Say it Sister...
Lucy and Karen, two 40-somethings, are always chatting about life, and all that it has to throw at them, and now want to share their raw, honest conversations with you. Their journey of self-discovery and healing is something many of us can relate to. We all possess a unique power within us, but life’s trials often knock us off course. They have the tools, the courage to speak up and simply say it as it is, so you might feel seen, and understood and gain practical tools and techniques for self-discovery and personal growth during the changes we experience.
Say it Sister...
Transformative Travel: Embracing Adventure and Inner Resilience
Ever wonder how a simple trip can transform your life? Join me, Lucy, and my fellow adventurer Karen on our podcast episode as we share personal stories that highlight the profound impact travel has had on us. From the teenage thrills of interrailing to the unexpected wonder of landing on the wrong island, our tales reflect the beauty and chaos that comes with embracing the unknown. Discover how stepping out of our comfort zones and into diverse cultures fuels our dreams and fosters friendships that span the globe.
Imagine a journey that not only tests your limits but also strengthens your resolve. We explore our most memorable travel experiences, like the breathtaking sunset in Florence and the challenging climbs in North Wales. Each story showcases how travel challenges unlock our inner resilience and connect us with the deeper parts of ourselves. Karen and I discuss the kindness of strangers we've encountered and the personal growth achieved through these adventures, proving that the road less traveled is often the most rewarding.
Travel isn't just about physical destinations; it's a metaphor for self-discovery and mindfulness. We dive into our experiences of using visualization and meditation as tools to maintain creativity and mental health, especially during stressful times like the pandemic. Whether it's the comfort of childhood memories or the thrill of new adventures, we encourage you to travel light and with purpose. Join us as we inspire you to embark on your own meaningful journeys, filled with humor, intention, and the joy of exploration.
Hello and welcome to the Say it Sister podcast.
Speaker 2:I'm Lucy and I'm Karen, and we're thrilled to have you here. Our paths crossed years ago on a shared journey of self-discovery, and what we found was an unshakable bond and a mutual desire to help others heal and live their very best lives.
Speaker 1:For years, we've had open, honest and courageous conversations, discussions that challenged us, lifted us and sometimes even brought us to tears. We want to share those conversations with you. We believe that by letting you into our world, you might find the courage to use your voice and say what really needs to be said in your own life.
Speaker 2:Whether you're a woman seeking empowerment, a self-improvement enthusiast or someone who craves thought-provoking dialogue, join us, as we promise to bring you real, unfiltered conversations that encourage self-reflection and growth.
Speaker 1:So join us as we explore, question and grow together. It's time to say Say it, sister, welcome to our travel edition. Now, there's one thing Karen and I have in common and that is our love for travel. There is something powerful about owning the ground that you occupy for a moment, taking your place where you stand, and there's something really deeply connecting about the roots that you have and a home to feel safe in. But there's also this magic in leaving what's safe and comfortable and becoming a traveller. So we're going to take you on our own little personal journeys around this planet. We're going to share what inspires us, some funny stories, places we've explored, some of our favourite memories and why, to us, travel is so important. So welcome Karen, hey, good morning.
Speaker 2:I'm so happy to be here, as always and this is a great topic I can feel there's a lot of energy around the idea of traveling and it brings up a lot, you know, for me, as I've been thinking about it and thinking about all the amazing places that I've been to and so many different guises throughout my life. I think I'm definitely a gypsy at heart and there's something in me that's just always wanted to expand, explore, see, see different things, understand culture. It gives me so much energy so to be able to sort of dedicate, you know, a window today with you to talk about it. I couldn't think of anything better to be doing.
Speaker 1:So when you think travel, what is it to you?
Speaker 2:For me it's exploration and expansion. There is a little bit of escapism in there, I think, when I used to travel at certain parts of my life definitely traveled to get away from things, so there was a little bit of running, that kind of I can do, you know, if I can think, well, this isn't working, so where can I run to? Um, so travel gave me that sort of it filled voids for me as well. But these days I'm much more conscious about where I go and you know what we're doing, and it has changed as I've got older. But, um, I have done some wild traveling, um, to be sure, and I've done it from, like you know, backpacking around the world to also like the business travel and the amazing hotels you know, with work. So I feel like I've had these two quite extreme experiences. When it comes to actually, you know, getting out there on the road, um, you know, it's like what is it? I've got the, I've got the t-shirt, I feel like I've got the t-shirt. What?
Speaker 1:about you. Um, yeah, for me it feels like hope. I think I'd um read somewhere or heard somewhere that, um, every time you plan a holiday or a trip somewhere, it releases as many of the positive um hormones as you get when you're actually doing the traveling. In fact, you probably get more because you haven't got all of the, the dreaming up of delays and roadworks and all those other things that go on. So actually it releases stuff. So I love dreaming about traveling just as much as I do actually about the, the traveling.
