Why Does the Vacation Vibe Fizzle So Quickly
Back to life, back to reality…why is it when we return from vacation that amazing vacation vibe fizzles so quickly? All the energy, relaxation, and joy we enjoyed goes right out the window upon opening our front door…sometimes before we even get on the plane to return home!
Frustrating! We spend so much time and money planning, waiting for, and going on vacation just to have it drain right out of us upon our return home.
As an avid traveler I recognized the difference-maker long ago. Now, not only are my vacations more enjoyable, less stressful, and more fun but they resonate within me…well forever.
The secret sauce is immersion. It’s so easy to dive into vacation with either a to-do list a mile long (that was most often me) or a fierce intention to relax and take it easy (that was occasionally me if relax and take it easy means read 14 books in 4 days). Neither means you aren’t immersing yourself in your vacation. It means your mindset is either do and see it ALL or do NOTHING I need a break. Either way, your focus is on accomplishing something instead of focusing on immersing yourself in where you are and what you are doing. You can vacay how you like, and keep that energy with you after, if you approach it with all your senses and let go into it.
What’s immersion? It’s not a rigid definition it’s more a way of being. It doesn’t mean you don’t have your list of things you want to see and do, or a desire to not do much of anything. For me, it means you are in the moment in whatever you are doing with all your senses. With your imagination, with your heart, and your curiosity. Are you literally noticing that you are breathing in air that is….crisp mountain air? Salty seaside air? A mesh of smells and flavors floating on the air in a diverse city? If you imagine, you can taste and smell all the people who came before you in this spot…all the energy around you…what the wind carries. It’s deeper, it’s interesting, it’s a bit magical.
It is walking down a street, be it a hustling and bustling city street or a medieval cobblestone road, feeling who walked there before you. I still feel the sense of awe from the first time I stepped into the interior of the Colosseum and walked to the place the emperor sat. The depth of knowing Roman emperors walked this path and stood in this spot. In that moment I could feel all the moments that came before. That was over 25 years ago and I can still literally feel it. That vacation did not fizzle away.
It is tasting something local even if its to know you don’t care for it. I don’t mean you have to eat some crazy type of food, I mean unless you want to, but try something with local spices or flavors. If you don’t like it great, but you opened you deepened your experience by trying it. And when people refer to curry or Nashville hot chicken, or jerk you can remember with your senses and know you didn’t like it – or that you did!
You are in it, a part of it, not just on the outside checking off boxes.
Feelings and sensory experiences stay with you. Box checking does not.
Sometimes we need a guide. It’s hard to slow down the rushing of our brains which ignores our sensory experience to immerse ourselves. It’s a practice.
Try it out. On your next vacation, for a moment each day, in one experience, go all in with all your senses. Breath it in, imagine who walked before you, see what the wind knows. I promise you that moment will stay with you.
Back at home, in the office, in the school pick up line, you will be able to tap into that moment and feel that magic.
Laney