How to Plan Your Getaway
If you’re wondering how to plan your getaway, your escape to an island, your exit from busy, or your ruthless elimination of responsibility, you aren’t alone.
So many of my clients are talking about how full their plate is with responsibility, mental load, work, life, health, and overwhelm. Each day is full of just one more thing that piles on the other things until the plate is overflowing with stress and frustration.
Tears are at the ready all the time. You feel like you could cry at any moment.
Anger feels like it’s simmering under the tears, just under the surface, burning you from the inside out.
Emotions, so many emotions, are arguing to be heard while the life happening around you just keeps getting louder and louder.
You might have tried a girls’ weekend or a women’s retreat or a night at a hotel by yourself, only to find all of life still waiting for you at the end.
Dishes, laundry, groceries, workouts, appointments, clients, cleaning, family drama, and notifications that will take hours to sort through and respond to—it’s just so much.
So many one-more-things. You just want to plan your getaway, a getaway, any getaway.
It could be that you’re in a neurodiverse family or marriage and the overwhelm is constant. You find that navigating the eggshells of black and white thinking is slowly breaking you down. The added executive function on you is incredibly heavy.
It could be that you live overseas and your stress levels are way, way, way above what is healthy. You’re facing language, red tape, team dynamics, homeschooling, relationships, and a challenging culture or context that is exhausting and requires every drop of energy and capacity you have so there’s nothing left for all the other things.
Maybe the work load that you’re carrying, at work and at home, is intense.
Maybe you struggling with people-pleasing, boundary setting, and saying your best yes or no.
Maybe you’re in full-time ministry and church has just gotten so, so crazy tiring and complicated.
You might be sitting and reading this, thinking how very tired you really are and you just want to know how to plan your getaway, your escape, your break.
Relax. Rest. Read. Hope. Plan. Journal. Pray. Regroup. Sleep. Enjoy nature. Swing.
Quiet the noise. Stop the crazy. Exit the intensity.
You might be in coaching or counseling, knowing there are things you could be working on in your own personal growth, healing, and recovery but you just don’t have the time or space to do the inner, quiet work that’s required.
Maybe you’ve never done quiet work.
Maybe you have been doing quiet work only to realize that there’s more quiet work to do.
Rest is life-long. Slowing the hurry is a daily practice of patience, trust-building, and growth.
But sometimes, a getaway really is what you need.
You do need to plan your getaway.
You just don’t know how to plan your getaway, your time away, your break in a way that is healthy, peaceful, life-giving, and recharging.
I’ve come up with some options that fit different scenarios and life stories.
Options for How to Plan Your Getaway
1} Three Day Reset – This can be such a great option for your first getaway. Look for an airbnb or hotel or friend’s cabin in your area, within an hour or two drive from your home. Pick something with close activities or nature or a spa or water or other things that you love and have been longing to do. Maybe browse an outlet mall with a coffee or go on a long hike or take a canoe out into the middle of a lake. Read and rest. Think and pray. Journal and grow. Bring yummy foods and plan a movie or book. Build a playlist. Enjoy this reset by yourself as you recharge with joyful, restful moments.
Pro Tip: Read this and start practicing a weekly sabbath.
2} Personal Therapy Time – This can coincide with the reset above {extend to a 4 day for extra time} but planning a getaway for personal therapy time is like a personal intensive retreat. There are so many amazing books and podcasts and youtube videos and online courses that are therapeutic in nature, covering topics from abusive marriages to parenting to personal growth to boundary setting. Build yourself space to put things into practice like writing a letter to someone that you’ll never send them or journaling about past hurt or write about your internal family system. You can spend time with an activity like breaking something you write on, tear something you write or burn that letter you wrote to a past person or situation. So much growth can happen in a planned personal therapy intensive.
Do the worksheets, download the PDFs, sit with the content, let God speak.
Pro tip: Plan this with your coach or counselor! Let them know your plan, and because they know your story, they can help guide your time away. Ask them how to plan your getaway so that it carries as much of your goals and expectations as possible. Maybe they’ll even be available by email during your time away or you could plan a session while you’re gone to go over what you’re learning.