Speaker 1:But for me, I think there's something there about, um, I guess, freedom yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:But there's something there about unity, because whenever I go traveling, there's two things that tend to happen at one point or another I will look up at the sky and I will see the moon, I will see the sun and I'll think everybody is looking at the same one, wherever you are on this earth. So I find this real unity. But then there's also this connectivity, because I always end up chatting to somebody, whether it's somebody who's staying in the same hotel or sat on the next table on a bus, or one of the local community members and, yeah, for me that's what it's about. I feel like I'm making friends all over the world, even if it's just for that moment. So I love that and I just yeah, it's about learning. It's about experiencing different cultures and opening my mind so that I don't think that my little world is all that exists, that there's this whole world and different way of living. So, yeah, that's what travel is for me it's hope, excitement, learning, unity and connection.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, it's reminded me of a time when I was backpacking around the world when I was 25, I decided I would just leave my job and rent out my apartment and just went off with a backpack and went traveling. And it was this experience of just seeing the world, almost like the different cultures, the different spaces and just, you know, going from one place to the next. So it was like maybe we'd stay a couple of days somewhere but then you know, like the backpack gets packed back up again and you've got all your possessions on your back and you know off you go and you have all these different experiences and it's quite hard on the body, it's quite hard on the system and yet, at the same time, there's this, this level of like being out of your comfort zone, not knowing what you're going to go into as well as you're sort of moving from one place to the next. And also, you know the research and in the books and all the guidebooks. So I would have all my guidebooks, like I got all my guidebooks before I went and then I packed up my backpack and you know, just going through those books and trying to work out where to go and what to do and feeling like the road was really quite open actually, and just that expansion of being able to sort of drop into places and seeing sunrise and sunset.
Speaker 2:There's something really magical about that and having you know, one of my experiences I'll never forget was being at the Grand Canyon and jumping over the railings and sitting on this rock which I don't think you can do anymore, actually highly dangerous, to be honest but sitting on this rock, but feeling like I was held by the universe, you know so I was so tiny and then looking out at this expansive view and then watching the sunset, and I remember saying, if every single child could be here now and see this now, we would have a much happier kind of world, because it moved me so much. And I can still see it. I can still see it in my mind's eye. I think about it often. I've always, like, cared about young people and I feel like often, when we get out of our um, the places where we grew up, maybe some of the traumas that we might hold, and we see something it can open us back up into this place of oh, there is something different out there. The world is different. Not this is my reality that I've had.
Speaker 1:However, there is more available and perhaps when we come out of that reality, we can get back into dreaming and hope, like you say what's funny about you sharing this big view is when I was interrailing with my girls, every place that we went to, I would plan a trip to the highest point of that place and it was usually up some massive hill and we did. We only did five cities, but you know that was epic. You know, because I had a, I think, 14, 14 year olds and an 18 year old, all with our belongings on our back, but they would always say, oh, another hill, mum. But when we got there and we were there looking over the, whatever the vista was, they got it, because there is something really expansive but also humbling when you see that.
Speaker 1:For me it's like we see everybody driving around in their little cars or you see like people in their houses and I just think they've all got their own problems. They're all like little busy worker bees going about their business and actually, if they just see that they're part of this bigger view and their problems really aren't that, you know they're big but they're not everything. So, yeah, I always try and even with with my clients, I try and get them to take this big meta view where they're standing up and looking, and whether it's the Grand Canyon, whether Everest is your thing, or just walking to your local, tump your little hill, whatever it is. Just getting that perspective it's beautiful. But I'm really interested when did you first get your travel bug?
Speaker 2:I think it was something that's always been inside me. I don't know my dad's from Barcelona, so you know I was born in Barcelona. I grew up the first 18 months of my life, which I do not remember, of course. You know I was speaking Catalan and you know so. When then they moved over to Manchester, I just I, from what I know inside myself, there was a big shift and change, like everything smelled different. You know you've got carpets and textures instead of you know what you would have in an apartment in Spain, and so it was almost like there was something in me that I feel like it really goes back to that root of going where do I belong? Where's my home? Because my home changed and the and the language changed, and and whilst I, as I said, I don't remember it, there's something in me that does remember it, and so we would go to Spain and see my grandparents every summer.
Speaker 2:They had a place by the beach and we would spend these amazing, like this amazing time, and it was so different to where I grew up in Manchester, which was, like you know, a mining town. It was quite a rough and ready place, um, you know, humble beginnings, I suppose, in some ways, and it was so different, like it was like chalk and cheese, so it gave me this sort of like oh, there is different things out there and there are um other places that you can go to and there are beaches and there is, you know, heat and different types of foods, and so I think for me that that culture was inside me, and so it gave me like an appetite and I decided, when I was about 13, um, we had a very bad accident on um in France and we um the car hit. Basically the car spun and we ended up in this ditch by the side of the road and it was almost like life can change so quickly and I didn't know if I was going to wake up. So it was literally like everything flashed in front of my eyes, I think for all of us in the car actually and so when I did wake up, I was unconscious. I woke up on it and then I got taken to hospital and and I just remember lying in this bed and thinking I have to see the world like. I have to have experiences. I cannot stay um rigid.
