You Can Always Go Home - Guest Post by: Chelsea Swain
Hi! I’m Chelsea!
I am so honored to be taking over Letters From A Good Friend today because I love Alix! We met at the Thrive Conference in Austin and she may not remember this but she perked me up from a major woe is me moment. I had travelled to Austin alone to conference on a bus with my luggage and forgot I would have to carry it with me since my ride was out on a date. I felt extremelyawkward around all of these beautiful bloggers and then sweaty me and my luggage and no ride from the party wandering around knowing 0 people. I had stepped way out of my comfort zone going to this event and right when I was about to throw in the towel, Alix and her sweet self plus the full time travel life we have in common made me feel epically less alone. Something to remember, if you ever feel like you’ve drifted too far out of your comfort zone, I bet there is someone standing nearby who feels the same way, so go say hi :)
I am traveling full-time with my family to find a place to make our home base, currently Portland, OR for a year! #slowtravel I’m a lover of all things self development, starting too many businesses at one time, almond extract and sugar cookies, frozen margaritas with a Chambord floater, snuggling babies, attempting to make music, people who dream BIG, HGTV, audiobooks and podcasts, all things tech and branding, and helping other people feel good and figure out what they want in life. As a native Texan, 31 years of near constant heat finally got the best of me and my husband. We will miss the chips and queso (that’s even in my Instagram username, @chipsandchelso!) but we will not miss the heat and the bugs. If you were to ask me the two things I dislike the most in the world besides the obvious moral atrocities, it would hands down be bugs and the heat.
As someone who can be extremely spontaneous but also overly analytical (hello fellow ENFP’S!) the choice to pack up and sell most of our things with two small children to travel the world to find a place to call home…well let’s just say it didn’t come easy. Full Disclosure: I am not an expert family travel and location independence yet and I'm not a licensed psychologist, just a girl who told her Jobin (That's what I call that voice of fear and negativity in my head; read The Untethered Soul or Your Are a Badass and you will get it!) to shush so I could live out some of my dreams.
To set the scene of before we left imagine this:
One minute we were one cloud nine dreaming of all of the opportunities and adventure that was ahead of us and then minutes later a what if thought would pop in and set all of those magical thoughts on fire and I would cancel the whole plan. That gut feeling to go was constantly being bullied by fear and honesty, other people saying all of the terrible things that could happen.
This is a cycle most people go through with decisions but uprooting your family and moving comes with a special sort of anxiety. It's the feeling that if you make the wrong choice you are going to mess up not only your life, but your kid's life. Which... is like the number one thing everyone is trying to avoid right? Screwing up someone else's life? In this fear cycle, the draw is definitely to stay in your bubble, do everything by the book, and don't veer off the path what "normal families" do. Because obviously they are all perfect right?
My first hint that it was actually going to be ok if we broke the mold was when I asked that very question to myself...
"Is everyone who plays it safe...safe?”
The answer is obviously no. Actually a really big loud no especially for people who are playing it safe even though they desire something different. The truth is, safe is different for everyone and you're never going to find yours if you are trying to live someone else's.
It might be way uncool of me to generalize like this, but I actually believe that everyone needs a little adventure and spontaneity in their life. If you follow people like Tony Robbins, you may have heard of the 6 Core Human Needs. He basically says that every human must fullfill their needs of certainty, uncertainty/variety, significance, love/connection, growth, and contribution. While it is true that every person needs varying levels of these, there is no such thing as being someone who needs ALL of one and none of the others. So scientifically (getting fancy here!) everyone needs to spice up their life and travel and try new things to full their need for variety, and maybe even spicier food… ah now I’m back to thinking about queso.
What I’m really trying to get at here though, is despite the fact that by leaping out of your comfort zone into the unknown is scientifically good for you, it’s STILL scary. Do you want to know the one bit of feedback I received when I was endlessly rambling to my friends and family about this dream of ours and how I couldn’t decided what to do?
“You can always go back home.”
Seriously. Jobin was silenced. The same way that you can decide to take off and travel the world you can also decide while you’re traveling to just go back home. No one is forcing you to do this except you. You also can sell all of your things or just some of them. There are no absolutes in all of this, and no wrong way or right way to do it. If there was, that would be the opposite of being spontaneous right?
So follow your heart and tune out the fear committee and you will surely be led home, wherever that may be.
Xoxo,
Chels
