This past month, I took my first PTO as a working adult and it felt like a very adult thing to do. In school I was afforded ample opportunities to reflect on big picture things (however anxiously when it came to my future), but professional life speeds things up a bit. When you graduate and land a job, you’re prompted to ask yourself how you want to spend your limited time out of the office. Are you looking for your Eat, Pray, Love moment? Are you doing it from the ‘gram? Or are you just looking to get wasted on a beach? All are valid options.

On somewhat of a whim, my friend and I headed to an island in Greece where goats outnumber humans 25 to one for a week-long yoga retreat. Amorgos is known for its 11th century monastery, for supposedly being the island where Odysseus spent a year with Circe in The Odyssey, and not much else. We did yoga by day and guided meditation by night. I met people I wouldn’t have met inside my LA bubble. I didn’t buy into much of self-help advice given by my instructor; what I did buy into was the jasmine oil she rubbed on my forehead after each session. Literally, I bought it.

The trip gave me moments of calm and the ability to bring that feeling into my daily routine. Maybe don’t go as far as Greece in your effort to achieve a work-life balance. Maybe drive out of the city for some room to breath. Maybe move your body more often. Writing this now, I’m realizing that what I got out of my trip was a reminder to meet some basic human needs. Also, I came back with a killer tan. Namaste.