Speaker 2:It was something in me that was so and I kind of made myself a promise without realizing, you know, because we do these things when we're younger. But there was something about like, don't worry, get out there and live your life. And I've done that and I've lived that, and it's it's something that speaks to me, I think, because we can, it can all stop so quickly and it's good to be reminded of that. And so I'm not saying that that's the whole reason why I travel, because there's plenty more reasons why I travel, but it's certainly something that is like this sort of north star, that's like there's a big world out there. What are you going to do? What you know, it's like the Mary Oliver poem what are you going to do with this one precious life? Um, that's definitely something that inspires me to, um, keep pushing boundaries, keep challenging myself, um, challenging the norms. I think it's the way I live my life, but it's also, you know, sure it's the way I've traveled as well. What about you?
Speaker 1:um, it's a lot more subtle for me. Um, it's not like this big calling, it's just a. This is what I do, it's just part of what makes me me so if I don't travel, even if it's just to the neighboring county and go camping for a weekend and see a different view, something fundamentally is lacking in my life. So it just feels it's just part of me and I think my parents always took us on holiday, whether it was in a tent in South Wales or a caravan. And apparently I went on holiday when I was about 18 months, two years, to Spain and back in the 70s. That was quite a big deal. I think we didn't really do package holidays and I've got the pictures and I look so happy in my little summer dresses I think I've got some maracas that I'm playing with or something but I look genuinely happy and so I think that probably stayed with me. So from a very early age, understanding airports and you know, different cultures, different foods, all of that stuff, because it wasn't like going to mini Britain, going to Spain back then. So I think it's always been there. But I guess one of the first times I really felt like I want more of this is going to Yugoslavia in 1988. So it was before the fall of the Iron Curtain, so it was still under a communist regime and but it was. It's now.
Speaker 1:You'd call it Croatia and it is such a beautiful place. And I remember being on the coach where they've taken us from the airport to where we're staying, and the travel host was saying we have seven languages, we have six countries, we have five religions, we have four of this, three of that, but there's only one, yugoslavia. And there's some irony because years later, obviously there was a huge war over that place, but it's. I remember it to this day because it's stuck in my mind. I was like, wow, this is amazing how this one place can hold so much culture and interest, etc. And anyway, a few days later we were um on one of the beaches, which were concrete beaches because they were actually quite rocky.
Speaker 1:So, um, we were playing there and I met um, a Yugoslavian girl called Liliana and she was a year or two above me and we just we hung out every day, every opportunity could, and it was like pure heart friendship, because her language English language was only small and I spoke none of her language and we continued to write to each other up until the start of the war, and then I completely lost connection with her. And then, through a twist of fate, when we were doing our coaching course together, I just so happened to find a mutual friend and Facebook brought us back together, which has been beautiful. So I think that was the start of my human connection journey. And then in my teenage years I did three French exchanges. I did one German exchange. So there's something for me about actually immersing myself in the culture, not just going and staying in a hotel, it's more, it's proper traveling. And that's where I got that book, I think, um yeah, it's just already.
Speaker 2:Yeah, just part of me. Yeah, this is something in you that you know keeps those sort of like connections warm inside your heart. And whether that's you know, you lose contact with people they're still there, aren't they? And then you know you lose contact with people. They're still there, aren't they? And then you know, luckily sometimes there's people come back around and you have a full circle moment with them. And because it isn't just about the places that you go, it's the places you're with, I mean, we've all had those experiences where you can be in the most beautiful place in the world, yet you're not with the right person necessarily, and it can feel miserable, you know, and so I, I know, and so I I know it's not just about the view that you're seeing, it's about the people that we're next to and the way we feel on the inside. That brings that experience into something that feels really quite profound.
Speaker 2:You know, I did have something similar in a way, and when I was 17, I went to New York for three weeks and, with my best friend and her mum, lived in New York and worked in New York in a little diner, and we stayed with her and she worked. She was working a lot, so she was doing a lot of shifts, so we kind of had like free reign and her brother lived there and he had older friends, and so we spent these like three weeks in New York, in the Bronx, doing all sorts of things, you know, going to, like the mountains, and then we'd spend time at the beach, because New York State is so huge, and then going into the city and, you know, going out to all the bars. I mean we just had the best, best, best possible time. And it was like I kind of was pinching myself the whole time because I kept thinking I'm actually in New York. You know, you're kind of going along in New York looking up at the skyscrapers, looking at the you know the yellow cabs, and just almost being like this is weird. It's literally like being in a movie, you know, and that sort of feeling of like this is actually my reality right now. Yet it's not where I'm from, yet I'm here here. You know, in three weeks feels like a substantial time to be able to sort of feel into something.
Speaker 2:And that's when I really got the book. It's like there was no going back at that point because I was like this. It just felt really exotic, even though it's like New York and it's smelly and it's dirty. And you know these big cities. I used to love these big, huge cities that were almost like had a bit of a danger to them as well, because there was something really alive and vibrant. You know that I just adored when I was younger. You know it leaves me in the city any time.
