How to Feel Normal Again After You Get Home
A practical sequence to handle re-entry dread, time distortion, and the first-week friction without overcorrecting.
This is a paid companion for Post-Vacation Blues: Why Coming Home Feels So Hard
🧭 The Struggle
Coming home can feel weirdly expensive.
Not because your life is bad. Not because something broke while you were away. It’s expensive because your system is switching reward rhythms in one day. Vacation compresses time when you’re absorbed. The ending lands abruptly. Then you return to delayed payoff, predictable days, and responsibility in bulk.
Most advice fails here because it treats this like motivation. “Get back on track.” “Start Monday strong.” “Hit the ground running.” That framing pushes you into the exact mistake re-entry makes likely: overcorrection. You try to erase the gap with intensity, stack goals, and force output. Then you miss one thing, and your brain turns a transition cost into proof you’re slipping.
That’s the drift window.
In our latest reflection (Post-Vacation Blues: Why Coming Home Feels So Hard), we covered why re-entry dread isn’t only emotional, how time gets distorted when you’re fully engaged, and why self-governance costs more for a few days after you return.
The Katas below turn that first week into something you can handle on purpose. The first benefit is immediate: you stop treating the feeling as a verdict, which prevents the panic planning that drains your day.
There’s also a second benefit: you build evidence. Each time you run the sequence and return without drama, your brain learns that re-entry is manageable. That trust makes future returns cheaper.
👉 Recovery As A Discipline Skill — Train return capacity so drift stops turning into identity.
⚡ The Katas
Katas are short, named practices. Each one takes 30–120 seconds. Practice them on easy days so they’re automatic when stress hits.
1️⃣ Physiological Sigh Reset
This kata trains fast regulation. Use it when you feel the first re-entry edge in your chest, jaw, or pacing. Use it before you open your inbox or right after you catch yourself rushing. You’ll notice how quickly your body can change what your mind is about to argue.
