This weekend my Gorgeous Guy and I took a ‘long weekend’ not just because it was his birthday but also just to try and unwind from our busy schedules. We are both self-employed and while people who have never been self-employed seem to think that you can take all the time off that you want – the reality is that you pretty work 24/7 – 7 days per week.
A few years ago we went to the USA for 3 weeks – my GG wanted to spend his birthday in New York, so we did, quite a few people told us how ‘lucky’ we were to spend three weeks in the USA – for us, it was our first holiday in three years! That equals one week each year that we get off.
No more, we said!
It’s not always easy to get away when you’re self-employed however, we have made a more conscious effort to just go away for a long weekend when we can to make up for the fact that we can’t take 4 weeks off in a row.
It’s really important to recharge your batteries, to take a step out of your everyday life and just chill – even if for a couple of days. Turn off the phone, take walks along the beach or the bush, sit and just watch the wildlife flying and walking around. To me, that’s a form of meditation, just sitting with a cup of tea (or a vodka cruiser!) and watching life go past.
Not only is this a healing aspect for yourself, but if you are in a relationship, make sure you and your partner are able to get away even if just for a night to reconnect, we get so busy with our lives, working, looking after kids or parents and looking after the house that we can forget about this wonderful person that we fell in love with and married.
Re-connect it’s always important.
Sit down and really talk to each other – discuss how your goals have changed and how your future vision has expanded – make sure that the other is happy with where they are.
Most importantly, it helps you find you, we lose ourselves somewhere in the mix of life and doing something like this allows you to find yourself, learn more about yourself and how you have changed. Even if you can’t afford a weekend away – turn off the phone at home and don’t watch TV – just meditate, do craft or art, sit in the backyard and just watch the birds at play, tune into yourself so that you understand who you are and what you are needing at this point.
The world goes on, it always will but it doesn’t hurt to stop once in a while and find yourself.