Speaker 1:It's funny because I was in New York for, I think, five days and I had a bit of an incident, you know well basically got on the plane at Paris to transfer to New York and whilst there they said, oh, there's something wrong with the plane, we need to switch planes. Now, I'd planned it to go there for my ex-husband's 30th birthday, so the next day we were supposed to be meeting on the ice rink in, you know, outside the Rockefeller Center or wherever it was Times Square. So there was literally no way. I could not get on a plane that day and they were saying no, we're going to have to put you up in a hotel, you're going to have to go the next day. And I had this proper meltdown and my ex-husband was like it's okay, lucy, we're just going to, it's going to be fine. But he had no idea of all these other plans and he was like I was like a wild banshee. Anyway, they managed to get me on, me and him onto the next plane, but it went to a different airport, I think it anyway, can't remember. Unfortunately, our luggage was still on the other plane and so I spent five days in the same clothes, managed to get some underwear and some essentials, but thankfully it was the thick of winter so all the pictures only had me in the same coat anyway, but to me it just added to the adventure.
Speaker 1:The things that go wrong often make the best stories. So again, even that stuff. It's just like I've had lots of things that have gone wrong on holidays we all do or when we're traveling. But it's that inner resourcefulness or that feeling of so what if I've only got the same, you know, jeans and jumper. I'm here to experience the whole lot of it, and it did feel like a movie set, which is strange and it's the things.
Speaker 2:That's what makes the story sometimes, isn't it? You know, like it's almost like that's the adventure as well the things that go wrong and how you sort of you know cope with it, and then how you manage it. And then it becomes almost like entertaining and quite humorous once you've got over. Like the initial shock. Um, we had a really crazy one one year where a friend of mine booked a holiday. Um, we were like really in our corporate jobs at the time so we were so busy and like we never really double checked anything. So it was like one of those where we literally got very excited the night before, drank way too much, turned up at the airport, very little sleep, in fact, maybe an hour sleep.
Speaker 2:Um got on to one flight and then flew to Kuala Lumpur. I think we flew to Kuala Lumpur and then we were supposed to be going to Bali, but we ended up in a little on a little island called Kinabalu, which is not in Indonesia but in Malaysia. So we went in the opposite direction and, as we were on this flight, I said to her I've got a really bad feeling that we're going in the wrong direction, and she was like, no, it'll be fine, it'll be fine. So we, we arrived at this, like we arrived at this at this island. We walked out nobody there. So we rang our place, like we're standing below, like you know. They're like oh, we're waiting for you, we're waiting for you. And we were like we can't see anybody here. I walked over to somebody said excuse me, where are we? And they said Kinabalu. And I was like not Bali? And they were like not Bali, literally.
Speaker 2:I mean, we were like in such a state by the time we got there because we've been traveling for such a long time and I was like we're in the wrong place, we're not in Bali. So we had to go back into the airport, book another flight back to Kuala, lumpur, spend a night in Kuala Lumpur, then get another flight to Bali. So we think we lost like two days of our holiday or something like that. But the stories and then when we got there, we were so grateful to be there. We had such I mean, we had the best holiday. It was just absolutely amazing and we had this like great time in, you know, the Gili Islands and we did all this traveling around and stuff, and it was eat, pray, love. It was when that book came out. But yeah, we ended up in the wrong continent. Never mind the wrong place, it was the wrong continent sounds like an episode of the hangover, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:absolutely fabulous or something. You know it was really, and everybody was like how did you do it? And we were like we don't really know how we did it and we just did. You know that's where we ended up and we could have stayed there, but we had all our accommodation booked and you know all the rest of it. But again, it's just like things happen, don't they? And you just think I don't know how we did that. I still don't know how we did it, but we did get our holiday in Bali. You know it costs us a little bit more money, but, um, it's all part of the journey, isn't it?
Speaker 1:yeah, do you know, it's quite interesting when going um on holiday with my girls now, because I have um google maps on my phone and so we will be saying, right, we want to go here on the bus, or we want to go there and visit that, and literally all the information is on my phone. It tells me exactly where I'm going to be, what bus, what direction and little map of where to stand. Everything is sorted for you. And when I tell them that back in the day we didn't have these phones, we would actually have to go and either talk to people or we'd have to try and find information somehow, and they're in awe and secretly I'm in awe. How the hell did we do it? And it's a bit like you, you know, you manage to fly somewhere, get on a plane, but then fly back and do this and book a hotel.
