Just recently I was speaking with a client who had just returned from holiday.
It was her first day back at work.
She told me she’d had a wonderful break. She’d relaxed, slept well, laughed more than usual, spent time with people she loved and, for a while, life had felt wonderfully uncomplicated.
But as she drove into work that morning something changed. Almost instantly she felt a heaviness.
She began thinking about the hundreds of emails waiting for her, the paperwork, the clients she needed to call, the staff issues that would no doubt need her attention.
Within minutes, the holiday feeling had disappeared.
Perhaps you’ve experienced something similar.
Maybe it wasn’t after a holiday. Perhaps it was on a Sunday evening before Monday morning, or after a peaceful weekend when your mind suddenly filled with everything that needed doing.
It’s such a common experience that we rarely question it. We naturally assume our circumstances are creating our feelings.
“Of course I feel stressed. Look how much there is to do.”
Yet something quite different is happening.
The paperwork hadn’t changed during her drive to work. The emails hadn’t suddenly multiplied. Nothing in her circumstances had altered.
What changed was the activity of her mind.
As she mentally raced ahead into the week, her thinking accelerated, and her feelings faithfully reflected that thinking.
What feelings always do
Feelings don’t tell us about our circumstances. They tell us about the quality of our thinking in this moment.
This is one of the simplest and most liberating insights I have found through understanding the Three Principles.
We often believe holidays make us feel peaceful. But perhaps that’s not quite true.
A holiday doesn’t and cannot inject us with peace or happiness.
More often, it’s a time when we allow our minds to slow down and our thinking naturally settles.
And when our thinking settles, something beautiful becomes obvious.
The calm, contentment, and clarity we were looking for were never just at the beach, in the sunshine or the stunning view.
They were already within us. The holiday simply revealed what had been there all along.
The interesting thing is that, on her drive to work, my client unknowingly put her foot back on the accelerator.
Not physically. Mentally.
Within a few minutes she’d projected herself into dozens of imaginary conversations, unfinished tasks and potential problems.
Her mind had become busy again and her feelings followed.
The good news is that there was nothing she needed to fix.
She didn’t need positive affirmations, force herself to think differently, or try to control her experience.
She simply saw what was happening.
She recognised that her experience was being created by thought in the moment, not by the inbox waiting for her.
That understanding alone invited to her to allow her mind to quieten down. As it did, the feeling of overwhelm began to dissolve.
Nothing has changed but everything is different
The work was still there. But she was different.
She realised she could approach the situation with far more presence, perspective, and ease.
Perhaps that’s the real gift of a holiday.
Not that it gives us something we lose when we come home. But that it reminds us what becomes available whenever our minds become quiet.
For me, the beautiful thing is this:
You don’t have to wait for your next holiday to experience that feeling again.
