Does this ever happen to you? You’ve gotten away on that holiday you’ve been looking forward to for weeks, months even, but you spend most of that whole holiday waiting to relax. Your body stays tense; you till get impatient over small matters; your mind still whirls into action unnecessarily. Does that ring a bell with you? Well then you’ll relate to this remarkable tale…

In August, like half the population it seemed, I got away to beautiful Donegal and got to do some surfing and plenty other good stuff, but was literally asking myself for all of my nearly two weeks’ holiday, ‘Am I relaxed yet?’ then,’Why am I not relaxed yet? and eventually, ‘Will I ever relax??’

At one point, I had a false dawn. Something seemed to change. I felt a slowing down in me. This was it. I announced excitedly to my wife, ‘I’m relaxed.’ I had achieved the goal of the holiday. Success. Tick that box. Done.

A day later, I got all het up about next to nothing. Nope. I was still not relaxed. And admittedly I had gone on the holidays pretty darn wound up. And so it went, back to checking myself and wondering, ‘I am there yet? Am I there yet?’

Until – click – yes, genuinely I did feel that shift and then clouds lifted and I was fully and finally relaxed.

And where and when did this remarkable moment happen you ask?

While brushing my teeth before bed at home in Dublin the evening we returned home from our holiday.

Okay, yeah, right, there’s nothing remarkable about this tale.

But that moment when I felt myself relax, boy, it was something. It was both worth waiting for and a reminder of how little I really understand my mind/body complex. It was like a switch had being flipped. My breath slowed. My shoulders dropped. Tension dropped out of my body.

I was right there and present with no goals and nothing to achieve.

I was enough.