Conscious Resting and Intentional Vacationing

People say, well, what do you want to do today? And I go about half of it. I want to practice laying around. I'm a professional lay arounder.

I think the reason a lot of people get into hassles on vacation because they're not doing what they want to be doing.

I've found that I can get mentally prepared ahead of time about what I want to do and feel like we're in partnership.

Hi, this is Gay Hendricks along with my good buddy Mike Koenigs. And in this episode of the Big Leap podcast, going to go into a subject we've never discussed before, which is conscious resting and also intentional vacationing. And so we've got some interesting things to say about that. Both Mike and I are connoisseurs of conscious resting and intentional vacationing. And I hope you'll become one too, Mike.

Yes. Well, here's one of the things that I really love about this episode is Gay talks about are you moving too fast or too slow for your essence? This is a huge distinction, something I had never thought of before, but I felt it for a long time. And it's changed the way I'm having conversations with my wife from this moment moving forward. So you can expect this and a lot, a lot of big ideas in this episode of Big League.

All right, Gay, you're about to leave on a special trip, and we decided to call this episode Conscious Resting and Intentional Vacationing. So tell us about this special trip and why it's so important to you.

Well, Katie and I have been together now 43 years. And so one of the things we're about to do is to go to Maui and celebrate our 43 years together and get ready for the next 43.

Congratulations.

And so the reason we're going to Maui is because way back in the 1980s, we visited this particular spot on Maui and this particular hotel that had just opened called the Kalani. It's now called the Fairmont Kelani.

Oh yeah.

On Maui. And we had a wonderful time there. But one thing I noticed was I got so rested there. And normally I sleep from 10 to 4 or 4:30. I conk out around 10pm and I wake up around 4 or 4:30. But out there on Maui for the first time, I started taking these deep dives. And one night I slept nine or 10 hours, which is just unheard of. And I mean, in my life. And.

I don't set the alarm clock or anything like that. I just wake up. When I wake up, that's, you know, typically when I get a lot of My work done, I wake up at 4, 4:30, and then I meditate and have a cup of coffee and handle some things and then sit down and I write for two or three hours. It's kind of my little sweet spot of my creative time in there. But when I got out on Maui, I. I just led this other life, really. And I still had plenty of creativity. In fact, I. I had things sparking off all the time because I was getting such deep rest. And so that's why I started calling it conscious resting and intentional vacationing, because I started using that as my. What do you call it, Like a standard for how I wanted to have my vacation go. And so every year, just about. And sometimes twice a year, Katie and I head over for that spot on Maui and usually spend eight or 10 days there. That's about what we. Any more than about 10 days and I start missing my cats. You know, we're catnuts and we have these two cats we're very fond of. And.

So even though I face time with them during those 10 days, it's not quite the same. So.

No. How do you manage to FaceTime them? You have a cat sitter?

Yes.

Okay, so how to. I was just gonna say how do they push those buttons to say hi, Daddy?

They're highly trained. No, they haven't got that far yet. They've.

Their big thing is to come. I'll get up from writing, I'll be working on a novel or working on a book of some kind of. And their big contribution is to come sit on the keyboard so that when I come back with my cup of coffee, I've got three pages of J on there.

Thank goodness they're not hitting the delete button, though. That. That would be tragic.

Yeah, well, yeah, that's that. Yeah, go ahead, keep going.

Yeah. So.

I think it's great to create an ideal vacation for yourself. Like, even if you're not going to take it right away, go ahead and mock it up mentally in your mind so that you have a kind of a template that you can use. And you don't even need to go on vacation to apply the template. You know, once you get yourself figured out. And I hope during this session will encourage you to map out your perfect way of conscious resting or intentional vacationing. But for me, it's got to involve ocean. Got to hear some ocean sounds. You know, I. I went to a great deal of trouble in my life to make sure I was near an ocean all the time. And I was born in a part of Florida Central Florida that doesn't have ocean near it. But it used to drive me nuts that here I was living in Florida my entire childhood, and I never got to hear the sound of the ocean, you know, except once a year. Vacation.

Yeah.

Yeah. And so I declared that if I was going to be a successful adult, it was going to be near an ocean of some kind. I particularly love the water of Maui.

Yeah.

