For months I h ad been fantasising about my annual creative retreat to Paris. What I was going to wear, who I was going to see and, most importantly, what I was going to eat. Once I was actually on holiday though, I discovered that I couldn’t switch off. I’d spent much of the year tuned to rolling news channels, so hyper-alert and frazzled that I’d forgotten how to empty my mind. Worse still, I wasn’t even sure that I wanted to.
It’s a feeling that will doubtless sound familiar to many. We want to take time out to recover our strength and optimism. If we have been through some life challenges, it’s a chance to take a step back and reflect. Yet, once we actually arrive at our holiday destination, we discover that hitting the reset button isn’t as simple as we imagined.
In search of advice, I turn to Liggy Webb, behavioural consultant, author of Resilience: How To Cope When Everything Around You Keeps Changing (John Wiley & Sons, £10.99) and one of the experts consulted in our upcoming Psychologies book Real Strength (John Wiley & Sons, £9.99). ‘Real strength is about self-belief. It’s about having that appreciation that we are such incredible human beings, acknowledging that we choose how we respond, no matter what’s happening. It’s about empowering yourself to produce intelligent responses, rather than relying on what you have always done. It’s about having the confidence to believe that you can get through stuff.’