I am the luckiest girl alive! Ron had to go on a biz trip and asked me to come with him. Ok, so a little vaca from the daily grind- that’ll be nice. But, check this out. His business convention was held at the Hotel Del Coronado on Coronado Island outside of San Diego. We had an excellent room where you could hear the waves pounding the shore all night (I had crazy dreams- I think I was a superhero in one of them?), and the whole entire experience was AMAZING! The hotel is crazy awesome and I really could’ve just stayed there the whole trip and been happy.
The interesting thing was that as soon as I got up on the first morning and got into the shower I felt this panic. Something like this “Oh my God I only have 3 days and it’s going to go by too fast and how am I going to get the most out of it and I really need to do this this this this this and this. But it’s already almost over and I’m wasting time taking this shower and we should’ve added an extra day and ” and and and. I realized how crazy I was and said out loud “STOP.” (pause for dramatic emphasis) “Breathe…” and I took a few slow deeeep breaths and got myself together.
Breathing is what I tell other people to do if they’re getting into panic mode. It really is quite an amazing tool. (I probably will say “amazing” a few more times in this post,
just so you know). I took my own advice and just stood there and breathed for a few long slow moments. When I got out of the shower I just kept my mind on the words ‘slow’ and ‘breathe’. I was much better equipped after calming down to hear what my intuition was telling me. How will I get the most out of my time here? What are the things I really want to do?
Surprise- I wanted to do work! I found it very easy to do work for my current group (the 30 Day Kickstart to FIT & HEALTHY. Don’t worry if you missed it, I’m going to do another one probably in the spring). And then my intuition said EAT- so I went to the restaurant in the hotel. And then I felt the need to go sit on the beach and just stare at the waves. I listened to some meditation music and that mixed with the sound of the waves was magic. I closed my eyes and put my hands in the sand. Life slowed down and I just took it in. Felt amazingly alive! I took some time every day to do some meditation.
The highlights of the weekend were those meditative moments in front of the ocean. The reason why is that they brought me into the present moment, and made everything else I did exponentially more enjoyable. Spent time with Ron and had some lovely meals together. Ran and ran and ran and ran and ran on the beach. And then ran some more. Also amazingly meditative and it made me feel so alive! Took a ton of pictures, went to the San Diego Zoo, dinner in Seaport Village, top of the Hyatt, rode bikes around Coronado Island, explored Ferry’s Landing, went to the gym (of course) and recorded a video for people who use “but I was traveling” as their excuse for not working out.
Whenever I felt that panicky stuff come up I would take a few slow deep breaths and figure out a way to ground myself. Sometimes that was standing barefoot on the ground. If I couldn’t be barefoot, just standing still worked alright also. Also sitting still and not doing anything also helped bring me back to me.
Had a very full 3 days, and they didn’t fly by. I enjoyed and appreciated every moment. It’s true that it did eventually come to an end, and that’s ok. I was ready to come home and enjoy what comes next.
Do you get into a “New York state of mind” and get all panicky? What do you do to settle yourself back down? Or do you do anything? Try what I did. When you start to get that run on crazy voice in your head telling you all the things you need to do and feel time crunching down on you- say out loud “STOP” and then “Breathe”, then actually take a few moments for some slow deeeep breaths. Then write down what’s in your head. Get it out of your head and onto paper. Then you can go through and choose what is your priority in the moment. Take it one step at a time.
Main thing is to enjoy your life in the moment. Breathe, and enjoy!
Health & Happiness,
Miranda Zukowski