Because there's something. You know, Ram Dass lived there for a while, and he thought there was something very healing about that particular congregation of water and elements and that kind of thing. And so I agree with that. I've. I've spent a lot of time just in the water there. I'm not a big swimmer or anything, but just, you know, paddling around and snorkeling. I love to snorkel. That's. That's. I've taken scuba diving lessons, but that's too much of a hassle for me. I like to just snorkel now. And so fortunately, within 10 or 15 minutes, we could be at the best snorkeling on the island there. And so I've. Oh, and also this particular hotel is on a section of Maui called Wailea, and down in that section is one of my favorite restaurants that has my absolute favorite french fries. And I actually think about them when I'm not there. And I like when I go to Maui on Wednesday, as soon as we get there, we'll go have ourselves a plate of french fries and a lunch from the Monkey Pod restaurant. And they have this special way of making fries there, and they're like none I've ever tasted before. And so if you ever get in the region of Wailea in Hawaii, Maui, go see the Monkey Pod man, and he will hook you up with the best French fries in the world.

Awesome. All right, well, this is. This is good. I'm going to ask you a couple questions, just some clarifying questions, which. So how many years have you been going there?

I think we've been there about 30 times over the past. Since the 1980s.

Okay. And.

What I'm curious about is if you were going to.

Now that you've been doing this thing that you love so much.

And you are.

I was just.

I was trying to decide if I was going to say gay. Do you consider yourself a creature of habit, you and Katie in general?

No, I wouldn't say so. Yeah, because we've gone. You know, we had, I think last time we counted two and a half million frequent flyer miles in our last 30 or 40 years. Together. And so we've been just about everywhere and had a lot of things to compare it to. Yeah. And so. But this just happens to be the place where we just keep coming back to because it has a special vibe that we really like. Yeah. We actually put in an offer on a house there at one point before we found our house in Ojai. And I'm glad now that we didn't go all the way to Maui, because that tax an extra five hours onto your life, no matter what you do. And I think I'd get tired of it going back and forth. So we decided to stay here on the. On this side of the ocean. And I'm glad we did now because we love our home in Ojai so much, and we can just go visit a little piece of our other paradise once or twice a year.

Right. Right. Well. And that. That makes a lot of sense. It's most people I know who've made the jump over there usually last four to six years tops, before they. They just go kind of nuts. But I happen to know the Wailea area, and I agree with you about Maui. It really is very, very special. And I'm also a big. I agree with you completely that making it to me means being on or by the ocean. You know, being within a few minutes of it all the time. That's. That's a big deal. And I love French fries, so. So here's the question. If you were gonna make, like, a recipe book for.

Conscious resting and intentional vacationing with a spouse or partner, how would you go about it? If. If you were, you know, building that recipe book, what are the questions you would ask your partner so you could create something that you both arrived at.

A collaborative conclusion together?

Well, I think the first thing I present or, you know, like, for me, I like a certain amount of just laying around and reading time. You know, if I've got a couple of hours of that a day or two or three hours of that a day, I'm a happy guy.

Yeah.

And my wife likes to be a little bit more active, and, like, she'll go off shopping or something for a couple of hours. And for me, shopping is something that I like to do only if I know what I'm going to go get. You know, I don't just like to wander around from shop to shop looking at things. In fact, that I'd say that comes close to driving me crazy.

So I don't make a good shopping partner. And so. But I'm happy to have other people do that. And Bring me nice things and things like that. But I just like to lay around a lot and not be interrupted. See, one of the things that goes on in daily life just in running a business and handling stuff is that, you know, things, interruptions occur. I'll get busy with one thing and then something will happen. I'll veer off in a different direction and it's all good. But I just like some long periods of uninterrupted time to just do something like.

Read a mystery novel or. I've actually got a couple of mystery novels and a couple of non fiction books that I've parked on my Kindle for my vacation. And so that's one of the things I'll be doing is catching up with some of that reading and just having some time. Also, this hotel we go to is so exquisitely furnished and comfortable. It really is for me, like walking into my home away from home. I know exactly how it's going to be and everything. And it just is very congenial to me to kind of have that part of things mapped out and not have to think about it anymore. So I realize we're also, you know, having a quite a privileged conversation here. And I hope people are inspired by this instead of throwing pebbles at the speaker or anything like that. But I think even if you don't do something grand like go to Maui or something, the important thing is to figure out what you require inside for deep resting. And for me it's got to be some uninterrupted lay around time.

If I've got some of that every day. Even in my regular daily life, I actually plan that into my life. I do not do busy. I don't do busy. I am not a busy person. I go to great lengths not to be a busy person. And I consider being in a hurry a mental health crisis. And I don't like anybody. It's a sign of impending mental doom if you keep being in a hurry all the time. And so I think if we move at what I call our essence pace through life that you get there.

Much faster than if you would if you were doing hurry.

Yeah.

