Post-Vacation Blues

Bringing that vacation version of ourselves to everyday

My bags are packed and I’m ready to go. Feel free to sing along (I just came across this version of the original song)!It’s summer, so obviously the world around us screams — VACATION — from the bicycle and kayak-laden cars speeding off to getaways, to the endless streams of social media posts. Let’s face it, there’s no escaping it. It’s hard not to catch the bug. All this vacation stuff got me thinking and inspired this blog.Have you ever experienced the post-vacation blues?Truth be told, I’ve never fully welcomed transitions — in whatever form they arrived. I’ll quickly make my peace and get down with them, but let’s just say this transition thing isn’t second nature for me (despite how many I have experienced, big and small, dramatic and less so, throughout the decades of my life). Yep, I’m a creature of habit. Do you ever find yourself struggling, when returning from some event or experience, to reinsert yourself back into ‘reality’?So, my head and heart have been engrossed in summer vacation mode…so much so, you haven’t heard much from me of late. I’ve been as quiet as a church mouse over here and feeling a bit like a renegade. What? Break out of your routine? The nerve. Ha!I caught the summer vacation bug and have been finding it difficult to disentangle my being. Let’s face it, it’s hard to come back and can feel reminiscent of what I call the Sunday Blues – when the end of the weekend reality sets in — the party-is-over-syndrome. We start to lament about having to put ourselves back into work mode, back to business, nose to the grindstone, tasks and to-do lists. We begin to feel a little sorry for ourselves. You get the picture. And if we are the type who is apt to do that on a regular basis chances are, coming back from vacation can feel like that, only turbo-charged.News flash: For any of you who ride this rollercoaster (my right hand is raised), there’s a better way to manage all of this...and you’ve got the reins in your hand to take charge and do something to re-route it.Hi again! I am decidedly stepping out of vacation mode. My brain is back. I missed you. So let’s talk about this for a minute.I’m a realist who sometimes has her head in the clouds, but for the most part, my feet are planted firmly on the ground. Those dualities play out within my life and impact my relationship to self, work, and play. And admittedly, this can feel a bit psychotic at times, but that’s truly the beauty of our yin yang nature.How about you? Do you have difficulty transitioning to and from vacation? Do you live for vacation, toiling all year for a few weeks away? Do you find yourself daydreaming at your desk?First of all, let’s simply start with the notion of vacation. The mere word puts some pep in my step as visions of sand between my toes, sea breezes blowing hair across my face, and a sun-kissed nose — coupled with excursions to European cities — dance in my head. For me, these visions play out in true cinematic fashion. I can smell, taste and feel it all. I like that version of me. She is carefree, friendly, breathing in life, being inspired, always tapping into her creativity. She gently tips her head back giggling, savoring life — feeling alive.Awesome. Right? Who wouldn’t want some of that?OK, now I’m back at my desk. The bubble has been popped by the other ‘realities’ of my life – and one by one the constraints roll in. And the self-defeating voices: How are you going to fund that? How will you manage to take that time off? Who’s going to take care of such and such? Etc. Etc. Etc. Blah. Blah. Blah.This is what we do. We dream and then pop the bubble (repeat). So, here’s the thing. I don’t want to live for tomorrow or for a trip in the future.How do we figure out how to infuse our everyday lives with some of the joys of vacation? What is it about vacation that feels so good? Maybe my responses resonate with you:• I feel expansive• I feel inspired• I feel alive• I feel free of stress and obligations• I feel more like meDo you allow yourself to be more of who you really are, a joyous being, when you’re away? These are real feelings, aspects of the real you. They are not imposters. The goal is to roll them into EVERY day.Obviously, being transported, removing ourselves from the day-to-day grind, provides us with an instant release — the venue to ‘let our hair down’ and relax.So is it possible to create a life that isn’t this or that — having to be there to feel that? Yes. It is within your reach to re-design your life.Ten years ago, before tele-commuting was all the rage, I moved to a rural town and took a leap of faith for myself and my family. I feared that my then business management clients would all slip away merely because I had given up my NYC office. Didn’t happen. No one left. I wasted a lot of time worrying about that. Flipping that equation for a second, what if we were to utilize our brain cells for trusting that things will work in our favor and that we can figure it out? Wisdom is knowing yourself – what lights you up —and taking action steps to find a way towards it.I won’t sugarcoat it by saying that the longer you wait to hop on this train, the longer it may take to unravel what is already in place. I’m working on that now — I’m a work in progress. It is my goal to design a life that feeds me every day. No, I won’t be strolling the boulevards of Paris footloose and fancy-free on a daily basis, but I’m also not going to lament my life away.There are little things that we can do within our daily routines that free us from those constraints. It’s time to do more of that.The best way to start is simply by doing more of the things that feed your soul, nourish you and feel like self-care. They can be as simple as a mid-day walk, an impromptu lunch with a friend, a massage, a break to grab a macha latte, popping your head into your favorite store to indulge and buy yourself a gift. You get the picture.Leave the excuses behind. You don’t need a vision board — you need a vision — of you, at your best. Paste a picture of yourself up on the wall and remember that this isn’t about where you are going when, it’s about how you are going to get there — the journey in between. And it isn’t about taking care of your best self for a couple of weeks per year. This is about bringing that vacation version of you into every day. And another thing, don’t compare your vacation YOU with the perfect social media feeds of others. Connect to the reality that is you, not the fantasy that is found outside of you that can make you feel ‘less than’.Release your inner vacation self and witness what unfolds.Your joyous self is dancing those blues away.