You Know You Need a Vacation When...

You flunk out of relaxation class.

This past Saturday I attended BarCamp Charleston. What a way cool concept for a technology conference. Throughout the day I attended several different sessions from podcasting to salsa dancing. About the middle of the day there was a relaxtion session and I was like, "I could so use that." I have had so much going in the past weeks with hiring and growing my business that relaxing has fallen low my list so I decided to attend it. I get to the session and walk in and it is a quiet room and I lay on a table and the session leader says to me, "Everyone is different with what they take away from this session so just relax and empty your mind." So I closed my eyes and attempted to empty my mind. Attempted being the key word here. Do you know how hard it is to empty one's mind? I started off thinking to myself, "Ok, empty mind, empty mind" and the following is all the things that ran through my head while I was "relaxing."

Empty mind, empty mind. Wow, her hands are really hot. That feels really good. I didn't realize how cold I was. My shoulder itches. What causes an itch? Could it be from the energy in her hot hands? Reiki would be really good for this conference (Come to find out as I was leaving these were Reiki professionals). Next year I hope someone will do Reiki sessions. Oh crap. Empty mind, empty mind. Relaxation would make a good blog post this week. I need to work on that tonight when I get home because tomorrow will be busy with the photo shoot and then lunch with BJ. I need to remember to email her about tomorrow. Do I have the money to get new head shots? Its a good investment with how I'm growing the company and the PR I want to start doing. What are we going to do for dinner tonight? Pizza and beer might be good. Oh, the after party is at Mellow Mushroom. I like their pizza. Dammit. Empty mind, empty mind. How does one really empty their mind? Because obviously I'm terrible at it. Maybe that would be a good session for BarCamp next year. I wonder what the score is to the WVU game? It is college football day of couse we should have pizza and beer for dinner. Maybe I'll use all the stuff I learn in the home brew session this afternoon for beer tonight. Hm, I wonder what we are going to learn? I have a board meeting for My Sister's House and 2 interviews this week. Should I email back that one girl and ask her for a second interview? What if I hire 2 people? Will that be too much work? I need to get a targeted list of prospects. Maybe that would be a good project for my intern. I need to remind Corinne about her blog post. Crap! Empty mind, empty mind. Then the lady says ok, you can slowly come out of it now. What!?!? It has been 20 minutes already? I didn't even get a chance to empty my mind.

Afterwards I remembered my friend Jennie at The Sassy Steel Magnolia writing a blog post once about being a meditation drop out. Well, apparently I'm a relaxation drop out. Crap. Something else to work on. I had a client tell me about 2 weeks ago, "Ronii, you need a vacation." I see now he was very right. When a client says to you, you need a vacation AND you are a relaxation drop out, you are probably 6 months over due. I need to go on vacation and learn to empty my mind and relax! How does one do that exactly though?