42: Why "I Need a Vacation" Is a Sign Something's Wrong (And What To Do About It)

Why Needing a Vacation Is a Sign Something's Wrong (And What To Do About it)

If you're living for the weekend or counting down to your next vacation, this episode is a gift, albeit an uncomfortable one!

Needing a vacation so badly isn't a rest problem, it's a signal. In this episode, we get honest about the quiet, persistent emptiness that can hide inside a "good life," and why more achievements, better goals, and longer holidays will never fill it.

In this episode we cover:

• Why needing a vacation is actually a symptom and the vacation isn't actually the solution
• The achievement trap that keeps high-achieving women stuck and still unfulfilled
• The guilt of wanting more when you "should be grateful", and why this is quietly destructive
• "Work you" vs. "vacation you", and the truth about which one is actually real
• What living in alignment genuinely feels like (it's not as difficult or flashy as you think)
• The hot tub analogy: why vacations offer temporary relief but can't reach the root cause
• The counterintuitive move that creates lasting change - and why it's not another goal or achievement

Resources mentioned:

• 📖 The Gap and the Gain — Dan Sullivan & Benjamin Hardy
• 🌿 Peru Retreat: midlifewomenrising.com/peru
• 🎙️ Episode 39 — Why women don't leap toward the life they want

Join us in Costa Rica, October 2026 for our Retreat: Soul-Aligned - Design Your Extraordinary Next Chapter! Click here for details.

Find us on instagram:

 @midlifewomenrising

@jenreimercoaching

Transcript

Speaker 4 0:02

Intro

Sheri 1:36

Jen, I loved how in the intro you talked about being like waking up feeling curious about what this day might hold. Instead of like I think there's something about the way that I used to live, at least on autopilot. It was like I sort of had this idea of this is what my day is going to look like. This is what my week's going to look like, even though I didn't know every little detail. There was no anticipation. I just like the the the difference between feeling curious about your day. Not even necessarily excited. Like I don't wake up every day now feeling excited, but I do feel like, huh, what might this day bring? What fun surprises am I gonna run into? Or what fun things might happen? I never used to think like that.

unknown 2:45

No, mean either of my dry lemons for a while in my cool work, which is why I didn't leave it.

Speaker 5 2:57

Mm-hmm.

Jen 2:58

And then and then it was more like just this pattern of where it lived that was sort of yeah. This is the way it works. This is the way it works. We we work to pay the bills, we live for the weekends and vacations, and that's those are the exciting parts of life. There's there's that I was just gonna add the we've also been made to believe the opposite. That if you really want a job that you love, then be prepared to be poor. The starving artist.

Speaker 4 5:15

Yeah, that's what's essentially the cliches.

unknown 5:24

Um yeah, so just something that's like vacation. So that I have something to look forward to.

Speaker 4 5:39

Mm-hmm. Yep.

unknown 5:42

And we have a vacation for okay, we're doing is it's a solution.

Jen 5:51

Right. We think that the vacation is the solution to the exhaustion or the boredom, busy but bored, the feeling of blah or even dread. We think the vacation is the solution. But the vacation is actually the symptom. Like the fact that you need, need a vacation so badly is a symptom of a much deeper problem.

unknown 6:23

Yeah. So let's first talk about what is someone's or someone's subjects of this that we're talking about, but it's like this immediately. When I have a great vacation, when I retire.

Speaker 4 6:53

Mm-hmm.

Jen 6:55

That's when life will feel good.

unknown 6:59

So what does it look like now?

Jen 7:03

Well, I I think there's more to say about that because for some people it's it might be it might be dreading work every day, or it might be this niggling sense that you're not quite fulfilled doing what you're doing. I had that. I knew that there was some other job or some other thing. I I would look for my my passion, my purpose, which are actually, I think, two different things, but I'd look for it at work, like I was trying to find the right job, the right career, and then I kind of resigned myself to the career, the corporate career that I fell into, and tried to find that purpose, that feeling outside of work. So I'd volunteer, I would try different, I don't know, different activities, different things outside of work. And that just made me busy and even less happy because none of those things were fulfilling me either. I was just searching.

Speaker 5 8:23

Mm-hmm.

unknown 8:25

So we have we have march on someone like six or three. So I would have the next sense of achievement.

Speaker 5 9:20

Mm-hmm.

unknown 9:21

Or the next vacation.

Jen 9:23

Mm-hmm. Well, and what I see happening with achievement is, and I did this myself, so this there's no judgment around this. I remember hitting a particular milestone in my network marketing business. And the first thing I said was, on to the next one. Like I didn't even stop to celebrate what I had achieved because that sense of achievement was so fleeting. I was right away on to okay, what's the next thing I can achieve? We're always looking forward instead of stopping in the moment, or even you know, even more impactful, looking back and seeing how far you've come. Yes, the gap and the gain. Hmm, Dan Sullivan. Sullivan. We'll drop that in the show notes in case anybody wants to read that. It's a great book.

