Perfect holiday vacation in a generative family

This is a question that many parents asking me: “Rita, how can we use the practices of NLP & Generative Parenting to have the perfect family holiday vacation?” Because I am very curious, I always like to investigate what they mean by “holiday vacation”, “perfect” and “family”. Then we can move on to something concrete.

I believe that perfection exists in every moment as it is. Even when it doesn’t feel so comfortable. And what I feel, from experience, assuming myself as part of a generative family is that holiday vacation are always perfect. They reveal so much of the edges that are still to be ironed out in our family system. After all, we are systems within other systems and we are free to choose which course of our boat, as we explore at Conscious Systems.

When we look at the smiling photos of the perfect holiday vacation, we get to see beyond them and feel the really live in that moment, frozen in the picture now. Just like in everyday life, we have moments of total connection that alternate with those of complete disconnection! Do you remember that everything in itself contains its opposite?! You only know what happiness is because you know unhappiness and vice versa, for example. In generative families, parents also make tantrums, not just children. I do, my husband does. Oops! The difference is that when this happens, we become aware in a click and access internal resources to resolve the issue. Sometimes it goes very well, sometimes not so much. This is called Life!

Tips from a Generative Family

Some time ago, I wrote an article filled with 11 practices for a family holiday vacation in harmony that I will soon share here. We always define the intention of our holidays vacation. In addition to the individual intention (we are four), we define a general intention, and it is so funny and challenging to do this exercise. Therefore, our family vacation begin even before packing. We define how much time, which destination, which accommodation, we investigate what activities exists (without programming any). If it involves long trips, we choose to divide by phases, which is what makes sense to us according to our needs, but I know families that do it directly and everything is fine. You already know that each family is a unique system, with unique specificities and that what works with one does not necessarily result in another. I can give you some examples that worked very well here. If we travel by car, we stop whenever necessary and refuse to be more than four hours on wheels. When we decided to meet Japan and South Korea we chose to fly direct from Lisbon to Dubai, rest two days and then embark towards Japan. From Yokohama we went on a cruise and met other wonderful Japanese cities. We picked up the green tea, met a 100-year-old grandmother who was teaching the tradition of the tea ceremony to children a little older than our littlest and of course, we joined them. Already when we travel to Indonesia, we take advantage of more affordable flights and revisit Istanbul, from there we continue to Malaysia, we stayed two days and the next stop was in Thailand, where we rested, visited very interesting temples, had an opportunity to commune with the monks and their meditative practices. We really learned a lot and only then did we fly to Indonesia (Bali). Yes, we invest time, patience, quality presence (which is not easy, but today we know how to be more and more present) what we save on the flights we apply for stays and compensates every second, every cent. We all came back infinitely richer.

Perfect holiday vacation reveal edges to file

We have now returned from a holiday vacation that showed me more than I wanted to see. It hurt, I confess. It hurt when I cried, when I threatened, when I blackmailed, when I imposed … Yes, I had moments like these. And it hurt to know that I know how to do differently, that all these behaviors reveal how much I still have to grow up to be the mother my daughters deserve. They have led me to reflect on my path and it makes so much sense. It was the perfect vacation to guide me on the right track.

In addition to incredible stories that I will share with you, new knowledge of generative, conscious family practices I bring with me the sure that it is even imperative to reduce the number of hours in front of the screen, the keyboard and increase the quality of my presence in me and in my family. So blessed perfect family holiday!