Today’s Topic: Self-care When Traveling
We’re two months into our four month journey here in Europe. Today we’re talking about the lessons and the takeaways that we’ve had so far.
We’re currently in Lecce in southern Italy. The AirBnb we’re staying in has a few challenges. My feet are hanging off the end of the bed, the bathroom’s really narrow and has this huge bidet in the way so brushing my teeth is really difficult to do without knocking an elbow on the wall, everyone has to turn Wi-Fi off so one person can send an email and you have to put out a different type of trash for recycling every night. It’s also difficult to get a table at restaurants and siesta means that everything is closed from 1-5pm.
The biggest difference between vacation and travel is that vacations is usually a time that you’re checking out and you’re just going pure into enjoyment whereas when you’re traveling for a while, you’re going to have bidets in your way.
There is a folk tale from this region about a woman being bitten by a tarantula and being put under a spell, and that’s an analogy for what happened to Kim here. She was really struggling with being out of routine and felt irritated and out of sorts for about 10 days. She was super frustrated and hadn’t been able to come up with any ideas for video content. We had a conversation about it, and she decided she’d go for a walk around town by herself the next day. After about 45 minutes of walking, her mind started to clear. And then she was able to come up with an idea to do an Instagram video and just stepped into an alleyway and recorded it.
Kim appreciates that I helped her talk things through. If you see your partner behaving in a way that is not typical of them, chances are there’s something that’s bubbling up inside them. And something simple like giving them an hour to just sort of disconnect and take the time will allow them to come back better.
One lesson we’ve learnt is that even if you’re on vacation or traveling, you still need the things that make you human, the shock absorbers that you need to get through life, for example, journaling or meditating. If you don’t take care of those self-care needs, it can bite you in the ass.