Speaker 5 11:26

Mm-hmm.

unknown 11:27

And then go in there when I retreat where I'm gonna find my next thing.

Speaker 5 11:32

Mm-hmm.

unknown 11:34

And I do want to experience something more automatically.

Jen 11:39

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I think there's a range. I mean, I I think some women are do feel like they're living a pretty good life, and then there's others who are feeling like, yeah, I'm just in this corporate career, or I'm just in this running this business that doesn't feel fully aligned or totally fulfilling or purposeful. I know there's something more for me. But this is kind of just the way it is, and they just sort of shove it down without even being conscious of it.

Speaker 5 12:14

And they shove it down because they just have a life button, but I think we have a great way like I shouldn't be happy about this, I should be grateful. Mm-hmm.

Jen 12:40

You know, Jen, I really want to pause here for a second and just let that sink in. Because I didn't think I felt that way. But when I look back on that that time, which a long period of my life where I was just going through the motions, I didn't hate my job, but I didn't love it, and it didn't make me feel a sense of purpose, it didn't fulfill me, but I liked who I worked with, and you know, we go out after work sometimes, and that was that was fulfilling in a sense. But when I really sit down to think about why didn't I pursue something else? Why did I just settle? I settled. And it it just took a minute to let the to really kind of remember the feeling. And that guilt was there because I did have a pretty good job. It paid well. It I I was moving up the ladder. So I felt like I should like there's so many people who are worse off.

unknown 14:00

I don't think it all sounded like it's a vegetable event because I'm actually doing a different way. It doesn't sound always sound like it was.

Jen 16:59

Yep. Yeah. We talked quite a bit about that on the l uh last episode or two no, a couple of episodes ago. So that might be one to go back to. Yeah, um 39, I think. Anyway, let's move on to what are we talking about next?

unknown 17:24

Um well let's just talk about the possibility of the openings and what you have seen.

Speaker 4 17:37

Oh yes.

Speaker 1 18:14

What was that one client of yours that started playing music again and then got um started to compose music?

Jen 18:21

And tell me those stories, but that's not gonna go. Yes, and yet it happened almost to every one of my clients. So this is when I was working with women without kids who wanted kids, and their perception was that their purpose was supposed to be being a mother. That was going to be what brought them fulfillment and purpose and legacy. And so this was sort of something that I hadn't deliberately built into that program, but it it it was a happy, it was a happy outcome, and it also led to some of the work that you and I do now, because what they started to realize through the program was that they're that purpose doesn't come from having kids. For some women, they find that sense of purpose in raising their own kids or working with kids or doing some of those other things. But for most women, even the mothers, they tend to have something else, some other passion, the environment or addiction, or like there's something else that they're or being a chef or resolving, yes, supporting people who have addictions, um, or being a chef or owning a yoga studio. So, but what I found happened with every single one of my clients is that they discovered something that they had really loved to do and had been putting aside. And for some, it was, you know, the the woman that you mentioned, she was a music teacher at college, but she loved composing and she used to compose, and she said, you know, this has inspired me to go back to that. And she ended up in a group that were nominated for an Emmy, like not even a year later. I was so proud of her, like it was such a an amazing thing for her. Other women started writing because they felt there was an author in them and they just went and took a writing course. I think at least three of them did that. Some others did, like one was in school for she had gone back to school to get her master's in psychotherapy or to be a counselor, and she wanted to work with kids, and then she realized how how much she really also wanted to work with childless women. So many, you know, it doesn't necessarily have to be some big, huge overhaul or a massive change in your life, but there's something there that we shove down because we think we're not it's not in the cards, or it's too late, or it's not for me. That doesn't work for me, or I should just be happy with what I have.

unknown 21:32

So I wasn't sure.

Jen 22:31

That's strong. You find the gifts in it. Yeah. So I I love that and I agree with you. I also want to add that Jen, sometimes it's easier to understand what being aligned feels like by looking at what you know doesn't feel aligned. And when I say aligned, I to me that means what feels intuitively right. It's following your intuition, it's following your soul's guidance. There's a bunch of different ways you could look at that. So that can also come in moments. And there are moments when let's say you're invited to go somewhere to a party or a social gathering or whatever it is, and you know you don't really want to go, but you say yes anyway, even though it doesn't feel aligned. And then later, afterwards, you say to yourself, I knew I shouldn't have done that. I knew I shouldn't have gone. Now I'm drained. Now I'm too tired to do this other thing that I really did want to do. So it's that feeling of I knew I shouldn't have done that. That tells you when you've done something that's out of alignment. And that can sometimes help you see what is an alignment.

unknown 25:56

Yeah, but it's a great term point. So that's what that's what is in the cards. And I think this or like the option keeps you on the side, right?