I have a vivid memory of one time I was caught coming back from skiing in Colorado when we lived out there. I was coming back from Breckenridge with my daughter who was maybe 10 or 12 years old and a very avid skier, 10,000 times better skier than I was. But we used to go out skiing in Breckenridge and I was on the way back and this guy came screaming around me in A very expensive Porsche 911, you know, very exquisite sports car. And. But he came screaming around me and I mentioned something to my daughter. I said, that's going way too fast for this kind of road because you never know when you're going to hit a patch of ice or something like that out in the back country there, coming across those plains and back to Colorado Springs. And sure enough, about 10 miles up the road, he was on his roof smoking, the car was smoking. And I remember my daughter and I kind of going, whoa, you know, and lifetime impression forming there. But it's all about this subject of are you moving too fast for your essence pace or too slow for your essence pace? You need to find out what that is so that you can move through life without stress and get everything done at the same time.

Okay, so I'm going to read these back to you and see if you have anything else to add. So, and, and again, I call this the collaborative recipe for an intentional vacationing. So. So yours, for example, is the. Actually, I'm going to do these in reverse because I think the conclusion is really interesting. Figure out what you require inside for deep resting. And maybe the test is to, to feel into what you decide and ask yourself, are you going to be moving too fast or too slow for your essence?

Because I really like that. That resonates deeply with me. So for you, you need to have a couple of hours for reading every day where Katie wants to do something active for a couple hours. You don't like to wander. You're intentional. It's like, go here, get this, and then do what I want to do. And I also like the laying around time. I really resonate with that. You know, it's like people say, well, what do you want to do today? And I go about half of it. I want to practice laying around. I'm a professional lay arounder.

And then.

For you, again, it's a couple of books to read. And it's like you've planned that out so you're, you've already settled into the feeling of what that's like and have some expectations for what that lay around experience is going to be. Not that you wouldn't give it up if something important came along, but the preparation, the preparation, preparation in your mind. And the other one was exquisitely furnished hotel. And I totally get what you say about the privileged conversation, but even that could be how you had a campsite if you're going to camp. I mean, I'm good in a very small space. I love luxury. But I don't require it to be cozy and happy and rested.

But knowing where everything is. So that gives you that peace of mind. But when you listen to that, is there anything else that pops into your head that's important about. Like, again, if you were going to intentionally plan with a spouse or give a recipe for relationship success and creating a collaborative or intentional vacation.

Let me back into it from another direction, which is to say that invariably when we go to the Kayalani or any place we go, a hotel or we're out by the pool sometime during the week, we're going to see some couple who are not happy, and they're doing it with the, you know, they're, they're going at it in some way or the other, you know, because we, having been relationship therapists for the past 50 years, you know, we can feel the vibes of swimming pool away. And so Katie and I have a running joke that we should take business cards with us just to. To drop on the. The chaise lounge of somebody who's really getting into it with their mate. But it brings up a really interesting, important subject, which is that.

I think the reason a lot of people get into hassles on vacation, and they do, because there are whole books written about it, that phenomenon. You know, I, in my own practice have had couples where.

They went on vacation and ended up not speaking to each other the entire time. Yeah. And. Or something. Yeah. And I had one couple also that was still fighting about something 35 years later that happened on the vacation. And so, you know, there's a lot of angst around these kinds of things. But one thing I really think is important is.

Conscious agreement with your partner about what kind of vacation you want to have, that everything is okay. And. And you work out that, you know, I like to play golf. And so I'll be playing golf two or three times, and that takes four hours or so. And so that has to be kind of worked out in advance. Otherwise, if I announced at the last minute, oh, honey, I'm going to play golf all afternoon. So it's. I think a lot of couples get into hassles because they're not doing what they want to be doing. And that, that spills over into arguments in the relationship. One of the things that we are doing on this particular trip.

Two dear friends of ours who are medical doctors in Germany, Meinrad and Catherine, they have hosted us many, many times when we've been speaking at their place near Munich. They have a conference center there and a villa there that we stay at when we're speaking over there. And so they've hosted us many, many times. And so this year we had a little bit of extra money floating around and so we said what could we do? What kind of outrageous gift could we give Katrin and Meinron? And we came up with the idea of flying them over first class and putting them up at the villa that we'll be staying in in Hawaii for a week. And so we have the great. Having some great friends there and also doing something really kind of outrageous as a gift to them. You thanking them for hosting us.

I love that. I love that. It's very, very good.

Yeah. Let me see if I can think of anything else.

I don't know why this is, and check me out on this, but when I go on vacation.

