When was the last time you completely shut down? No email, no chores, no doing anything at all. If that question makes you squirm, your vacation inner critic is louder than you think.

In this episode, I'm calling out the voices that keep you from taking real time off. The ones that say 'you'll fall behind', 'you'll lose momentum', 'now is a terrible time.' Those voices are lies. We've been conditioned by a system that treats two weeks a year like it's enough, and your body and mind pay the price.

Let's talk about how to figure out what kind of break you actually need, because it may not be what you think it ought to be. Maybe it's adventure. Maybe it's family time. Maybe it's staring at the sky and thinking of nothing but the color of that blue. I share the small steps that get you to the bigger swaths of time where you truly decompress.

Because here's the truth: rest is not the opposite of productivity. Rest is what fills you back up so you can be in flow and productive again.

In this episode:

• The messages we received about taking breaks, and how to decondition from them (01:35)
• What your vacation inner critic sounds like (02:31)
• Why infrequent vacations take longer to sink into, and what your nervous system has to do with it (08:21)
• Vacation is a choice: where there's a will, there's a way (09:39)
• Three days, four days, 15 days: the length of a hair in the timeline of your life (11:29)
• Detoxing from stimulation, doing, and constant contact (16:26)
• The expansive questions to counter your inner critic (17:13)

Quotables:

• "Whatever excuse you're putting in front of you is a damn lie. Inner critics tell us lies about what will happen, and what they don't do is tell us what's possible." (07:22)
• "It might be hard for some folks to give themselves permission to shut off because who are you if you're not in fight or flight mode?" (09:12)
• "You take three days, four days, hell, 15 days. When you really think about that in the whole timeline of your life, it's the length of a hair. It's nothing." (11:29)
• "We are conditioned to think that productivity is everything, and in fact, the most productive thing you can do is rest when you need rest." (18:14)

Not sure which inner critic is running the show? Take the Inner Critic Compass quiz and find out in under 3 minutes: toscadimatteo.com

Mentioned in this episode:
Ep. 7 Inner Critics 101 (earlier episode of the podcast)

Tosca's Links and Resources:

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• Tosca's Website: https://www.toscadimatteo.com
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Props for:
Theme music by Adrian DiMatteo: https://adriandimatteo.com
Podcast Editing: Starlin Media

Note: This episode was recorded in June, 2024