It’s September. It is well started now. Schools are back on. The wheel of work and life plans has restarted running. Lists of “things to do within September” are written on the fridge door. The old magnet chalk board is still doing its job. The rains are also back on. Not that they ever really stopped during this British summertime. However, they changed from the heavy storms, quickly blown away by vigorous ocean winds and followed by warming bright sun. Now, they are shifting to the thin drops, everlasting typical London rains which make you wonder whether there is still a sun behind the clouds.
During these rainy, wet, oh God WET, every day darker, but still warm evenings, we start regathering with our friends now back from holidays. We get cozy and in between one bite of pizza and the other, we share stories about French countryside adventures. We talk about camping storms misadventures, rainy beach days spent waiting for the rain to pass. We recount amusement park losses due to wee emergency and the expensive musical show lost forever.
It’s well known that stress and anxiety are some of the most frequent health conditions affecting people nowadays. Parents are also affected by these issues. The root of stress is often not within the holiday itself or the lack of capability to organize them in a way that they can be enjoyable and everything can flow smoothly. I don’t think there is a recipe for that, however, you might find lot of literature about how to plan the perfect holiday with children.
Holidays can represent many things for our life journey. Sometimes they can be an opportunity to confront our soft spots and vulnerabilities. There is so much time for thinking during holidays. Many people don’t want to think because this would open the Pandora vase and make it worse. That’s why many people choose to head to super busy holiday villages. These have lots of activities for children to keep them busy. Parents pray for an undisturbed lie under the sun at the sound of the ocean waves, fiction book in one hand, cold drink in the other.
My point is that if holidays have been a stressful moment and going back to work felt a release, then is a good idea to allow yourself a slowdown this September. Leave only the essential plans on the chalkboard list. Leave only the ones that you think increase your positive productivity and remove the ones that can wait. Consider how much stress is affecting your life and consider talking about it to a therapist. An initial consultation might make you aware of how you are feeling and whether you may benefit from therapy or not. Don’t let yourself run until the next Christmas holiday because this might keep feeding you stress ball while you run through your busy life.
Stress is about control.
When was the last time you felt the release from losing the control? For me, probably when I gave birth. Talking about holidays, I am one of those people that finds very difficult losing control. I struggle to let people decide for me. I find it hard to let someone lead me to a place or find the right restaurant or a cozy B&B without me supervising. Better yet, I prefer being the one making the ultimate decision. So, you anxious and stressed folk, have all my understanding. But what I learnt is that this requires very hard work. Holding on the control of everything it’s very tiring and it makes you develop that subtle emotional tiredness that it is very difficult to acknowledge and heal. It might be that overthinking before you fall asleep or as soon as you wake up, or that over worrying for everything comes up. It could translate in difficulty falling asleep. It could also lead to weight gain or belly fat accumulation. Digestion difficulties such as feeling bloated all the time may occur. Other stress-related symptoms, which vary from person to person, can also arise. Emotional tiredness really makes up our sympathetic and parasympathetic system and sometimes we feel so generally unwell. When it’s prolonged, we can get so much used to it that we might find even difficult to link it with a reason. So, if you are already going through a stressful moment in your life, probably organizing holiday might make it even worse, especially if they are charged with a lot of expectation to relive that stress. What I would suggest in that case is: slow down! Your body is giving you the amber flag that you might be too loaded so avoid also loading you with articulated holiday organization. Make it simple.
Create the conditions to make the right choices.
Don’t force yourself to book if you’re not ready to do so, if doesn’t feel right, do it on another day. The right place to head to will feel so and there will always be one. As long as you make that decision in a moment where you feel relaxed, positive and inspired.
Give yourself the chance to change plans.
Sometimes we get stuck in a plan that looked right when we made it but then things might have changed and it might not be anymore. So, don’t lock yourself in a cage of a plan which is no longer working. Sit on that chair, or stool or stair step, get a coffee or lit an incense or take a bath and wait for something better to come up.
Remember self-care.
Ask yourself: when was the last time I had a hot bath with magnesium salts and those delightful citrus essential oils to recharge me. There is a huge range of self-care possibilities out there, some of them even not expensive at all, that you can access. Self-care doesn’t take lot of time and not even a lot of money, it just takes to give up something else to allow yourself those 10 minutes to sit, put on that Tibetan bowls playlist and breathe!
Exercise the “drop of the load”.
If you are aware to be one of those people that tent to put all the load on their backpack to release the others, first of all well done for reaching awareness of this. The next step might be practicing exercises that help unloading your-self. It is important sometimes in families to share the load, to delegate tasks and let someone else being in charge of some. This also apply for holidays. Feeling in charge of making sure that everything flows smoothly is very hard emotional work, try to remember yourself that you can’t be in control of what is going to happen and try to have fun even if the B&B that looked so promising turns out to be a disaster. In other words, dance under the storm instead of waiting for the storm to pass or, even worse, feeling guilty for having picked a storm day. It’s impressing how much we can load our-self.
If you practice yoga, it’s a great idea to reserve yourself 30 minutes for a yoga Nidra, which is the rotation of the body awareness on the different parts of your body while keeping a relaxed steady breathing. Thirty minutes of a well practice yoga Nidra can be equitable to several hours of deep sleep. You might feel a lot rested and your mind flowing more smoothly and less restless after that. If you practice regularly, try refreshing yoga routines like the moon salutation in the evening before dinner time. As breathing exercise, Chandra pranayama is a calming technique you can try when you decide to reserve yourself 15 minutes to sit and breathe in front of the river flow, for example, or just on your carpet in front of the soothing light of a candle.
We can’t control our children fun and happiness.
As much as we try, our children or our partner might not like what we organized, or we might not like what he chooses to do this time, making us feel that our so much precious and packed with expectation and wait holiday time was all wasted. This may lead to the sense of guilt spoiling our holiday or day out and lit up our anxiety. My advice is to try to give back the emotions to whom they belong to. It is okay whether our children get upset during our special day out, they surely have their own reasons to do so. Rather than thinking how to avoid it or prevent it, we can support them during their rough time, wait for the storm to go and then start again.
Happy slow September everyone, look after your-self and enjoy every step of the way before the arrival of this coming fall. I leave you with this video of the Moon Salutation sequence from my beloved teacher.
giulia ciarapica, midwife 