This post is an addendum to the previous post On Being, Seeing, Doing 

People often travel to “get away”,  “pause”, “chill”, “escape”, reflect.

Trips away often  act as punctuation marks in the narrative of our lives – creating spaces between one stage or another (after getting married; the end of a job; the completion of a major task etc.)

So it’s an irony that the tourism community appears so unwilling to spend time in reflection itself. We have few “think tanks” made up of industry leaders, advisors, and mentors compared to other sectors.

How often have you heard of a DMO or a major travel corporation taking its people away simply to BE together, with no bullet-pointed agenda (just listen to the language!); willing to see what emerged when defences were lowered, bread and wine were shared, and walks in wild places caused hair to frizzle or muscles to ache?

Being very operationally minded, and pressured by the perishability of the products sold, conference participants clamour for “best practices” , practical solutions; How To Manuals and checklists so they can get on and DO something.

I don’t want to leave the impression that I am some airy fairy thinker with her head in the clouds – because there is no shortage of things that we CAN DO TODAY to reduce the stress we place on natural systems.  BUT the truth is, we’re NOT reducing our impact despite all the busy-sounding, action oriented words, the reports, the manuals, the keynote speeches, the declarations, and codes etc.

As any of my kind readers will have observed, I am impressed with the work of Charles Eisenstein who, while clearly being both clever and deep, is also very practical AND positive. Do read his latest book, The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible for a collection of insightful, inspiring essays that will, in the spirit of the season, illuminate your Christmas break.

Sustainable Man have just made a short film combining interview snippets with Charles and illustrative imagery on the theme of non-doing that Charles explores in his book. Food for thought……

So whether your intent is to improve your performance, or chill, become more insightful, listen to your gut, then give yourself permission to do nothing but BE with your friends and family in the sense of being truly present with them and better still BE  outdoors in Nature and let Her talk to you. You’ll be amazed at what you might “see”

NEW!
It takes TRUST to stop – especially when there’s a rising panic signalling that we should DO SOMETHING but as Jini Reddy has beautifully written here, it’s always worth applying when we are stuck. Trust as a Powerful Tool for Positive Change