To Hawaii, it feels good at first, but three days into it, something magical happens where I go.

You know, and I drop into a different level of things and time takes on a different meaning. You know, it becomes. Time becomes kind of malleable and not a force really, but just something you can bend to your own satisfaction. So that's, that's my three day effect. I don't know if it can happen quicker or takes longer for you, but do you have that same phenomenon then?

Yeah, I.

It does. It's. It's exactly three days.

And I'm trying to think of how I'd accelerate it.

And I don't think it's one of those things you can or should rush, you know, it just has to happen at its own pace.

Yeah.

I'm just feeling into the last time. It's why I did something Vivian and I did this last year.

It was one of our super intentional trips and we went to Portugal and we had never been there before and heard a lot about it. And Vivian is a very good studier. So one of the things she likes to do is research the culture and the language and learn some of the words and know where everything is and know the historical and archaeological significance of places. She's a big fact finder. I'm good just rolling into town and wandering and just like I like jumping in the car and driving. And to me, I could have spent the entire trip pretty much in the vehicle. And driving in Portugal is a. Is awesome. Their toll roads, they're super polite. They kind of drive like Germans where you stay the hell out of the left lane and if you're not, you know, you're always in the right hand lane and you never pass on the right. They're not like Americans where they're just beyond ignorant and stupid is an understatement. You know, it's just like no consciousness whatsoever over there. It's great. And because there isn't, even though they're brand new roads, I'm talking too much about the roads. But here's what happened. We wandered and bumped into places she normally doesn't like to wander. But we found some fantastic places and visited some great towns.

But I find I really relax when I get to drive and wander. And I settled into things pretty quickly. And the other thing I can do when I go to a foreign country is I can sleep an entire cycle. Meaning I'll go there and sleep for 24 hours. And that way I don't have.

You know, I don't have jet lag. Maybe take a little melatonin. But.

The only other thing I was thinking about when I was listening to you is I've found that I can get mentally prepared ahead of time about what I want to do and.

And be and feel like we're in partnership. So we do have an agreement on what we're going to do during the day. And again, I'm very much like you. I want to spend a good chunk of time laying around thinking and I like two hour meals. So I go and I like to eat for really long times and spend time just picking up on the vibe in restaurants. I also like going to supermarkets and grocery stores in weird countries, you know. And like in Portugal they have a whole frozen pig, you know, like a piglet, you know, like there's weird critters in the, in the food section. I like going into the meat section of these places. I find it endlessly fascinating. Hawaii, for example, is a really good place to look at weird things and smell weird things.

So yeah, and, and eat weird things, you know, like they have fruit out there that I just love that I've never seen anywhere else. You know, tropical fruits. And, and my favorite fish, opacapaka.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm really looking forward to being over there because I'm going to take my German friends over to my favorite fish restaurant and we're going to treat them to opakapaka for the first time.

Oh, that sounds great. Well, I did look up, I'm putting it in the, in the show notes. Monke podkitchen.com and their French fries, at least the ones I found were parmesan and truffle fries. Is that the ones you get or do you get them the plain ones?

Get the plain ones. Okay. Get the other ones too. So you can see. But the plain ones, the house fries, that's what's called house fries. That's the delicious one that I'm talking about. I'm kind of a purist when it comes to French fries. I'm not the kind of guy that's going to dunk a lot of stuff on my french fries. I didn't even eat ketchup with my French fries.

Yeah, I don't like ketchup on fries either. In general, I like them just a little bit of salt and extra crispy in general. If I, if I get them that.

Way, well, you got to come to the monkey pod man, because they've mastered the art of crisp on the outside, tender on the inside. And I, I've never been disappointed there. I've, I've been going there for many years.

I'm getting now it's become so popular about it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're going to drive people nuts on our podcast here. But just, just put the monkey pod on your it's list of places there.

I looked up the hotel too, so.

And that's the Fairmont. K kai Lanai. Is that how to pronounce it? K A K E A L A.

N I K A lani.

Kayalani. Oh, Kaya Lonnie. There we go. Okay. Yeah. But yeah, as again, I think what the. The art of intentional vacationing is something I wish I would have learned a lot earlier on in our relationship because it was, I think I was just stubborn about it. I kind of wanted what I wanted and I just didn't have the conversation. Now we do a lot more thinking and planning and get clear on what, what's going to feel good and feel right that whole time and really settle into it. And that does require some commitment. And also if you're in a, in a relationship.

Being able to have a conversation about expectations, what's going to make you feel good and what.

