Enjoy­ing Vaca­tion Time 

A recent study demon­strat­ed that it was extreme­ly dif­fi­cult for par­tic­i­pants to “do noth­ing” for 15 min­utes. Peo­ple felt very uncom­fort­able feel­ings of with­draw­al from their busy lives. Some report­ed dif­fi­cul­ty rest­ing at all.

It is a com­mon expe­ri­ence in our lives, packed with activ­i­ty and infor­ma­tion, with stim­u­la­tion and mul­ti-task­ing, to slow down and let go of our respon­si­bil­i­ties and engage­ments, even for a break or a restor­ing rest. We often avoid a break, say­ing to our­selves that we don’t have time. And, even when there is an open­ing in our sched­ule, there are many things, which we’ve put off from doing, that can fill the gap.

Recov­er­ing our abil­i­ty to relax
In our hec­tic world, we are at risk of los­ing the abil­i­ty to relax, to expe­ri­ence a ten­sion and wor­ry-free time to let our­selves be refreshed and restored. All kinds of evi­dence shows how ben­e­fi­cial rest is for our bod­ies, our psy­cho­log­i­cal well­be­ing, and for our spir­i­tu­al nour­ish­ment and growth. It is easy to see the debil­i­tat­ing effects of our unhealthy pace and the com­pres­sion which many tech­nolo­gies have allowed. The Latin root for the word “pace” is pax, that is “peace.” Giv­ing our­selves a slow­er pace can con­tribute to a greater peace in our whole being.

So, how am I at tak­ing a break? For some of us, it is dif­fi­cult to find or take the time to con­scious­ly unplug and decom­press. And, when we do, we too often say, “I did­n’t know what to do with my time off. I felt rest­less. I can’t just do noth­ing” Slow­ing down takes effort and practice.

Some­times, when we slow down, lots of things rush in to fill the space. We have to slow down at many lev­els. It involves let­ting go - even for a while - of a num­ber of con­cerns, wor­ries, anx­i­eties, ten­sion, con­flicts, and prob­lems that need solving.

For some of us, it is a great exer­cise to walk, with­out a des­ti­na­tion, at a delib­er­ate­ly slow­er pace. It is won­der­ful to expe­ri­ence the open­ing of our sens­es to see, hear, smell and expe­ri­ence the life around us. Some­times, it is help­ful to change our rou­tine, by return­ing to a place we haven’t been to for a long time or vis­it­ing a place we’ve nev­er been to. A dif­fer­ent loca­tion can help change our perspective.

For some of us, we need to lit­er­al­ly unplug our teth­er to the inter­net, to e-mail, to texts, and social media, to the stream of con­nec­tions which are part of our day. Dis­con­nect­ing - even for a while - can be like fast­ing, in that it can allow us to become aware of and sen­si­tive to so much more. Peace­ful recov­ery from hard work and many com­mit­ments should not be a lux­u­ry. We need a break now and then, for the sake of who we are called to be. We are all dif­fer­ent and have dif­fer­ent needs, but, all of us deserve and need some time to rest and be restored and renewed.

Fam­i­ly Vaca­tion or Hol­i­day
Of course, fam­i­lies need time to take a short or longer break from the day-to-day things we do and take a vaca­tion or hol­i­day to enjoy time togeth­er, “away” from our pat­terns. Get­ting away togeth­er can be a time of ten­sion for a fam­i­ly, because relax­ing is dif­fi­cult for each of us. Each of us may have dif­fer­ent pri­or­i­ties and want dif­fer­ent things out of a vaca­tion. It is a good thing for a fam­i­ly to take the time to dis­cuss, well in advance of a planned vaca­tion or hol­i­day, what this time will mean for us. We may have to com­pro­mise and have “some of this” and “some of that,” always aware that our choic­es are about car­ing for each oth­er rather than “get­ting my way.” Our desire should be that we might trav­el to a dif­fer­ent place - in our rela­tion­ships with each oth­er - togeth­er. It is good to build in some delib­er­ate “rules” for our time. How much tech­nol­o­gy and stim­u­la­tion will we bring along? How much will be stay in touch with work and friends, and mul­ti-task along the way? How well can we agree on not fight­ing or being aggres­sive with each oth­er - to take a vaca­tion from ordi­nary pat­terns which might be unhealthy and explore new pat­terns of being nice and kind to each oth­er, to fos­ter that sense of peace that this vaca­tion might offer.

