Article: Holidays

Holidays = holy days. Holy, means set apart. The practice of setting apart days from the rest of ones life is an old one. It’s a habit recommended by many experts on humanity, from spiritual leaders to GPs. Taking regular time out - one day in seven, one week at Easter, two weeks every summer, or whatever works -  is good for us.

If we go without holy days we suffer. Burnout, stress, bad backs and navel fluff envy all seem to get blamed on what we do rather than what we don’t do. Is it working long and hard that does the damage or is it missing out on holidays?

William Wilberforce who knew the strain of decades of persecution and unrewarded effort credited much of his endurance to his weekly Sunday holidays. Grieving the demise of similarly passionate friends who had not set apart Sundays he commented, “With peaceful Sundays, the strings would never have snapped as they did from over-tension.”

How good are we at holidaying? How good are we at setting apart time from our usual activities? Maybe you’re just back from a period of holy days. Before you shake the last of the holiday sand from the folds and crevices of your consciousness, have a think: How did your holiday score - out of ten? What can you learn from it that will allow you to make your next holy days holier? Here are some questions that may help:

• How much (time, imagination, energy, money) do you invest in planning and preparing for your holy days?
• In what sort of environment do you relax?
• If you could have changed one thing about your holy days what would it have been?
• To what extent did you get the right balance of company and privacy on your holiday?
• What helped you restore a healthy perspective on yourself and the world?
• What are the top 5 factors that make a holiday / period of holidays good for you?
• What sorts of things make you grin like an idiot?
• Whose company do you find relaxing / refreshing?
• Over the past 2 years what days of fun still stand out?

Now diary some action points based on your answers to improve your future holidays.

E.g.1  A memo on the page before your next scheduled break from work that reads, “visit library for some good holiday reading”.

E.g.2. A list of elements to include or exclude alongside the date of the free evening you’ve set aside to plan your Christmas holidays.

If you sense that you could learn a lot more about yourself and your recreational needs if only you’d get round to carefully thinking it through, may I suggest getting in touch with a life coach? That’s what they’re there for.