What's Your Escape?

Today's blog is short, but holds a lot of value.

Something I've been thinking a lot about lately is chaos. The chaos of our lives is incredible these days. Not to mention the busyness of the holidays. There are friends coming and going, tension between family members, and seemingly too much to do in the 24-hour day. Eventually we get to a boiling point. We've bottled in all of our emotions, and we begin to carry an unbelievable amount of tension with us everywhere we go. I'd love to go into the details of how this throws off our hormone balance, ability to sleep, burn fat, so on and so forth, but I just want to stay focused on the mental and emotional side of things. Anyway, this incredible amount of tension that we carry begins to affect our relationships, our perspective, and eventually our happiness. 

So what do we do? Get away. Now hear me out. I can already imagine some of you thinking "how can I get away? I spent $500 on my kid's dumb Christmas present. I don' have the cash to get away right now." Relax. There are plenty of ways you can get away.

The power of the mind is a beautiful thing. We are able to process detailed information one minute, and completely zone out and live in la-la land the next. When I say that we need to get away, I mean that we need to get away mentally. That doesn't mean you have to drop $500 on a ticket to some island and lay on a beach chair for two weeks. That's just called running away from your problems. What we need to do is find our escape, and that's different for all of us. For my friend Steven, his escape is video games. He can forget about the rest of the world when he as the controller in his hand. That doesn't work for me. I can forget about the world surrounding me, but I suck so bad at video games that I make myself even more stressed than I was in the first place. For some, an escape is walking a trail next to their house. They can just walk and let their mind wander. Maybe it's reading, hiking, or even sitting with a close friend and just talking their ear off. If you can let your mind release all of your tension, it's your escape. For me, I have several escapes. Some include physically leaving an area for a day or two, and others include closing my eyes and just letting my mind run. In the summer, if I'm feeling overwhelmed, I'll grab a couple of buddies and head up to the mountains for a couple of days. Nothing is more peaceful than falling asleep to the sound of the river in the middle of a forest. In the winter, it's the 5 minute chair lift on the ski slopes. I value that time so much. My point is this: the possibilities for you to let your tensions go are endless. Don't set your happiness aside just because you can't buy a ticket to a warm vacation.

What's your escape? You MUST take care of your mind. You won't know how to take care of your body if your mental health is falling behind. 

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Thanks for reading!