Aruba Family Vacation Rest Health Meaningful — Our little family! We had so many moments of connection during our vacation and this picture reminds me of that.

The allure of checking out of your life

Yes, you read that title right! We’ve always been told to be present and be good and be involved right? Like go to the events, meet the people, work a regular schedule, and MAYBE take a vacation (if everything magically lines up like time, money, work, etc.). We used to really believe those things to be true until we burnt out hard and it made us question a lot of the thought patterns and beliefs that we were used to abiding by.

About ten years ago we started taking a yearly vacation the same time every year. At first, we thought it was a luxury and now we think of it as a necessity. We added on a few days this year to make it a (*gasp) two week vacation.

Every year comes with its own set of challenges in fulfilling this vacation. One year when we only had two people working with us, one person was in the hospital the night before we were scheduled to leave and we had to figure out a solution to still be able to go. There’s also lots of things competing to spend money on every year, right?! We started reaping so many benefits from our yearly time away that we started prioritizing it and really trying hard to make it happen because we knew the benefits would outweigh all the obstacles.

When planning becomes too complicated

This year had some huge obstacles to getting to our destination. The trip was more expensive this year and involved renewing passports and more finances and we didn’t buy our plane tickets before the cost of gas went up so ticket prices were soaring. I wish I would have added up how many hours and flight paths we checked before we finally scored our tickets. We almost gave up so many times and almost just said, “Forget it. This is too complicated.”

Honestly, one of the biggest reasons we kept fighting to make it happen is the fact that every year when we go on our trip, we check out of our regular life completely. And its amazing the clarity we get and the things we hear from God every year when we do this. It’s like a whole life tune up and we are addicted to it. This year we went international and didn’t pay for phone service. We could still get iMessages when connected to wifi but our phone time was pretty much non existent and it freed up mental time and space and energy to really hear from God about some important decisions we have going on. It also freed up time and space to really take stock on how we were both doing internally. Regular life is demanding and there’s a lot of pressure and noise competing for our attention.

When just going works out

One of our biggest fears is getting burnt out and not being able to be healthy mentally, physically, and emotionally. This cycle has happened before twice in major ways during our time together and each time it has happened we’ve made changes and pin pointed good pathways of change that could mitigate the damage caused. A yearly vacation is somewhat of an antidote for us because we can count on it happening every year. We can count on the week being filled with fun, relaxation, time to hear each other, and time to just be HAPPY. That’s worth a lot!

I hope this encourages you to take regular breaks in life. Checking out can be good! It gives you a renewed perspective on where the heck you are headed in life and can really help bring mental clarity. Cheers to setting time and space aside to CHECK OUT!