Do you consistently find yourself in the fall asking where summer went?
Do you often need a vacation to recover from your vacation?
Summer…ahhh yes…time for a deep breath. Maybe you envision your toes in the sand and waves crashing in the background or maybe a trip into the mountains. Summer is typically a time where people travel, schedules change, and we head to the beach. This season can be a time of looking forward to a break after a long stretch from the holiday season. We go in with the best of intentions, but it can become just another stressful season if we do not slow down to check in with ourselves.
A speed bump question I would like to put in your path: is there too much pressure on your Summer?
One of the things we have seen with others and frankly ourselves, at times, is that we can put too much pressure on these trips or we pack too much into the Summer season. We end up getting back from a trip and we never really get the benefits of the break. We pressurize these trips to be this all-encompassing event to give us rest, bolster our physical, emotional, and spiritual tanks, and oh yea…have fun. Just writing that makes me feel a bit stressed. The beach trip now has these expectations and these pressures can be projected onto fellow travelers. Expectations are also kindling for resentments to burn. Ah! Who wants that?! We are doing this for fun and to cut loose remember?!
A suggestion is that instead of the usual family trip that happens every July to the same place, maybe a conversation needs to happen with the family to ask: “Hey do we still want to make this trip? Is this still relevant to the season we are in or are we just making ourselves do this for tradition’s sake?” Maybe you decide to keep the same trip, but instead of staying with family you choose to rent somewhere nearby to make sure you have down time. Sometimes we do not need wholesale changes, but adjustments to the travel/schedule plans.
This may not come as a shock to those of you who know me, but my suggestion is to slow down. Check in. What is it that you actually need in this season? What is refreshing to you? How does fun and adventure fit into this? If you are a believer in God, check in with Him as to what He has for you in this Summer season. Remove the pressure of: it is all up to me.
A good podcast for entering the Summer season is: John Eldredge’s Wild at Heart podcast episode 823 The Secret To Summer.