Speaker 1:It's possible, and that's one of the things that I've learned through traveling. One thing, I guess, is that everybody is actually really willing to help. Most people are really really helpful and kind, and the other thing is our inner resourcefulness and resilience to get ourselves out of a sticky situation is phenomenal, and I think my courage and confidence has come a lot from going traveling and the things that have gone wrong as much as the things that have gone well, and I was thinking about some of the peak experiences that I've had when traveling, and it was really phenomenal to me to do this kind of exercise in this memory because actually my peak experiences are really subtle ones and I was expecting myself to come out with these big, massive adventures, but actually they were. They were the smaller ones, and one of them was a memory of standing on the bridge at um in Florence, looking um eastwards towards Ponte Vecchio, the really, really famous bridge, and we just timed it perfectly as the sun was just setting, so the sun beamed the arches of Ponte Vecchio there with an ice cream. But it was, it was just perfect because me and my two girls all had this kind of peak experience that we're here living this life how lucky are we. And my God, my god, isn't that beautiful so, and we were just all in awe. So that was one of those really subtle, amazing experiences.
Speaker 1:Um, but there was another, which was again a bit of an accident, and I was actually on I'm a scout leader when I'm not doing all of this podcasting and coaching work and there was an adults training weekend where we went whitewater rafting in North Wales in the morning and then we set up our trail at Cadair Idris, which they always say if you camp at the base of Cadair Idris, you'll emerge as either a mad person or a poet. I'm still not sure which one I am, but I did literally camp at the base of it that night and the next day we arrived at the lake in pitch black, couldn't see anything, and then the next day noticed that the only way out was to climb either this rickety path with slate all the way around it, which would have taken a while, or we go directly up. And three of us decided to do the the one trail and I decided with three other two others to go directly up, and and every single step that I took took every bit of courage, inner resilience. And there was this bit where you were going up this shale and you put a foot on it with this big pack. You know all of your weight is tilting backwards and your foot would slide. So for a moment I genuinely thought oh my God, this is my end.
Speaker 1:Anyway, it got to the top of the shale bit and then you got to the heathers and I literally was climbing up with my bare hands and as I was just about to stand up, I felt myself for a second go back and I genuinely at that moment thought this is the end. But something within me pulled myself forward and I climbed to the top and I stood there and I looked at what I'd done. I'd looked down and I was cheering my friend on who was still coming up. But I also took in the view and I was like wow, a I'm lucky to be alive and B I effing did that. I'm a powerhouse. And it just stayed with me forever. So that has got to be a peak experience, because I realised other than childbirth. It was the one moment in my adult life when I like I did that and I can do anything.
Speaker 2:What's your peak experience?
Speaker 1:Oh my.
Speaker 2:God I have so many. But yeah, I mean, I have places where I, just as a child, wanted to go to like Peru was one of mine. I wanted to do the Inca Trail and I did do that and I did it after my accident with my knee. So I did it with like no cartilage in my knee, which I didn't realize at the time, that I had no cartilage. Um, it was quite sticky. I knew that I could have some problems and all the rest of it. And I had my poles and I went with a dear friend of mine and you know we did the three-day trek and it was very, very intense and it was.
Speaker 2:You know, I'm not gonna lie, um, the going down bits were harder than the going up and it was. I was limping into, like you know, camp every day. I really wanted to do it. I knew I was taking a risk. I did do it. Um, it was a little bit painful, um, but I did it and I'm glad I did it. And at the same time I didn't know there was no cartilage. That it was only a while afterwards, when I had another operation, they were like you had no cartilage. I was like, oh my god, that is crazy.
Speaker 2:So so the fact that I did that, um is again it's like an act of stupidity on some levels, I would say, and at the same time, there's just something in me that it was just such a dream of mine that I'd had for so long. And it was really weird because, as I was going, I remember flying because I flew there on my own my friend was traveling around the world, so I met her. I can't remember where I met her, but I flew somewhere. I had a night on my own, then we met somewhere else, and it was absolutely the most amazing trip for me, because I felt like I was connecting into a part of myself that was maybe past life. And as I felt like I was like connecting into a part of myself that was maybe past life, um, and as I was sort of traveling over, I saw this man on the airplane and he looked just like my grandfather, my Spanish grandfather and I looked into his face and it was like it was the features of his face and everything were like my grandfather's and I just thought I just felt like I was going home. It was really weird, um, and so that was a really beautiful, beautiful, beautiful trip for me because it was like I did something that was almost like impossible in a way. Um, you know, I did survive it, and what a beautiful place to go to.
Speaker 2:And then, when you look at the history and the um, there's this point where you we got it's called the gate.
Speaker 2:So you go through the gate and nobody was there when we got there, because we were up early and we camped all the way along the mountains and, um, I looked out and there was no one on the side of Matsupichu and it was like we were the first people there, you know, and we just sat and what happens is there's a mountain behind it called Wanapichu, and the sun, as it's rising, comes up over the top of that mountain and it comes out and across to Matsupichu and it goes through like a window, like what is a hole basically in the structure and it goes and it, so it kind of comes through and it goes through this window and it's just like like it was incredible. So for me it was like to believe, I think, in those callings, that longing, that something in us is like I want to go there. And you know, when we do that and we have those experiences it's like a coming home moment. Often, you know, not always. So that was it for me.
