Vacationing Amidst a Hellscape
How do you vacation while there is war, children starving, natural disasters, and stressful elections happening? Are you allowed to have fun or should we focus solely on addressing the rise of fascism, global temperatures, and sea levels?
Transformative travel requires integration, a period of time when we return home from our travels and reflect on and integrate the insights of our experience into our lives.
I returned from a trip to Seoul, South Korea this month and what's coming up for me this time are questions like these. I almost always feel guilt over my luck and privilege when I return from a great vacation. It’s something akin to survivors' guilt.
After spending a month in New Zealand I was walking along the coastal path near my house feeling incredibly lucky to have had a wonderful experience abroad and to come home to such a stunning place.
I saw a woman walking toward me who seemed to be experiencing psychosis. She was muttering, dirty, and her pants were soiled with urine.
I looked in her eyes and saw myself staring back. With a different roll of dice in this random existence that could have been me. And yet, here I was happy, safe, sane (more or less) and generally privileged as heck. Connecting deeply with that disparity was devastating.
The proximity between vacation and connecting with the suffering apparent in this woman’s life was not a coincidence. Rather than rendering me increasingly out of touch, experiencing joy, awe, and interconnection in my travels gives me the bandwidth to sit with suffering in everyday life, whether it’s what I see on the news, personal life, or at work.
My career as a social worker and therapist, the jobs that fund these privileged adventures, requires that I sit with suffering and confront poverty, inequity, pain, illness, and death. Empathetically joining people in the worst moments of their lives is precisely the job description.
Making play, beauty, and awe a priority in my life is the only thing that has helped me mitigate the varying levels of burnout and compassion fatigue I’ve experienced throughout my career. Fun helps me get serious.
Intellectually I know this. And inevitably after a vacation or a particularly horrific news cycle I have to remind myself that it's ok to enjoy the gifts of my life, whether they are earned or unearned. You, me, that woman on the coastal path, the survivors of Hurricane Helene, and the people of Palestine are all worthy of peace, safety, beauty, and fun.
Allowing ourselves to fully experience positive emotions may open our hearts and build resilience for the inevitable hardship.
Are there ways in which you hold yourself back from experiencing the gifts of your life--including travel, rest, or leisure--because you feel as if you do not deserve them? If so, ask yourself these questions:
How did I come believe that I do not deserve play, fun, joy, rest, relaxation, etcetera?
What messages did I receive from my family growing up, my workplace, my community, or the larger society about play, fun, joy, rest, relaxation, etcetera?
If I don't deserve play, fun, joy, rest, relaxation, etcetera, who would? Why not me? Do the rules that apply to you apply to others as well?