Summer is here and vacation time is in full swing, but that doesn’t mean your workouts should take a vacation! You try so hard to book hotels that have the best accommodations, restaurants, activities and location….but what happens when the gym is far from acceptable?!

Time to hit the stairs!  Inside Emergency Exit Escape stairs that is!  Most hotels have staircases that are safe, well lit, and completely empty!  So to get a great cardio workout in while on vacation do 30 to 45 minutes of walking, running, or skipping stairs.

Throw in a few push-ups and 30 second plank holds… and you’ll be ready to hit the pool in no time!

- Christina Malizia

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Have you ever consciously chosen not to speak? A few months ago, I wanted to go on silent retreat. I went online, found a retreat, printed and filled out the form.  “A silent retreat” my friends would say, “You actually want to go away and not talk, what will you do there?” “Why not hit the spa?”

There is a spiritual teacher who reminds us the words SILENT and LISTEN have the exact same letters. My intention was to get silent, listen in the quiet and be with myself. It sounds simple.

When I arrived at the center I could already feel my desire to be quiet set in. The daily schedule began at 5:45am sit, eat, morning job, and more sit, walk, sit, walk, sit, eat and in the evening there was a dharma talk. Bedtime was at 9:30 and I was always asleep quickly. As the retreat progressed, the full spectrum of emotions, distractions, and moments of peace moved through me.

I realized, meditation is a skill. This practice takes training and dedication. Here I was in a half marathon of stillness and I had barely trained. I did NOT have a daily meditation routine prior to these 5 days, but I had expected to be, “successful” at the task.

A lot happened for me at the retreat. Now, I am committed to my training. I wake with 30 minutes of intentional sitting. I time it just as I do when I am physically training my body. When the buzzer goes off, I feel a sense of gratitude for the silent practice.

All one has to do is get up, sit still and breathe. It’s incredible what shows up in the silence.

- Rebecca “Bex” Urban

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I’m on a plane as I write this and the first 30 minutes of flight involved some heavy-duty turbulence. So much so, that the flight attendant got on the PA to tell us we’d be bypassing the drink cart and to remind us that “in case of an emergency landing, please remember to leave all personal belongings behind.” In my opinion, this was probably not the best approach to keeping passengers calm, but who am I to say?

At first I began to think about how I would sneak my laptop out during the emergency landing. My life is in this computer and would I really get in trouble? Oh, and I might as well take my wallet too because getting a new license and credit cards is such a huge pain.

As the turbulence continued and the drops got deeper, my thinking changed a bit. I was no longer strategizing on how to jump out of the emergency exit with my laptop, I was thinking, well… maybe this is it. If this plane went down right now, could I say that I really lived my life? My answer, although there is still so much I’d like to do, was yes.

It does make you think though, you never really know when your last day is and we put off so much in many aspects of our life. Whether it’s not calling a friend or forgiving a family member, saying we’ll start eating right tomorrow or working out on Monday. What if there is no Monday? It’s all about execution. It’s easy to “talk the talk” but what really matters is that we “walk the talk.” So, I’m hoping this plane lands and I can get busy walking.

- Carrie Rezabek

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