Traveling is exciting and adventurous. It can also be stressful and tense. Traveling takes time and gets us off/out of our schedules, long hours on planes, and in vehicles in transit, delays, out of your normal routines, lack of sleep, irregular food intake, unfamiliar places, confusion and uncertainty can all contribute to high emotions. This is normal. Each person will respond and react differently. Holding space for yourself and for others through all of it is a skill to develop. Practicing grace and compassion as you and others navigate new territories is helpful. Being responsible for yourself and the thoughts you think and the feelings you create is essential. 

In all of life, we tend to have high expectations of ourselves and others. We tend to expect to know things and for other people to know what we know. We tend to think we know what is best. We tend to assume the worst, get anxious, doubt, and make what other people say or do mean something bad about us. When traveling, these things seem to be intensified. Traveling with others is an opportunity to practice letting go of all those things. Exploring another country is challenging and fun if we choose to see it that way. There will be miscommunication and missed turns and misunderstanding. 

We must practice allowing ourselves to feel what we feel without making it mean anything bad and practice allowing other people to feel what they feel without feeling responsible to make them feel better. We notice how we feel about whatever is happening or whatever was said, allow ourselves to feel, be kind to ourselves, and the other people, then decide to move on to how we want to feel by thinking about what is good, lovely, true, admirable. We decide to tell ourselves a positive story in our head instead of allowing our brain to feed us negative unhelpful thoughts then ruminating on them until they build into something awful and usually untrue.

Like, someone says something that makes you feel like you are doing whatever wrong. You get defensive and feel angry. You can practice acknowledging your feelings and create a “pause” for yourself before reacting negatively towards the person who said the thing. You can choose to tell yourself that was just so and so being who they are, having a moment, and it doesn’t mean anything bad about me or our relationship. 

Or like, the map on your phone took you all to the wrong place, again. You are tired, hungry, and have to pee. You’ve been in a vehicle with four other people for hours. And now you must figure out where you need to be. You start thinking you are always the one who has to figure out where you need to be. Of course, you’re feeling frustrated in that moment. It is part of being human. It is helpful to remember nothing has gone wrong. This is all part of it. I’ve figured it out before, I can figure it out again. And I can ask for help. 

We decide the thoughts we let ruminate in our heads. We choose the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves and about others. 

When traveling, and in life, people will not always get along. They won’t always agree. There will be misunderstandings, miscommunication, and missed turns. People will take the thing you said the wrong way. People will respond poorly, get defensive, have anxiety, overreact. We won’t always get our way. We will have to make compromises. This is all of life. We must practice acceptance of how things are without expecting them to be different. 

We can only ever control ourselves. The thoughts we think. The emotions we generate with the thoughts we think. We cannot control how other people respond. We cannot make another person feel a certain way. 

We must choose to believe in ourselves. We must choose to believe in others. We must choose to assume the best. We must make allowances and practice having grace. We practice loving unconditionally. We practice enjoying what it! It is way more peaceful and fun this way.

Traveling is a journey, an exploration of a new place, let’s not miss the beauty of the new place by getting stuck in an unhelpful story in our heads. Life is a journey, a figuring it out as we go, let’s not miss the beauty of the gift by getting stuck in an unhelpful story in our heads.

Keep seeing! Keep discovering! Enjoy!