Speaker 1:What I'm loving about us going into our old memories and how animated both of us become. So I'm looking at you on video right here and we are explaining with our whole bodies, and while you're explaining that and when I was talking about my experience, you're in the moment. You're remembering it. It never leaves you, and I think that's why travel is so expansive, because it literally does change you as a person. And those memories every time you retell or you go there, you're right back there. It's like magic, isn't it? Travel is magic, experiences are magic, and it's like up our brains, isn't it?
Speaker 2:like it's that part of the brain. When we understand what goes on in the brain, I think we're all so focused on, like you know, saboteurs and the ego, and you know this sort of side of like fight, flight and freeze, and you know that area is very, very important to do that work. But then there's the. You know, there's the right side of the brain, which is the creative, the thinker, the visionary, all of those parts of us that if we can put our time and energy into lighting that part of the brain up and really, really like, sending it a lot of love and attention, it's going to help everything to move much better around us. And it's not. We're not saying that you, okay, book a flight tomorrow and go to Matsu Picchu. Oh, go on, give me permission to do that, please.
Speaker 2:Well, go on then, let's do it let's do the next one at the top of Matsu Picchu.
Speaker 2:But it's like we have these experiences and we can travel inwardly, and I think COVID was, you know was this experience where everything ground to a halt.
Speaker 2:We weren't allowed, we didn't have the same freedoms, you know, we were housebound and all these different things, and then the world seemed to stop, you know, and everybody went into their own little bubbles and it was a very inward journey, inward journey and at that time I was doing loads of visualization and meditation work with companies, helping them to come back into their bodies and breath and see things, to keep that side of our brains open, because we were all shutting down on so many different levels, you know, and it became so in, which is not all bad, and I feel like there's something really, really important about the places that we travel to physically, mentally, emotionally that can connect together, that can give us, like you know, close your eyes and you visualize a place that you feel safe in.
Speaker 2:Wherever that place is, that's where you go back to and it's going to do something. It's going to calm the nervous system down and it's going to regulate the breath, the heart and the brain and you know the parasympathetic nervous system and all of a sudden, we have our potential back. We have our you know dreaminess, our hope starts to return, and and so we can do this without going anywhere as well. That is so important. Where do you go in your visualizations?
Speaker 1:yeah, I do this. Well, I actually visit the place. It's not the place that I imagine in my visualizations, but it is the physical place that is in it. So, um, from a very young age, when I was with my grandmother, we would go walking at, um, there's a huge, big, common, common land and at the top there's a beacon and it's uh, it's beautiful, and it was my backyard as a child and so it's about two miles from my mum's house and so, um, my peak experience is me walking completely free. Um, I guess I'm wearing kind of like hippie clothes when I'm doing it and I'm touching the really long grass. Actually, there is covered in ferns, but in my peak experience it's, yeah, all grasses and there's.
Speaker 1:It's almost like an image out of the film avatar, where everything is hyper glowing and I can hear the laughter and I can hear the birds and see the butterflies, and it is beautiful. And then, when I reach the top and I look over, I can just see miles and miles and miles of countryside and it's it's actually the area that CS Lewis and Tolkien came when they wrote about the Hobbit land of the Shires. So you can imagine the rolling countryside and it is just beautiful, beautiful. So that's my safe space, because it's connected to my ancestors, memories of my grandmother and how safe I felt. But equally, I'm so lucky because I can go back there in all seasons, at any time and actually ground myself. So it's a bit of both. It doesn't feel like traveling because it literally is accessible, but when I'm visualizing it, wow, the things I see and the things I do.
Speaker 2:Wow, you know it's reminding me of that clip in Gladiator. You know, when he's dying and his wife is running and there's all the corn and his son and his wife are running towards him and I always like, I always like lose at that point because it's just like the most beautiful thing of the open spaces. So that's what I'm sort of seeing, as you're sort of describing your safe place, which is a real place, but it's also a place that lives inside of you and it's funny how childhood is one of those openers. And I have a similar place near Bolton, near where my parents live, and it's called Rivington Pike and it's a similar thing where we used to go there, you know, most Sundays and we would just walk and I just remember it and it's just very open.
Speaker 2:There's something about open spaces for me and that's the place that, if I think about the safe place, that's the place where I go back to as well, because I think we're all children at heart, aren't we? And there's something about that innocence and that purity that we hold as children that I think lives inside us and it's almost like wanting us to reconnect to in a way, and I feel like travel does that for us. So, as we're talking about our journeys, we're also talking about, you know, parts of us that I probably think want more of our attention. You know more of our focus, so that we can learn to play and explore and, you know, be curious about the world and about ourselves.
Speaker 1:I am so childlike when I go on holiday, I'm one of those people that doesn't make plans about what we're going to visit. I might have a quick look at top 10 things to do in that area, but I don't book anything and I don't, you know, I'm literally going to turn up and see what the wonder is and and take, like safely, but take a little back street or go off the beaten track or just go into that little cafe rather than the one in the main square. So I'm always curious and childlike and full of wonder. But, interestingly, as my parents have got a bit older and they're reading all the press, et cetera, et cetera, they'll be like and don't forget this, and don't forget that. And I just want to scream at them because they're taking the wonder out of it and trying to instill fear.
