Finally I'm on vacation, wearing one of my Life is Balance tank tops, of course!

In case you were wondering, I did go on my vacation. I spent 8 glorious days in the Turks and Caicos, scuba diving and replenishing my soul. The weather wasn’t perfect, at least in the beginning. I arrived in Providenciales on Sunday afternoon to overcast skies and relatively cool weather. Not at all what I was used to from years past. For the first 3 days the weather was stormy and I began to second guess my decision to throw financial caution to the wind and take this much-needed vacation. But, as we were still able to go diving I decided not to let a bad weather forecast spoil my trip. By Wednesday however, the system that was stalled over the islands blew away and in its’ place came the beautiful sunny skies and warm tropical breezes that I remembered.

When I made my decision to finally go on this vacation, it was as if a weight had suddenly lifted – all the stress that I was feeling about work and finances melted away. The problems and worries would still be there when I returned, but I decided that mental well-being is just as important and that I would return better equipped to deal with them. Sometimes you just have  to step back, relax and allow yourself to breathe in order to put things into perspective and allow opportunities to offer themselves up to you.

I was talking with a friend at lunch today who is going through a rough time. She sounded like I have often felt – paralyzed by the weight of life’s curve balls. I came up with an analogy that she insisted I write about. Being a beach baby at heart, I compared what she was going through to being caught in a riptide. Your first instinct is to fight it. But fighting it will only exhaust you. You don’t know which way is up and which way is down. The only way to get out of it is to relax and let the natural movement of the water bring you back to the surface. Instead of allowing what may seem like insurmountable problems drown you, sometimes you just need to relax, breathe and let yourself come back to the surface.

When I got back from my vacation, complete with a nasty cold, I made a presentation to a potential client and ended up landing a big project that I had been hoping to get! In addition to that, I received three other requests for proposals. In the grand scheme, taking off one week to do something for myself – to add some much-needed balance, did not adversely affect my life. On the contrary, I believe it allowed me to come back to the surface swimming!

Here are a few pictures I took on my trip!

Sea turtle swimming

Diver surfacing from below