What I found In Hawai’i

The Friday before I flew to Hawai’i, I did the opening reflection at a caring conference for nurses. Knowing that I would be getting on a plane to go on the most luxurious vacation I have ever been, with a spa appointment for that Sunday. During the conference reflection I shared the following words: “Self-care in recent years has become quite the hot topic. Its trendiness might have us imagining pricey spa treatments, long luxurious baths, decadent chocolate cakes, expensive vacations—and perhaps our individual self-care practices include some if not all of these wonderful treat yourself moments.” In hindsight it feels a bit hypocritical to write those words, however, may you all be reassured I continued that statement with this: “However, as I have pursued my own personal pathway to care for myself, I have found that those practices while wonderful aren’t the heavy lifting self-care that I must do every day.”

So often we believe the answer to our daily suffering and frustrations are the spa treatments, the expensive vacations far away, the decadent desserts, and long baths. All of those things are wonderful and can absolutely be beneficial for us, but they all end. After their ending, we might find ourselves left hollow and wondering what we can fill that space with next. They are the “quick fix” but when they end we are left feeling the exact same way as before. I know I have experienced this before. I have gone on a vacation or had a massage and found the peace, serenity, and rest I have been searching for to only become frantic and anxious upon return to my “real life.”

I am now back from Hawai’i and am preparing myself to go back to work what many of us call “real life” and I am gratefully still feeling that abiding peace I found in Hawai’i. I am sure I will get caught up again in the hustle and bustle of everyday life, but there were things I found in Hawai’i, things I want to continue to experience. Which means there are going to be some heavy lifting practices that I will need to implement into my everyday life.

Also, what would happen if we reframed our vacations to be included in our “real life” lives? No matter where we go or what we do on that vacation—what if we gifted ourselves with the knowledge that this too is our real life and gave thanks for that? Perhaps we would be able to enjoy the vacation more and the return to everyday life at home might not sting so badly.

Time and space away from home and work whether in Hawai’i or somewhere perhaps less “luxurious” benefit our hearts, minds, and souls greatly. I found space on vacation, I found peace, I found rest, I found an absence of the noise that I consume everyday (one way I did this was not scrolling on Instagram, I posted my own experiences and created my own content but I didn’t mindlessly scroll consuming more posts about things I should buy or the 20 million step skincare regime everyone else is doing. The content I did consume were things that made my soul, heart, and mind, feel warm and fuzzy not comparative or competitive.) I found myself attuned to the natural world around me and all of God’s good creation, I found myself living and breathing with an overwhelming sense of gratitude and awe, and I found my deep need for true spirituality. In these discoveries I found the Holy Spirit gently resting upon me, meeting me, as always, right where I am.

February 14, 2024, marked the beginning of the Christian liturgical season Lent with Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday invites us to remember our mortality, to get in touch with our humanness, and to put on practices that invite us to remember that we rely on God for everything. Before my trip, I was quite hard on myself—realizing we had slipped into the season of Lent, and I was already behind on choosing some spiritual practice to put on or some habit to give up. I felt disconnected from my spiritual self and fatigued from the daily grind.

I found myself going through the motions, feeling fatigued, plagued with headaches, and off kilter. I have the tendency to put a lot of pressure on myself and with the beginning of Lent I felt like a fraudulent pastor, able to preach on the meaning of the season but unable to really connect with the true spiritual essence of it. Granting myself grace, I realize that this makes me less a fraud and more simply a human trying their best to live well in a chaotic, stressful, and disconnected world.

Going on vacation gave me the much-needed breathing space to realize where things in my life have become stagnant and in need of rest, rejuvenation, and intentional tending to. Being many plane hours away from home and five hours behind was helpful to disengage. I spent less time on my phone and more time in the present moment(aside from the pictures I would take and post). The spa treatment helped me ease into the week, to unwind and loosen the tight knots that had formed in my body and mind. I looked at Will and said “I don’t know that I have ever been this relaxed. Do people live their everyday life this relaxed?”

         Just like I named before though, these are not the heavy lifting self-care practices that make for long term well-being, if approached with intentionality they can help create space for us to relax and hear what our bodies and souls need.

         My hope and goal now that I am back home, is to find heavy lifting self-care practices that create that space and peace that I found looking out over the aqua blue water of Hawai’i, the warm bright sun shining on my face, hair rustling in the breeze. While I may not be there now, that peace has followed me home. Hawai’i offered me a blessing and invitation. It is now my job to step more fully into life in ways that honor the gifts I received.

         This will most likely not be the last post reflecting on my time in Hawaii, I have just realized how long it is. If you have made it this far into reading, thank you, I am always grateful people seem to care what I write.

I have been doing a few yoga classes and at the end of the class one particular instructor encourages us to make light fists and wrap our arms around ourselves to “seal in our practice.” This is my hope and purpose behind my written reflections—I want to seal in the peace, space, hope, awe, and gratitude I found in Hawai’i so I might live a little more grounded and authentically.