Scientists acknowledge that our perception of time changes as we age. Researchers explain that a year represents 10% of a ten-year-old’s life but just 2% of a fifty-year-old’s, partly because we gauge time by memorable events. The more such events, the slower time passes. However, because we often have fewer new things to remember as we age, life seems to accelerate its pace. When the passage of time is no longer measured by “firsts” (first kiss, first day of school, first family vacation), the weeks begin to run together, stitched by recurrent and unmemorable daily tasks. Here’s a great article about this topic.
Our friends at the Transformational Travel Council define transformational travel as: “Intentionally traveling to stretch, learn, and grow into new ways of being and engaging with the world.” Transformational travel is not a noun but a verb. It’s an action. And, in creating this kind of travel experience in which we feel an awareness of flow, we stretch out our sense of time.
Our MEA workshops are transformative on many levels and can be disorienting when it comes to time. People often say after 24 hours that it feels like they’ve been at MEA for 3-4 days. Similarly, our Sabbatical Sessions (aka SabSesh wellness vacations) offer an awakening to trying something new and connecting more deeply with others, all with spaciousness built in. SabSesh was MEA’s response to the lockdown pandemic era. It proved extremely popular, so we intersperse SabSesh weeks into our Baja annual calendar, and the next one is coming up July 2-9. Think of it as a way to celebrate both your independence (and the 4th of July) as well as your interdependence, as SabSesh guests often create lifelong friends.
The folks at Sabbatical Travel recently interviewed me as they wanted to know about how to build a community of mid-lifers. I hope you enjoy the interview and consider joining us with your fellow Sabbatistas for SabSesh in Baja in early July and again for the month of September with Binky Griptite in residence the whole month!