Speaker 1:And, yes, I've got myself into trouble, either things getting lost or being on the wrong plane or whatever, but we're safe, we get ourselves out of it. But, yes, every now and then really bad things do happen when people are traveling, but really bad things happen when you take a step outside your front door. And so I purposely try and reconnect with that childlike wonder because that's all it's all about. It's about learning and growing and experiencing, and I don't want people in my ear telling me, well, don't forget this and have you got that, because it just takes the magic out of it. So I'd love to hear about anything like crazy or scary or even quite spiritual that's happened to you whilst traveling happened to you whilst traveling?
Speaker 2:have you got an example? I have. I went to I did a course called way of the warrior, which is about being a spiritual warrior. When I was about 35 and I just finished, I'd come out of a relationship and I was like, right, I'm gonna go do this course. I've wanted to do it for years. Um, so I went, I flew to Atlanta, georgia, and then made my way to the Smoky Mountains and I walked into a room, didn't know anybody in the room, stayed in a like a yurt with like some women it was a mixed group and I had the most incredible like it was a week long thing. So we were in the Smoky Mountains and we would do like morning rituals and like movements and then they'd be like very I mean, it's not been a spiritual warrior, so it was a. Really.
Speaker 2:It was really about breaking down the ego, you know, and tuning back into your spirit. So it was in very, very, very intense, like, very intense, like breaking, getting broken down, breaking yourself down, just that sort of come back. It's like you go down very deep into yourself and then you come up light. Um, is the idea and the way that they do that. It was really quite hardcore life training. I would call it um, but you, you know, you've you experience the shifts inside yourself. It's almost like putting all your weapons down and you know, knowing what your weapons are and then letting those weapons sort of fall away and coming back into the softness and the purity that we all have as humans. Um, I won't, you know, this call still exists, so I won't say too much, because there's some things in there that you're like, yeah, that someone will need to experience that.
Speaker 2:I can't really explain it, but again, I had these experiences of like walking out with the sun setting in the smoky mountains and just opening my arms up and there was all these tiny little fireflies around, you know, and just flying around us. So it was like it was dark, the sun was coming down, then it became dark and then you could see these little flies, you know, lit up and it was just so beautiful and there was music playing and you know, like people were like hugging and some people were crying and you know, it was that humanity, that place of humanity, and I met a woman in the yurt who was from Salford, from offside. Wow, um, yeah, we were the only two British people there and we were support partners. So you know she was a coach as well. We became support partners for maybe about six years and every year we would go off and do another like extension of the way of the warrior, because there was all these different like levels. We'd go off and do another like residential for a week and go together and, um, just love the woman, still love her to pieces and we really went through quite a lot together and it was profound. It was really profound for me and it was this sort of not knowing anyone but then making friends and, um, just feeling part of something that was so profound and such a beautiful place. Um, so that was for me, that was. That was a space in time when I needed something. I kind of knew what I needed. I did it. It changed me. It still changes me today.
Speaker 2:I still like go back into some of that work and, um, I'd call it spiritual tourism.
Speaker 2:Really, you know like there is a big market out there for spiritual tourism, where people are seeking and you know they want to be held in a space by leaders, I suppose to have experiences that help them in the everyday, and for me it's about going doing this work, then bringing it home, bringing it back into your family, to your community, into the work you do with people, because you know the thing about escapism is that we can go somewhere, have an experience, and then we come back and we go right back into the.
Speaker 2:You know the old programming and for me, I work really hard to not do that, because I want to, I really want to expand it out and integrate it um into my life in a way, so that sunset all those you know fireflies, just to remember them and remember what I learned, and still come back and say, oh, I've gone back into an old program here. That's not who I am. I know that, you know, and I mean it's a long time ago when I did that training, but I feel like it's still inside me well, I had an experience that changed me and it's still with me.
Speaker 1:And I, I was 19 and um, we'd gone, uh, my two. Well, basically all my housemates from uni decided to do a road trip up to uh Ben Ne and walk Ben Nevis. And that was going to be our thing. And the day that we planned to walk, I got my period. And if anybody's ever walked Ben Nevis, you know there's no toilets up there.
Speaker 1:So, with deep regret, I said do you know what? I'm going to stay? I'm going to go to the town, I'll hire a bike and I'll go out on my own adventure. And of course, they were like, are you sure? Well, I was like no, this is what we've come for. You go, do you? Etc. So I did, I walked them halfway, they went, started going up the hill or the mountain, I carried on and got a bike.
Speaker 1:Anyway, after some time of cycling, I don't even know where I was.
