by Sherry Scheideman, MA, Registered Clinical Counsellor.

If you feel like you need a tropical vacation, ask yourself what you want from the experience. What feeling would the experience give you? Maybe peace? Okay, good — you know what you want.

The problem is that the vacation is the thing that can give it to you, so it has all the power. You’re at the vacation’s mercy, hoping that it will happen, and that it will give you the peace that you need. You’re powerless! You’re dependent on circumstance to give you peace! This is a hard way to live.

It also doesn’t make much sense, because the feeling that you want is within you, yet you’re believing that only an outside source can give it to you. Hmmm.

Thankfully, there is another way to get the peace that you want. You can take back the power to meet your own need! Take responsibility for being peaceful yourself, instead of depending on the vacation do it for you. Skip the middleman (the vacation), and just go directly to the peace!

I say, skip the middleman, and be happy and free from where you are right now.

Byron Katie

To do this, ask yourself, “What does peace feel like?”

You know what it feels like. You’ve felt it before. Remember it. Re-member it within you. As you get in touch with that old familiar feeling of peace, let it grow within you. Feed it with mental images of places where you’ve felt peaceful. Breathe peace into it, and exhale tension out of it. Feel it in your body, coursing through your veins, softening your tight spots, opening your constrictions, warming you, freeing you. Feel it in your mind, feel it in your heart.

By paying attention to the peace that exists within you, you can re-kindle it yourself and enjoy the feeling of it as it pervades you. Then the vacation becomes a nice option, but not a necessity.

You can do this any time, anywhere.

This gives the power back to you.

This is called Responsibility. Who wouldn’t want it? It’s liberating.

As a counsellor, I love to work with clients on identifying their own needs, and taking responsibility for meeting those needs themselves. I love to see clients experiencing this kind of empowerment and liberation.

This post was written by Sherry Scheideman, MA, Registered Clinical Counsellor, Victoria, BC

photo by Sharonang on Pixabay