When Did I Last Just Sit and Do Nothing?
Shane and I just got back from a weekend away on the Mornington Peninsula.
He surprised me with a trip down there for our 17th wedding anniversary.
It's where we got married.
Where both of our girls were born.
It's also where we lived when I first moved from California to Australia, about eighteen years ago now. So going back always feels quite meaningful.
We went to the Peninsula Hot Springs, stayed at an Airbnb overlooking the ocean, sat by a fire, and watched the sunset.
And I had nowhere to be.
Nothing I needed to do.
No one I needed to look after.
No meals to think about.
No one's happiness to manage except my own.
Honestly? It took me a minute to settle into that.
I noticed I was fidgety.
A little restless.
That familiar feeling of... shouldn't I be doing something?
And then I noticed my breathing. Tight. Restricted. My body still holding on.
So I just let it go.
Stopped trying to hold everything together and let my breath move freely.
And something shifted.
I could actually relax into doing nothing.
It got me thinking…
We'd just come off a few months of deadlines, emails, and just keeping life moving.
And like most people, I don't pay much attention to my breathing unless something feels wrong.
But I know that most of us have felt this.
You go away on a holiday and the body just can't seem to let go.
Sometimes it takes three days before you actually feel like you're on holiday.
And some people never quite get there.
They come back from their time away still feeling wired,
needing a holiday from their holiday.
I used to put that down to my personality because I'm an “on the go” type of person.
Slowing down and doing nothing is sometimes the last thing I want to do.
But I found out it's not really just a personality thing...
It's a breathing thing.
And we'll get into how that works in this week's newsletter.
Featured Insight of the Week...
Why Is It Hard to Relax on a Holiday?
Here is what is actually happening.
The body is a learning system.
When we spend a long stretch of time under pressure,
the body develops a breathing habit in response to that environment.
That habit gets practiced, over and over,
until it becomes the default pattern the body runs.
So even when you go on holiday and the actual demands drop,
the internal cues that come with those familiar thoughts and patterns can be enough to keep triggering the same habit.
The habit doesn't know you're on holiday.
It just keeps running.
This is often why some people feel anxious at the start of a trip.
Or why it takes a few days before the body and mind actually
settle into holiday mode.
Or why some people find they get sick the moment they slow down, because the body finally has the space to catch up
on what it has been carrying.
What is interesting is that the breath tends to lead the shift
when it does happen.
When the body and mind finally do relax,
you will usually notice the breathing change first.
Less tension. A sense of not having to hold everything together.
And here is the part I find most interesting.
When you start to notice that habit,
you have more say in whether it keeps running.
You don't have to wait three days for that to happen.
Sometimes just noticing it is enough to change it.
You can even find that in the middle of a busy week,
without needing to go anywhere.
That is what understanding your breathing habit actually gives you.
If you want to explore the behavioral science behind this,
I expand on it in this week's blog.
This week in Behavioral Breathwork
Most breathwork teachings educate you with a focus on techniques.
What they often leave out is the psychophysiology behind what is actually happening when people breathe.
That gap is what Behavioral Breathwork is designed to fill.
We are preparing for our next live training and the waitlist is now open.
If you have done breathwork before and felt like something was missing,
or if you have been curious about what makes this approach different,
come and find out more.
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If you’d prefer to begin with a simple personal experience, you can start with our free 7-Day Reflexive Breathing Experience.
It’s a short guided exploration to help you notice how your own breathing patterns respond to stress and settling.
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