You said, something really key. This is a big takeaway is what will be either too fast or too slow for your essence. It's respecting your essence and understanding and knowing that about each other. And I think you have to know that about you first and be able to test it out instead of being unconscious. So is there anything else that's showing up for you that makes for a successful experience or journey? Because I've, I've got one other observation before we wrap up.

I love also like you to go to see what's on sale in the supermarkets and fruit stands and that kind of thing. And Hawaii's got some really great ones to go to. You can get things that.

You can't get anywhere else there. And one of my favorite things is mochi cake. And they, I've never been able to find it anywhere else, but they have some of the best right there in Maui.

Is that just like, like getting mochi rolls the Japanese style.

It's like when you get mochi ice cream.

Yeah, kind of like that. It's like the outside of the mochi ice cream that real chewy. It's got a real chewiness like nothing else really. You know, it has a kind of a firmness.

Yeah, yeah, that's so it's basically, it's. It's rice, you know, mochi's just mushed rice and then on like a green tea ice cream. So. That sounds delicious. All right, well, I've got one more thing that makes for a great trip. And we were just doing this a week ago.

We. So finding good travel partners can be very challenging. And I know you and I have talked about this before a little bit, but we've got some really good travel partners. They know how to pack properly, travel well, show up, they're not whiny. If we agree to do something at a certain time, they're there within reason. But last week we went to, we did about almost five days in New Orleans, which in my experience can either be a great place or a not fun place, depending on the time of year and where you're at. It can be super stinky and a little bit dicey. But we went there with a local and this is a couple that we've traveled with before. They're great travelers, real international minded.

And they just know how to get in and out of places. They are not filled with drama. They know how to negotiate any situation. But man, we did a lot of stuff and also had plenty of lay around time.

And they are willing to have the hard conversation when you need to have it. So if there's something out of whack, it doesn't turn into a stack, bunch of resentment. It's like, hey, here's what I want, here's what I like. It's okay if you don't want that, but here's what we want to do. We'd love to do it with you together, but we're not attached to it. And I think being able to have that level of honesty again, it's just the simplest thing. But these are the things that people mess up in and I have in the past as well. So I love the idea that you're bringing in some friends from another country on top of it, because having a little bit of. Of European sophistication adds some additional spice, some intellectual stimulation, too. That was another thing we loved about Portugal is we. We hung out with some Portuguese and we hung out with some Americans who are now expats living there, and it just was delightful and spicy.

And what's.

Their report card on that? Are they liking it?

Oh, they love it. Well, right now, Portugal's affordable. And one of the big benefits of investing in Portugal, the price increase this past year. But for a half a million dollars invested, you qualify for a golden visa, which means you can get an EU passport in five years with the Shenzhen passageway, which basically gives you access to Asia and all of Europe as a citizen.

And then they also have some remarkable deductions and benefits for.

Entrepreneurs. Tax free. No taxes on crypto, for example. So there's. There's a ton of benefits. And then if you're of retirement age, you can go over there and get a visa as well. So. And it's. It's very affordable. Very affordable to live there. You can live there, you know, for at least a third less than you can in the US and be eating delightful fresh fish and vegetables every day.

Yeah, they really know how to do fish and vegetables. And they also really have a wizardry with egg custard parts and things like that. Yeah, that would be my downfall if I lived there. I love those kind of things are good. Yeah.

Yeah.

All right, well, the big takeaway here I want to suggest for folks who are tuning into this is do a little bit of thinking about what constitutes for you, conscious resting. And even if you're not in vacation mode, what is it for you that allows you to go deep? Because the amount of creativity you're able to access, I think is directly related to how deeply rested you can allow yourself to be. So that's what I figured out, and I'll let you know when I get back if it worked one more time.

Yeah, yeah. I'll be super, super curious what shows up and where you may experience some creative sparks, too, if. If something you read, something you see inspires you for maybe another book or maybe another interview. Who knows?

Yeah, who knows? That's what I like about vacation, though, and conscious resting is you never know what you're gonna come out with.

Yeah. All right. Well, I'd say this is another successful episode. Gay Hendricks, as usual, for all of our friends, Please write to us. Head over to bigleappodcast.com leave some comments. We appreciate the fact we've got a whole bunch of 5 star reviews and comments on itunes by the way. I'm super grateful for that. And we'd love to break a couple hundred extra. So if you can head on over there as a favorite of the two of us, that would be super great. Any any requests from you gay.

Keep breathing and love as much as you can from wherever you are.

Good deal. Well, this is the Big Leap podcast. Thanks for listening. Thanks for watching.