Its common to wish to escape from thoughts of discomfort and challenges that feel overwhelming. Life situations can escalate or get-out -of hand. Simple conversations can intensify, and trigger your emotions. Why assume changing scenery makes a difference? What is really going on? Ponder 5 ways to see wisdom in urges to escape:
1) Look deeper to see what you really wish to escape
Notice on the surface, you may think you wish to avoid conflict at work, in relationships or other situations, or even temporarily alleviate the stress you link to paying bills, keeping up appearances, multi-tasking or other matters. Turning inward reveals all urges to escape/ travel/ change scenery are forms of resistance to accepting true being (who you really are). Discomfort arising in relation to your external world reflects internal tug-of-war between the limiting Mind and expanding Self. This reveals why people often say they need a vacation to recouperate from the vacation or attend retreat after retreat. Rather than relax and be in the moment, an active mind focuses attention on what is not being done somewhere other than where one is.
2) Society/ culture programs humans to suffer.
Notice the Mind is programmed to oscillate between perceptions of pain and pleasure and focus mainly on misery of who you think you are not, where you are not and what you are not yet doing. This takes shape as focusing on the past or future, on what seems lacking or missing in your life, on what you no longer have or would like to and do not yet see materialize. This even comes across in calendar celebrations that recognize historical events but actually just keep you focused energetically away from now.
3) Recognize & move beyond 'the what next syndrome.'
Notice the ways the Mind keep you thinking about the future and speaking using the future tense in language. You come to nurture expectations for what is next rather than appreciate where you are. It can take shape in a linear timeline vision for relationships (i.e. dating, commitment, marriage, children, house purchase, children, retirement ect), for moving up a hierarchy in the workplace, for envisioning step-by-step changes to any situation. Watch what happens to the urge to escape when you let go of all expactations.
At some stage, stepping back allows one to see through all the seeking and master the focus of attention. It dawns that physical existence is not full of problems to be solved but rather, full of mysteries to be lived directly. No questions arise in the Silence where nothing is happening and no-body exists to escape from.