Have you turned vacation into another performance?

Unbraced Woman
Jun 3
3 min read

Updated: Jul 6

You spend months waiting for your holiday, imagining yourself finally switching off, sleeping longer and drinking your coffee slowly with no deadlines, no meetings, no endless list of things to organise. You can't wait for days of spontaneous walking without needing to get anywhere. Having a few days where nobody needs anything from you.

Then you arrive.

The scenery is beautiful and your inbox is quiet for the first time in months. And yet your body doesn't seem to have received the memo.

You notice yourself researching restaurants three days in advance. Planning tomorrow before today has even started. Checking your phone more often than necessary. Looking for something to do when there is absolutely nothing that needs doing.

A part of you knows you are safe. Another part seems unable to settle. You start wondering if you're making the most of the trip. Sounds familiar?

For a long time I thought this was simply a personality trait. I considered myself organised, driven, ambitious and productive. Someone who liked structure and enjoyed making plans. I was proud of being that person!

What I understand differently now is that many of the behaviours we describe as personality are often adaptations. They developed over years of responding to pressure, responsibility, uncertainty and expectation.

The nervous system learns through experience. If most of your adult life has involved solving problems, meeting deadlines, carrying emotional responsibility, taking care of others or constantly thinking three steps ahead, your body begins to associate those states with normality. The fast pace and tension becomes your new norm and the mild background stress becomes familiar.

Then one day you go on vacation and remove all of it - there are no urgent emails, meetings or decisions that truly matter. What many women expect to feel in that moment is relief but what they often encounter first is discomfort. It's because unfamiliar experiences tend to make the nervous system pay attention. It has spent years finding security through action, so when the external pressure suddenly disappears, it doesn't always interpret that as freedom - sometimes it interprets it as uncertainty.

I see this often in high-functioning women. They have this constant feeling that something should be happening, even when there is nowhere to be and nothing to achieve. So they unconsciously recreate the same pressure we were trying to escape. They need to fill the space again so the holiday becomes carefully optimised: every day needs a plan, every meal needs to be researched, every experience needs to be worthwhile. We NEED to see, experience, capture everything. We NEED make the most of it! And without realising it, vacation becomes another performance. Travelling itself is not the problem. Some of my most meaningful experiences have happened while exploring new places, meeting different people and seeing how other cultures live.

What interests me more is the motivation underneath the movement:

Can we spend an afternoon doing nothing without feeling guilty?
Can we sit by the sea without reaching for our phone every few minutes?
Can we allow a day to unfold without trying to improve it?

Those questions often reveal far more than another nervous system questionnaire ever could.

This pattern exists in both men and women, but women frequently carry additional layers of emotional labour, social conditioning and invisible responsibility. Many have spent years anticipating other people's needs, keeping everything together and measuring their value through what they contribute rather than how they feel.

Eventually the body becomes very good at functioning under pressure.

Rest, however, is a different skill. And for some women, it is one that has never really been practised.

Learning to feel safe without being productive is rarely a single decision. It is a gradual process of giving the body new experiences. Moments where nothing is required and where achievements are irrelevant.

Moments where worth is not connected to output.

At first, those moments can feel surprisingly uncomfortable. But every time you stay with them, your body learns a little more about safety. And I wish you, my lovely woman, many guilt-free moments of simply being, with nowhere to rush to, nothing to prove, and no version of yourself to improve ♥

A question to take with you: If nobody needed anything from you for the next hour, who would you be? Not what would you achieveor what would you fix. Just who would you be?

Have you turned vacation into another performance?

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