Description: Dr. Boogren invites educators to bring the relaxation and joy of a vacation into their weekends by finding small, intentional ways to recharge and find balance.
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Transcription: Hi, and welcome to Self Care for Educators. I am your host, Dr. Tina Boogren. This is episode seven of our fifth season, and this week's invitation is one that feels really good to me. I picked this up, I don't even know where, I'd love to give credit to it. I read something, something came across my feed, and it just kind of stuck in my brain and I've been thinking about it a lot. And so I'm going to offer it to you as this week's invitation. And it is this, it is to treat the weekend like a vacation. Let me say that again. Treat the weekend like a vacation. Now I get it. We probably can't spend the whole weekend pretending like it's a vacation, but isn't there something juicy in that to consider?
I know when we think about finding a bit more balance in our personal, with our personal and professional lives, I recognize that I don't think we're ever fully, totally, completely balanced. Instead, I think there's time during the school year and the whole calendar year where, gosh, the weight goes a little bit more on the professional side. Busy seasons, right? The start of the school year, that's why I call it the season of sacrifice. When we have parent teacher conferences, those of you that have like, putting on the play or you're a coach, um, a sports coach, you are athletic coach, I should say. There's different times of the school year where, gosh, we just the weight, as I said, is a little bit more heavy on the professional side.
And I think there's times where I hope that we lean a little bit more on the personal side where we have a little bit more breathing room. And so when I think about balance, it's more like, do we have these kind of bumpers in place where we recognize, uh oh, I've gone too far one way, and it's impacting the other side of that scale. And so there's something about this idea of treating the weekend like a vacation that just feels really juicy, for lack of a better word.
As I said, I'm not sure we can take the whole weekend every weekend. Cause most of us, myself included, got to spend some time on the weekend, kind of doing all the non-vacation stuff that doesn't get done during the week. But what if we take a moment on the weekend and make it feel like a vacation where we really, really lean into it and we're fully present and it feels good. So think about what makes a vacation special. Well, it's the kind of free time, right? The slowing down, maybe doing something that we don't normally do in our lives, like really lingering at the farmer's market, going to a play or to see a show, um, spending extra time sitting on the patio, um, just daydreaming, talking with friends, talking with our family, playing a game.
It's, it's nothing that needs to be totally out of the ordinary, but there is a shift in our brains, I think, or in my brain, I should say, when I think about treating some aspect of the weekend like a vacation, that it feels good in the moment and it feels good in anticipation. I'm a big believer in having something to look forward to on the calendar. I mean, it's great when we have an actual vacation on the calendar or a three day weekend or an event that we're excited for. But this just kind of makes it more frequent that every single weekend there is a moment in time that feels so juicy like a vacation.
Maybe it's sleeping in. Maybe it's going to brunch. One of my, oh God, I love to go out for brunch. I love to go out for brunch. In fact, that's one of my favorite things on a vacation. My actual ideal situation on a vacation is to not wake up with an alarm. And, it depends on the vacation, don't get me wrong, but not wake up with an alarm and go for a long morning walk where I don't have to rush. I don't have to be back for something in particular. And in fact, what I love is when that brunch or that walk leads to brunch and oh, sitting at that table and enjoying a leisurely breakfast or brunch, really sinking into that. I'm picturing sitting outside on a patio. I know we're moving into a season where those days are numbered depending on where we live- but that idea.
So spend a little time this week thinking about what makes vacation special. That can be recreated in our daily lives so that we don't have to just wait for vacation to do that thing or to have that feeling. And maybe this is something that you. Talk about with your family, maybe you just create a list yourself, um, where you kind of list things that make vacation special and ask yourself, could I pull any of those aspects into my regularly scheduled life and put it on the weekend so that it feels really special?
I'm a big believer in having downtime, and I'm someone that works a lot, and I work a lot by choice. I love my job, but I could work all the time if I'm not careful, and that gets me way too far out of balance. And so I've just been playing around with this idea, and I offer it up to all of you as well. Let's figure out ways that we can turn a weekend or part of a weekend into a vacation. My pause there was just because I was like, oh gosh, what if once a month? Or once every two months. I don't know. We actually spend the whole weekend like we're on vacation. That feels really good to me. So some weekends it's just finding that moment in time, that little piece, that shop or that special coffee that we get.
And I know this is so similar to the idea of kind of treating ourselves and firm belief in that sometimes our self care needs to look more like self comfort, but there's an intentionality here when we put that label of vacation on it that I want us to really think about and sink into. I love the idea of a staycation when we can get it that feels like a little bit less pressure or a little easier than a full on vacation, but I think we can even dial it down from that, right? If we think of, okay, the ultimate is a vacation and then from there is like a staycation. And then from there is like a full weekend doing something even at our own home. And from there is like those little micro-moments that we can lean into the feeling that vacation gives us.
So I want you to spend this week thinking about that. So then this weekend you can actually implement that as big or as small as is reasonable for you and whatever season you are in your own life. Oh, I love thinking about this and I hope you do too. Make it a great week, you guys.
Oh, we're so grateful for Adrienne for making this happen for us. I'm so grateful to Solution Tree and Marzano Resources that this is the job that I love so much that I get to do. And as always, I'm so grateful for you, my badass self care squad. Ooh, let's figure out how we can get some vacation time this weekend.
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