If you’ve read books such as the classic ‘Eat, Pray, Love’, then you’ll understand the link between travel and self-love. When life gets too much, or you just want a dramatic change, travel is always a solution. There’s something exhilarating about randomly booking a ticket out of normality and switching up your environment. Traveling spontaneously is what adventure is all about and we are delighted to collaborate with our friends Agness and Cez from eTramping to share some of their thoughts on this concept.
The thing is, when you travel, you learn. It’s like opening up hundreds of tiny doors and passing through them. Each time you reach the other side, you’ve learned another lesson. No matter your age, it is important to keep your knowledge up to date and refreshing your mind. It stops you from becoming stagnant and it keeps you moving. What better way to keep your mind active than by traveling the world and exploring the myriad of amazing destinations waiting to be discovered!
Reconnect with Yourself
In a world where we are constantly connected to the internet, do we ever get a minute to ourselves anymore? When was the last time you actually sat down and reconnected with your mind?
Well, luckily travel helps you to do that, especially if you opt for independent travel. You’ll find yourself in places where you just have your mind to speak with. For instance, on long-distance train journeys or mountain hikes, you’ll feel as though your thoughts are running back to you and all those oppressed feelings are released.
The Variety of Self-Love
Self-love differs from person to person. What you believe self-love to be, someone else may have a TOTALLY different opinion about it. That’s why travel opens your mind up to the sheer variety of self-love and the diverse forms it comes in. In today’s world, numerous sources are highlighting the link between self-love and solitude.
Many believe that you have to be alone to channel your innermost dreams and desires. If you’re alone then you’ll be less committed to fulfilling the needs of others and focused on your own.
However, some cultures believe that self-love is the act of sharing and spreading love among the community. The differences are everywhere and they’re all out there for you to discover and interpret.
It Doesn’t Have to End
What you’ll realise on the journey to self-discovery is that once you inhabit a sense of fulfilment, it doesn’t have to end. Never feel as though you have to limit yourself or that you’re not worthy of more. That’s likely to be a lie you’re telling yourself so that you don’t have to face the truth again. To keep what you’ve learned alive, you can share your lessons with others and remind yourself of how far you’ve come.
The problem is that some members of society view travelling as a ‘phase’. They think you’re going to grow out of it and come back to the ‘real world’. Yet, what is the real world anyway? Surely it’s whatever you want it to be and not what other people perceive it to be!
You’ll Never Stop Learning
Never stop learning! As the great life coach, Tony Robbins states, we should always be open to knowledge. There’s no use closing yourself off and pretending that you know it all. Even if you think you do know everything there is to know, there’s a high chance that you don’t. We often believe that our learning stops when we finish school or once we’ve obtained our degree.
However, what about all the lessons that these educational institutions do not teach us? When you’re on your journey, there will be so many little lessons along the way. Strangers will strike up conversations and tell you interesting stories. Friends may open up and let you in on secrets that they’ve never shared with you before.
You just don’t know what will happen or how much new knowledge you will acquire. So keep your mind open and allow others to widen your awareness.
Love Spreads
Once you’ve mastered the spirituality of self-love, it spreads. It will start to radiate through your expressions and your actions. You’ll feel so much better from within as you’ve given yourself a chance to breathe and figure out what it is you really want from life. If you have a partner, you may find a new lease of life and want to experience holiday escapes with them.
For instance, you may take a vacation to a desolate rainforest retreat or book romantic Caribbean holidays in Excellence Resorts. Self-love spreads like wildfire and people around you will find it to be contagious. As they say, once you’ve learned to love yourself you can begin to love others.
Seek and You Shall Find
This is a very old saying but a very wise one. Once you start looking you’re bound to stumble upon something of interest. It may not be exactly what you had in mind, but that’s the beauty of it! Travel adventures surprise you. You never truly know what’s going to happen on your trip, who you may meet or what you might do. Usually, it is the element of surprise that keeps you going.
Have you ever watched someone telling another about their travel story? The way their eyes light up and the joy and laughter that the words bring. It’s like they’ve suddenly sparked up and want to share every detail with you. It is always the last-minute plans that lead to the best experiences.
Live the Life You Deserve
Coming back from an eye-opening adventure can feel like a crash back down to earth. Due to society’s pressures, we hear it calling after us and wanting us back to the life we had before. A lot of people experience a strong sense of guilt, as if they should conform again and that they should satisfy other people’s expectations. Well, not everyone is going to see the world the same way you do. That’s the truth of it.
Unfortunately, on a planet obsessed with social media, we can’t help but compare ourselves to other people’s lives. This creates feelings of inadequacy, jealousy and even frustration. The sooner you accept yourself the way you are, the sooner you’ll live the life you deserve.
Fear will always be there but you can overcome it like so many others have in the past. We only get one shot, so use it to your advantage.
Has travel ever taught you anything about Self-Love?
I don’t know about self love, in the traditional sense. We are both pretty confident individuals with strong identities. What travel has given us is an education. “Knowledge is power,” as they say, and that includes your own, personal power. With knowledge comes confidence and, perhaps, that is the self love some think they may lack. We like to say we are the best versions of ourselves when we are traveling. We are naturally curious, eager to participate, and open to others’ views and experiences. This is never fulfilled more than when we are traveling. While some may think we need to return to “the real world,” as you mentioned, we believe the real world is out there – in the streets, the forests, the mountains….and, of course, the beaches! 🙂
Thanks for having us here, Chris. We’re so happy to have contributed to your blog. We hope that your readers will enjoy this post and learn something new. 🙂
This is such a great post!!! It really made me feel good about me and my decision to make traveling a priority in my life. Thanks so much for sharing. 🙂 #WeekendWanderlust
I definitely agree with all of these! I’d say that I have a pretty good head on my shoulders. All through high school and college, I thought that I had a pretty good grasp of who I was and what I wanted from life… until I spent four months in Japan through a student exchange program. After spending that long in a country so different from my own (I come from the US), I realized just how ignorant I was, and it changed me whole life, the way I look at the world, the way I look at other people. I feel like I’m much more loving not only of myself, but also of other people because I can better understand the situations they come from.
This is such a wonderful post-Chris! You all made such wonderful points. It’s so important to take care of ourselves and really listen to what we need and desire. To pay attention and keep learning will hopefully be a lifetime education that we all could use.
Thanks so much Sue! Yes, it’s so true that all too frequently we allow ourselves to just forget about what is most important and you hit the nail on the head when you say that it’s a “lifetime education” when we travel. We are always learning and what better way to learn than by exploring!
Focus on what you already have. Think about how others benefit from what you do. If you improve yourself, those benefits will increase.
A very useful and informative post! So many key points to take away from this 🙂