Choos­ing to pray on our break
It is so impor­tant on our vaca­tion or hol­i­day time to build in some time to be aware that we are embrac­ing this spe­cial time, as a gift from God, and as an oppor­tu­ni­ty to enjoy more time with our God, in this more relax­ing time - indi­vid­u­al­ly or as a fam­i­ly. This can take a vari­ety of forms. The tone can be set in our plan­ning for our break. We can offer a prayer, as we plan, thank­ing our Lord for this oppor­tu­ni­ty and ask­ing for the graces we need to enjoy it and to let it be a time of peace and growth. We can ask our Lord to accom­pa­ny us on this jour­ney and to help us see all of cre­ation around us as gift and to grow in our aware­ness and grat­i­tude for God’s pres­ence with us along the way. We can be atten­tive to not pack too much into our vaca­tion or to sched­ule it so tight­ly that we leave out any qui­et time for indi­vid­ual prayer. We can be delib­er­ate in pray­ing togeth­er at meal­times and to offer a prayer of grat­i­tude, espe­cial­ly when we’ve had a won­der­ful expe­ri­ence togeth­er. If we are away over a week­end, we can plan ahead to ensure that we can locate a parish or con­gre­ga­tion for Mass or wor­ship on Sun­day morn­ing - a won­der­ful oppor­tu­ni­ty to expe­ri­ence anoth­er com­mu­ni­ty expe­ri­ence and to touch base with anoth­er part of the Body of Christ.

A new per­spec­tive can open the way to re-pri­or­i­­tiz­ing
A com­mon mis­take after a vaca­tion or hol­i­day is to jump right back into our rou­tine imme­di­ate­ly, with­out tak­ing the time to gath­er our thoughts and feel­ing and to take advan­tage of what we learned from the expe­ri­ence. Get­ting a new per­spec­tive on our life, which a break often offers, is a ter­ri­ble thing to waste. It is good to ask our­selves what we saw, under­stood more clear­ly and what new desires were opened up in our hearts. Did I dis­cov­er how much I enjoyed the break and felt so much bet­ter on many lev­els? Did I enjoy walk­ing or read­ing or pray­ing and feel a desire to add those small changes of pace to my life? Did I dis­cov­er that I am over com­mit­ted or stretched too thin­ly? Did I even imag­ine what changes in my life might be pos­si­ble? Some­times we get so used to the bind we find our­selves in that we can’t even imag­ine back­ing up a bit and re-assess­ing our assump­tions and choic­es. Change is real­ly dif­fi­cult. We usu­al­ly won’t do it unless some­thing we val­ue deeply moti­vates our change. That’s usu­al­ly love and grat­i­tude to our God and love and grat­i­tude for oth­ers. Those deep feel­ing moti­vate us to change and make sac­ri­fices for others.

It is a real bless­ing to ask our Lord what free­dom we are being offered in this vaca­tion. Per­haps it is sim­ply to return to our lives, or work, or our rela­tion­ship with the Lord, with renewed vital­i­ty and com­mit­ment. At oth­er time, it is impor­tant to re-pri­or­i­­tize a num­ber of our choic­es, based upon what we saw on our break. Even small changes in how we do things can intro­duce big changes to our atti­tudes, our prac­tices, our rela­tion­ships with loved ones and friends and our rela­tion­ship with Jesus.

May our Lord bless our small breaks, our indi­vid­ual and fam­i­ly vaca­tions, in ways which bless us, give us more peace and per­spec­tive for God’s greater glo­ry and the ser­vice of others.