Speaker 5 26:15

Mm-hmm. Like this slippery fish that keeps thinking of a range.

Speaker 4 26:24

Mm-hmm.

Jen 26:26

And that's how it should be all the time. Not necessarily living on a beach or living uh like retiring. But it should feel like you're doing something that you're excited about. You're not waiting for the weekend, you know, you're not postponing your joy every day until you get to the weekend or the vacation. Postponing your joy, and it's almost like scheduling it. Like I get to feel joy on these days of the week and on this when I have this vacation.

unknown 27:11

Yeah, you almost end up being a different person when we were like in the week versus a weekend or on vacation.

Speaker 1 27:19

Like my colleagues used to joke that there was there was a portion and there was a vacation gen, and they used to joke about how different I was. And they imagine me as this hairy, adventurous, authentic person when I was on vacation, and actually I was.

Speaker 5 27:40

Mm-hmm.

unknown 27:41

And that person that I think you would be everyday.

Jen 27:48

That wasn't your persona, that was your actual self, your true self. Mm-hmm.

unknown 27:55

But I didn't think we vacation gen.

Jen 27:59

At work. Mm-hmm. It's all about authenticity. Is what it boils down to. And feeling worthy enough to allow that self, that like allow that part of you or that true self to show.

unknown 28:21

Yeah, it's true, what I realized when I made that mistake at work today that I was talking about earlier.

Speaker 5 28:27

Mm-hmm.

Jen 28:46

Why am I bothering Oh, that's interesting.

Speaker 5 29:01

Mm-hmm.

unknown 29:03

Not as badly, but this stuff is like if I look good, it'll hide the mistakes or it'll hide something in that I'm not comfortable with.

Jen 29:16

Mm-hmm. And professional means you don't make mistakes. And now your conscious mind. Yeah.

unknown 29:33

Because I'm human and I make mistakes.

Jen 29:36

Yeah, that's good insight.

Speaker 5 29:39

Anyway, I I guess we're not going to be able to do it.

Speaker 4 30:40

Yeah.

Speaker 2 30:43

So what you're what you think is giving you or is going to give you that that feeling of alignment is actually.

unknown 30:58

It's not making it worse, but it's certainly not fixing it.

Jen 31:02

No, because it just goes away. Like it's, you know, when you're in the hot tub, you you actually need the root cause is to your pain. Let's say someone gets into a hot tub because they have pain. Like we did talking about Peru in the hot springs there. So tired and muscle soreness after doing the full Inca trail hike. The root cause. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But then the muscle soreness came back. Like you need to get to the root cause. That's just a temporary solution. Getting into the hot springs, you need to get to the like your muscles actually need to heal. And that might have provided some temporary relief. And maybe because the hot springs there are actually filled with minerals, they actually did, you know, bring magnesium and and minerals into the body that that helped with the healing. But the root cause is the muscle pain. And that tends to come back after you get out of the hot tub.

unknown 32:23

Yeah. The calendar, what the calendar just to offer here is not to try harder or find any or even necessarily.

Speaker 4 32:58

Yes.

unknown 33:04

Why am I on a road pilot?

Jen 33:08

Do I want to learn about actually creating that for myself? Well, and that's the difference between a vacation on the beach with the margarita and a retreat.

unknown 33:22

Exactly. That's exactly what we're going to be created for a retreat. Which is created as it is a very vacation.

Speaker 4 33:36

Yeah.

unknown 34:07

And we'll just make it spy in it.

Jen 34:12

And then come home with the clarity to maintain to intentionally live that life that you truly want to live with the intention of being authentic, authentically you, being your true self. So that it doesn't become a hot tub experience.

unknown 34:34

Yeah. Well, and you know what I want to say too is that should we plan in carbon dialogue ones and just about it's like a remarked series like the cover like some of the prices. And then confident in how to go out directly.

Jen 35:46

And not on the plane dreading going back to work. Okay, I think that's a good point to wrap up, Jen.

Speaker 1 35:58

Yeah, so so let's just finish that by saying this Peru retreat that we are talking about is happening in November.

Jen 36:37

I love it. We're gonna okay, so join the the retreat. You only have I think by the time we publish this, Jen, we'll have three weeks left to actually make a decision because Machu Picchu tickets sell out, even though it's in November, you have to make a decision by June. So head over to midlifewomenrising.com slash Peru and check out the details. Book a call with me with Sherry and we'll chat about it.

unknown 37:09

Yeah, I'm so excited. I can't wait for this. So we can't we can't wait now for this episode to draw.

Speaker 4 37:14

So next week we are gonna talk about um if you want to miss creative inspire like for now.