Speaker 1:I thought I'll stop, get my flask out, have a drink. And I somehow found myself in this fir forest and I just sat down for a moment and I was just completely still and I didn't know anything about mindfulness or really about meditation back then, but I was in that completely still place where nothing but abundance and gratitude filled my body, and then the magic happened. This little baby deer came and approached me and it was probably two meters away from me, on its own as well, in this, this wood, and it just stood there and just looked me in the eye and I looked it in the eye and it was almost like there was this connection between us and then I mentally broke that and then it just flowed away, um, and it absolutely taught me well, so much, but it taught me the power of what I can do and how I can connect when I am still, because I've got ADHD, I'm bouncing all over the place, so it just changed everything, but there was, yeah, lots of other learning that came for me, but it stays with me to this day. But I'm really conscious we've been talking for ages, because this is a topic that we love, so let's just start closing the conversation by sharing some of our top tips, our recipe for success when traveling.
Speaker 1:What guidance or wisdom can you offer?
Speaker 2:I always get a guide. I love getting a guidebook and I will buy a book and I will flick through it and then I'll note things and I'll fold pages over and you know, just start to get whether I go to those places or not, it just does something to me and then I'll. You know I've always done that. I'm a book lover. I just collect books, um, but I love it when I pick up a book years later as well, and I go and I'm like, oh, and a lot of the things I do actually end up doing. So it is, there's something for me about getting into the zone and prepping and, you know, starting to get into the space, and then I always do visualization work on the plane. So I always, when I get on any plane, I'll think about what am I leaving behind? As we're going up, you know you sort of get in that meta view like you talked about earlier, and you know you can look down, everything looks so miniature and you know I just consider like what am I flying away from? What am I flying into? What do I want to put into place? You know, as I'm going into a new journey, a new, a new place, so I kind of use the metaphor of, you know, moving away from moving into is quite profound for me and I do it on the same when I'm going home as well.
Speaker 2:And it's just, and I always say I tell my clients to do it, those traveling a lot. I say, like you know, use it, use that time. Because a lot of people say I hate traveling. So you know, I find it really boring, but I love being on a plane. You know, I've got my books. I'll do some visualization. I always sit and all you know, I'll do some like thoughts and things. It feels like sacred time to me really in a way. So that for me, is is part of the journey of, you know, going somewhere. That's my tip really, I think, you know, yeah, just to just to sort of embody it, just to really embrace what you've actually said yes to as well, because everywhere you go, you know there are all these opportunities and potentials. There's obviously the safety element of staying safe and listening to your wisdom and your intuition, I think.
Speaker 2:But I feel like that is part of everyday life anyway yeah this is something more about you know being conscious and clear about your intentions when you're traveling. What about you?
Speaker 1:I have two, so I'll keep them very brief. Um, my first top tip for traveling is always pack light, um, so, whether that's your luggage or whether it's lightness in spirit. Now, if you pack light, it means that, a, you can buy stuff when you're over there, so you can buy more trinkets or clothing or whatever takes your fancy, but also, um, you don't want to bring your home with you, you don't want to pack everything, including the kitchen sink, because you're going off on this journey. So, for me, pack light, take the essentials and off you go, and that's kind of like in lightness in spirit.
Speaker 1:The other one comes from Scouts, expeditions that we do, and to get your badge or to plan your expedition, it has to have one of two purposes. So one is you either need to go on a journey with a purpose or you go with a purpose, where you have to go on a journey and focusing on what is the purpose of this. And again, I guess it's that intentionality and what am I dreaming up. But however you get to that purpose to relax, to learn something new, to visit family, whatever it has to have some deeper meaning and if you're clear on that, you're going to have an amazing time, because you're going to find exactly what you're looking for.
Speaker 2:I've got what I have. To ask this one last question what's the worst thing you bought on your travels?
Speaker 1:uh, it's usually something. Oh no, I was gonna say it's usually something glass that breaks, but actually it was this. Really I thought it was brilliant at the time and it was this lovely shell, um piece of artwork that looked amazing in some Greek island and I got it back to this land. I'm like this really doesn't fit. It's the most grotesque piece of artwork. But there you go, it's in my garage somewhere.
Speaker 2:I had, um, when I went to Peru, I just I don't know what happened to me. Something happened to me, clearly, and I literally was buying rugs. I came back, I don't know what happened to me. Something happened to me, clearly, and I literally was buying rugs. I came back. I had like everything was knitted, you know. So it was like I had mittens, hats, I mean, and there's this picture of me in Peru, in like Cusco, and a friend took it, and then I looked back at the picture and I said, oh my God, peru has basically thrown up on me. My god, peru has basically thrown up on me.
Speaker 2:I was like everything I was wearing and like it just makes me laugh. Those pictures make me laugh so much because I was just so into it. That was just like put it, put more on me. You know, I was like literally I couldn't move. I had so much knitted stuff on, including rugs, I mean, you know, and bags, everything. It was just that's why we pack light. You've got to laugh. But anyway, thank you so much for bringing you know your brilliant stories, your brilliant wisdom today and to all the people that are listening. We hope we've inspired you to just find something out there in the world that inspires you to feel expanded, hopeful, joy and free, and please join us again, or you can follow us on tiktok, facebook and instagram. We look forward to saying it's still with you soon.
Speaker 1:So thanks for listening and we can't wait to welcome you next time until then, use your voice, journal, speak or sing out loud.
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