Re-Entry Transitions – Hitting the Real World After Vacation

We arrived home from Costa Rica retreat in the wee hours of the morning  Saturday and today I find myself suffering from mild ”re-entry transition condition”.  I have travelled long enough to know that there is always an adjustment period both in entering a new place and upon return.  To help support myself with proper self-care, I try to make sure  that I have at least one day, if not two, to ease back into reality.

Yesterday was my “do nothing but follow my body’s cues” day.  Although I had gone to bed at 3:30 am, I wasn’t able to sleep later than 10 am.  I got up, ate a light breakfast and simply puttered putting away the week’s worth of travel supplies.  After re-connecting with my family with stories of our weeks, the burn in my eyes and mild headache told me it was time for a nap.  Normally I don’t like to take long naps during the day as it makes it harder for me to go to sleep at night, but yesterday the two and a half hour nap was key to my recovery! 

The rest of the day was spent laying low and staying away from the pile of things I knew I needed to do for the week.  Resisting the urge to dive into my pile of “to-do” lists projects was naturally the biggest challenge but I’m happy to report aside from a quick email scan, I succeeded.

Day two of my transition is now geared towards catching up and getting essentials projects done so that I feel ready to go into the week without stress and rush.  Yes, that means that I’m not back on my computer and in the thick of a few work and household projects.  But just like my puttering in putting away the clothes and going through the mail helped ground me back to home yesterday, getting a jump on the week feels supportive in being ready to re-enter reality tomorrow.

Here’s a fun list of a few of my re-entry transitions:

• Transitioning from the tropical 80’s and sun of Costa Rica to the brrr cold of 21 degrees and snow.
• Sadly saying goodbye to the daily buffets of homemade vegetarian food at the resort to, gulp, having to cook my own food again – yes, this is the transition I like the least!
• Having to think about work and chores rather than simply deciding whether to take an adventure tour, lie on the beach, or read a book in the hammock.
• Hearing and speaking only English again.  It’s true that I still spoke a lot of English there because many in the retreat group didn’t speak Spanish; but I’m happy to say that I got several opportunities to improve my Spanish as well.
• Waking up to dark and the alarm rather than the singing of the birds and barks of the howler monkeys with sunlight streaming in at 5:30 am.
• Needing to actually style my hair again rather than allowing the humidity to give it a bouncy, cute doo effortlessly.
• Using oil on my skinfor the dryness rather than aloe vera to treat my sunburn – this one might be a good switch!
• Missing my fellow fabulous travellers and our wonderful daily conversations.

Hopefully my re-entry self care will make my transition back to the hustle and bustle of my “normal” life tomorrow smoother.

How do you transition back after being away of business or pleasure?

Travel, Family and the First Chakra

The kids and I traveled to Michigan last week to visit family and I had the opportunity to witness some great first chakra communication and gain new awareness.  The first chakra, located at the base of the spine and connected to the physical area of elimination, is energetically about acceptance and release (elimination) as well as habits, patterns and our physical identity and survival.

Several days into the trip, I realized that my bowels were not performing in their usual manner…in fact, I hadn’t had a bowel movement at all.  I didn’t feel overly concerned nor physically bloated but I was having a lot of lower back pain which I attributed to the seven hour car ride and hotel beds.  At this point, I simply observed the situation with a “hmmm, isn’t this interesting.”

Since the first chakra is connected to habits, it isn’t uncommon when one travels and is out of their normal routines for the bowels to be a little thrown off.  This is especially true if the diet changes and less fruits, vegetables or whole grains are eaten.  Knowing this, I made a mental note and a conscious effort to eat more veggies.  Several days later and no change, I took things a step further and did a yoga set called “kriya for lower spine and elimination” which did the trick and slowly got things moving.

That could have been where things ended.  A physical change with a physical stretching remedy.  But being who I am (an exploring mind) I wondered what else might be there for me to see or hear.  Sometimes I ask these questions before my meditation time; this time I chose to simply ponder over several days, along my beach walks and kayak trip, and allow my inner wisdom to share.  And what showed up was around acceptance, specifically around my relationship with my sister but also reflected in the larger sense of accepting people for who they are and trying to find the place of connection which honors both people’s truths.

Over the years as I’ve become healthier inside and out, I feel like I’ve been able to hold this space of mutual honoring better.  And I do think on the surface I was doing that well on this trip.  Yet, as I looked more closely, I accepted that there was still some judgement on my part.  The judgement didn’t show up in outright criticism but rather took the form of sharing thoughts about her with other people.  It wasn’t quite gossip but it also wasn’t neutral observation.  There was a thread of something else in the conversation…emotion, discomfort, drama…I don’t exactly know but it didn’t feel clean.  What I do know is that the fact that I needed to talk about it to several other people meant there was something I was still processing in our relationship, still in the transition of acceptance without resistance.

As this last piece of awareness settled in, my body returned to it’s normal flow and my back pain fully dissipated.  I still don’t have all the answers of how I want to move more completely into acceptance, but I got the message and for today that was enough.

Growing Up

I put my 13 year-old daughter on a plane today to Florida by herself.  She’s off to stay with her Argentinian aunt to practice her Spanish.  As I stood there saying a quick good-bye this morning at the gate, I reflected on how much she has grown and blossomed over the years and how fast she is growing up.

To me, parenting is the most challenging experience I’ve ever had.  It has all the makings of a great epic saga…the ups, the downs, the drama, the lessons on both sides, and even the budding romance (which we haven’t hit yet but I’m sure it’s on it’s way!).  Unlike coaching where I hold a neutral space and allow clients to discover their own best answers, as a parent I definitely do more guiding and laying down the laws.  As my daughter is getting older, though I will obviously still hold the “parent” space, I am hoping to give her more of the opportunity to discover her own best answers.  Sometimes there’s an overlap…her choices blended with seeds I have unconsciously or consciously planted.

This trip was my daughter’s idea…a counter proposal to my offer to send her to a language camp this summer.  She has expressed interest to be an exchange student and we both thought she needed a bit more skill before heading off for a summer.  Recognizing that she doesn’t like going to camps or being in strange places, she chose an opportunity for herself which met her goals and honored her comfort levels.  The seeds for this trip, however, began with my own passion for travel.  We’ve had the opportunity to go to Europe three times (my mother and her husband have lived in Germany 7 of the past 10 years) and we hosted a French exchange student and a Spanish exchange chaperone.  I’m excited that she shares my wanderlust and is open to expanding her horizons through learning about other cultures.  I don’t think I push but I certainly encourage and support the experiences she chooses to explore.

With each experience, I see her grow into her name…Grace.  Last year she stayed in Germany with my mother an additional three weeks after my son and I departed.  It was not all roses for her, though it had been her choice.  But that experience, with it’s challenges, allowed her to step onto the plane this morning with a new level of confidence that I can’t help but admire.

Here’s to the next generations…may they carry the best of us with their own unique skills born of this time in society.