
Rosie Brogan: Petrea, what are we doing wrong when it come to holidays?
Petrea King: A lot of people drag themselves through their lives with too many commitments, too much in the schedule. They don’t really own their time. They don’t give their time in a conscious way.
They run themselves down until they’re completely exhausted and in need of a holiday. Then they often go on holiday and get a cold, or get the flu —now that they’ve actually got time to be sick.
And so that seems a very unfortunate way to have a holiday.
We often like to have holidays because we’re no longer sliding down our habitual neuronal pathways of reaction [ie. reacting on autopilot].
Because when we go to another place, another country — it’s such a sensory experience. We’re having new tastes, experiencing new sights, sounds and temperatures. New everything.
So we have this wonderful sensory experience. Then within a week we’re back home and we’re sliding down our habitual neuronal pathways [back to autopilot] again and we say, “What holiday?”
RB: What can we do differently?
PK: So the best way to enjoy a holiday is to not need one. If you’re practicing on a daily basis, you can have a holiday from your neuronal pathways at home: through meditation, through looking after your diet, through exercise and through taking time out for yourself.
If you put all of these things into practice and give yourself a good life now — a meaningful, healthy and happy life now — then when the holiday comes that’s just a bonus.
RB: So you start thinking in the way you’d like to when you’re actually on holiday…
PK: Exactly.
RB: What can we do in the two weeks before we go on our next holiday, if say, we’re not yet quite there yet in terms of calm?
PK: Not take on any further commitments between now and when you go. Learn to say no. Have some early nights, so that you get good rest before you go (so you’re already taking a rested-self on holidays, rather than a frazzled-self).
Improve your nutrition, perhaps take some vitamins, particularly if you’re going into another culture where you might be exposed to other foods or not have access to that which you’re normally familiar with.
RB: Such as probiotics?
PK: Yes so that you build up your nutritional system and your immune system, then go on holidays and enjoy yourself.