3} Silent Retreat – This is on my personal getaway list. You can use a planned retreat or just go with your Bible and a journal and a few books {bring the real books so you aren’t tempted on a device!}. Blankets and your favorite warm drink. Allow the silence to speak, heal, and build capacity. There are monastery’s, camps, churches, programs, and places designed just for this kind of retreat. You can contact them and ask how to plan your getaway. Search your area to see what is available. If not, take the reset idea above and just plan for a silent space. Remember, no phone allowed unless you build in plan check-in times.
“In the silence of the heart, God speaks.” – Mother Teresa
Pro Tip: Grab this free download from Alicia Britt Chole to use as part of any of these retreats!
4} Girls’ Getaway – Maybe you have a group of friends who are in a similar season and are wondering how to getaway for a time to refresh and regroup from life’s busy. Share the cost of a larger airbnb or get rooms at the same hotel. Plan time together and time alone. Go do some fun things and eat great food but then cherish some precious time by yourself to do some of the activities that bring life and joy to you. This can be a great way to mix and match from these ideas! Just make sure everyone understands the goal of the getaway. Have a planned out itinerary and designated time for together and separate time. Allow flexibility if people want to do other things but if you go wanting time to yourself, plan it in so everyone understands from the beginning.
Pro-tip: Play this bingo, share on socials and tag some friends!
5} Stay-cation – Maybe the family can go somewhere for the day and you can have your house to yourself for a day or two. Stay home. Enjoy your own yard or sunroom or neighborhood. Sleep in your own bed with your own things. You don’t have to pack or plan food or research things to do or places to go. You can stay home while the others go enjoy something on their own! Remember, this will only work if you are able to say no to cleaning the closets or working on to-do lists while they’re gone. If you’re planning rest, you need to rest, nap, sleep, read, stay cozy, go for a long walk. Unless physical activity or a day to clean the house is part of your goal for the time of reset and a chance to feel more caught up with life, put some solid boundaries around this stay-cation!
6} Sabbatical – For my ministry and mission friends who are reading, this could be you. Busy working friends? Exhausted and stressed-out friends? This idea of extended time away is growing and more information and research is coming of how powerful a sabbatical can be for anyone in a fast-paced, stressful job or season of life. You need help planning designated sabbatical time. This isn’t a weekend away or a week of rest. This is 2-3 months of special, planned, organized, designated time for specific purposes like mental health, physical rest, time to pour into a class or certification, or a complete brain break from the constant stress of full-time ministry, serving, leading work. This generally requires permission from your board or leadership team. It takes planning, paperwork, and a lot of thoughtfulness. It can be hybrid meaning a slower pace of life but still continuing some light work or it can be full stop sabbatical – no work allowed.
Planning a three month sabbatical can seem daunting and drastic but I whole-heartedly believe it is necessary for the long-term sustainability of life in ministry or missions. It MUST happen periodically throughout the life of a pastor or missionary.
Global Trellis has one designed for any length of sabbatical, all ready to go for missionaries and global workers.
Here is a sabbatical resource that can help regardless of your profession.
You can download this free Sabbatical Planning Guide with checklists, ideas, and questions you might be working through.
Here is an article where 16 coaches weigh in on the what and why of a sabbatical.
Pastors, check out this guide or take a look at planned retreats.
Pro tip: Get a coach for this process or talk to someone that you trust. Ask a mentor to be your accountability partner. Go through these resources with someone who can walk it out with you.
Planning that time away, learning how to plan your getaway, takes time, thought, attention, and direction.
A little research, praying about what you really need, being open to the idea of a real sabbatical or taking a silent retreat can start the process for you.
You might be needing to research a new diet that you’ve been needing to start. Gluten free or dairy free or low-fodmap or heart-healthy… these things take time to learn.
You might be setting physical goals for getting more sleep, more steps, more movement, or building new exercise habits for lifting weights, going on walks or even starting to run.
You might be in a time of transition or needing wisdom or guidance in a specific area.
These are all great times to figure out how to plan your getaway in a way that will work for you and give you the most benefit for what you need right now.
Are you feeling this need to getaway?
Do you know how to plan your getaway?