I was back to my hyperactive self.  As soon as the phone began to ring I was unraveling my calm brain trying to bend over backwards for who?  Myself I guess because I am generally an over-pleaser.  Then, I was completely exhausted the next day.

Enough of my complaining.  I saw such a dramatic change between the vacation me and the back to normal life me, I had to reclaim the vacation me and incorporate the vacation me into the everyday life.  I wanted to make daily living more than checking of a to do list and being the family taxi service.

I want to live like vacation.

That does not mean sit on the beach homeschooling my child and working some amazing home business that provide barrels of cash to my bank account.  That could be in the future, but does not sound realistic to me.

Right now I am taking small baby steps at living a less scrambled life that has more calm so I can be a better health care practitioner for my practice members and have enough energy left to be a fun mom and wife.

So, here I already see my big fault here.  I need to be an awesome wife and mother first.  Then, have some left over energy for my private practice.  How did I get so brainwashed?

Time to get un-brain-washed and live like vacation.

Yes, things need to get done.  I have to raise a young boy and help him become a decent grown up.  Yes, we have bills to pay so we are not a burden to others.  Yes, hubby and I need to have a life together that doesn't include work, bills, repairs, errands, babysitting, etc.

So a mind shift took place because I saw the different side of me while I was on vacation.  And I saw that side of me lost suddenly back in the weeds.

So, the mind-set shift continues.
The habits change.  In ways this is becoming a health makeover although I have not noted too much of that since the blog began.

Based on the principle of the domino effect.  Good habits have a ripple effect in multiple areas of life.

Anything that helps you reclaim your energy gives you better mileage.  So, these initial baby-steps are leading to other goals that are more far reaching than getting everyone out the door on time.

So buckle up and enjoy the ride with me.

Live Like Vacation Traits in Action

In my facebook feed I caught an article about Gregg Jarrett's return to the anchor chair after some embarrassing media moments last year. It really is a nice happy ending story to read about when when the news is filled with depressing tragedies.

Understandably, we are only seeing Mr. Jarrett big smile a year later.  We were not privy to the day to day struggles he had to overcome and that he continues to work on.  Living life is a process. He must still go to therapy and meetings.  Every day he is working on his health.

There are some good lessons here we can also relate to:

1.  What you do has a domino effect on others.  For Mr. Jarrett he was impacting his family in a negative manner for a while.  Now, he is going in the other direction.  His boss, Roger Ailes made some sacrifices himself as he stood by his employee and stayed with him during every step of his trials.  His actions, also had a domino effect on Mr. Jarrett, as well.  And Mr. Jarrett very graciously acknowledges Mr. Ailes commitment.  We can make our work joyful to ourselves and others.  Recognize Step #5 here?

2.  Your everyday health and long term health both need good daily habits.  You cannot put your health on autopilot.  You can never take your health for granted.  As a health care practitioner I must stress that the body works very profoundly balancing important metabolic processes.  While things seem to work automatically and your body bounces back pretty well after a splurge at the donut shop, nights drinking with friends, or weeks of staying up until 1 AM, the body will eventually buckle under the stress.  Mr. Jarrett demonstrates this and he is working hard on his daily habits.  Step #2 is here.

I'll let him tell you his side of the story here.