There’s a reason we tend to make lofty resolutions and promises to self when we’re on holiday: our perspective shifts, and we get this giddy sense that our lives – our real, everyday lives – might be more magical than we realised. Why not sip cocktails at sunset while your toes are lapped by the sea? Why not read the best books, laugh the most raucous laughs and sleep the deepest sleeps? A break from the norm creates space for possibility. I have friends who have taken sabbaticals and gardening leave and never come back – still to be found in Bali, Brazil and Barcelona, living lives that stay truer to the liberating possibilities that presented themselves while on holiday.
PHOTOGRAPH: STOCKSY
That sunny holiday mindset need not be the preserve of the vacationer, though. This month, I have taken great pleasure in striking big lines through days in my diary to do a series of things with no agenda other than pleasure and growth. To meet with Suzanne Wylde at Triyoga Camden, who stretched my body back into the right shape, and walked all over me (literally – using her feet to manipulate pockets of painful tension). With resistance stretching, you are guided through a series of moves in which you push back against the therapist as she manipulates your body – it’s been proven to remove the fascia (areas of dense connective tissue that build up over time), and leave the body freer to move in a more natural and confident way.