Travel Blog

Growing Through Travel as a Woman With Anxiety

Learning to rest and heal in the discomfort of the unknown

The more I travel, the more I come to see the possibilities for healing far from home. If someone would have told me 10 years ago that I would find comfort and self-awareness in any place other than my home, I would have laughed politely and told them they were insane.

Home. Away from home?

I’m a Cancer. I love to be at home. I thrive at home. I didn’t think there was any other way to be, at least not one that was worth trying. My early thoughts about travel were critical.

Leave home? Why would people do that? My older sister began traveling when she got out of high school and never stopped. I didn’t understand how she could love it as much as she did.

I liked the way I lived my life, but looking back, I was a bit jealous.

I wasn’t jealous of the places she went back then, I was jealous that she wasn’t afraid. I was jealous that her mind didn’t sabotage her every time she thought to leave the house. I was jealous that even far away from home, she stayed cool, confident, and intentional.

If I felt that way at all, ever, it was in a place that was familiar.

Mostly though, I was anxious all of the time.

My anxiety kept me in a box — I thought for my safety — but I was anxious all day every day. No matter where I was, I was anxious. I was jealous that my sister didn’t suffer from my same fear of everything.

Fast forward

Fast forward 20 years. I’m traveling like a pro. Okay, not like a pro exactly. But I feel like a pro traveler because I have had to practice overcoming every fear and hurdle when it comes to travel and still do. And still I travel as often as I can!

Of course, it’s easier than it was when I started.

Six years ago, I met my partner and he became my buddy, in travel and in life. He was patient and treated me with kindness. Wherever we were, he helped me sit with myself when I felt my anxiety kick in. He still does and I love him for that.

Without the time and permission to focus on myself, feel my feelings, and heal during travel as my body and mind required, I would never have made it to the most beautiful forest of trees I’ve ever seen.

These trees taught me a valuable lesson about what it means to heal and grow. It all starts with one little seed.

Learning to grow from the trees

The cone in this picture is lovely and indeed small. It holds the seeds of one California Redwood that lives along Muir Woods just North of San Francisco.

Redwoods are grand in stature. They are impressive and gorgeous life forms that drop seeds and grow like poetry.

The majority of redwood seeds that drop every year don’t grow. They are like a box with a key, stuck in seed form, locked until disaster strikes.

I do mean disaster.

Extreme heat from devastating wildfires cleans the forest floor, opens the cone, and begins the germination process of these beautiful tree babies.

Growth by finding comfort in discomfort or disaster is the way I have come to know the process of growth and similarly, the process of healing.

Discomfort is uncomfortable.

Disaster is scary.

Healing hurts. Why does it hurt?

Healing hurts because growth — emerging from who we were before into who we are now — isn’t easy.

Travel reveals seeds of promise

When disaster strikes, it is counterintuitive to me to continue slogging down the same path or to make a new, brave choice. When disaster strikes, I am wired by my own trauma to fight, freeze, or flee.

Travel reminds me that I hold the seeds of my good life in the palm of my hand.

The seeds of my best life are formed and prepared in times of comfort, plenty, and acceptance, but sometimes it takes the darkness of disaster to disturb the thick seed casings keeping my greatest achievements from reaching for the light of day and the big blue sky.

Travel has taught me that I can and must choose growth whenever possible.

When disaster strikes, I must honor and then turn from my fighting, freezing, fleeing ways and say,

“I am ready.”

Not because I feel ready, but because I know that the best kind of growth requires a bravery that I already possess.

Anxious travel by any other adjective

Beyond the emotional strain of transformation, many times my opportunities for growth come within or just after disaster strikes, when I feel the most anxious and vulnerable.

But these disastrous opportunities are the most meaningful and effective means of growth and healing I have encountered to date.

That’s right, I said it. Travel heals.

I don’t have to stay at home to get better, not always. Sometimes staying in is the best medicine. But sometimes the quickest way to meet my authentic self is by getting out and getting anxious. This is where the work of healing starts.

I continue as I practice responding to my fear and big emotions with the same type of kindness and understanding that I learned from my travel buddy.

Disasters are inevitable; messes are certain. I may not be unflappable, but I can be undeterred.

By practicing growth as a celebration and self-care as a nonnegotiable, I can and will endure all manner of disasters.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll even grow a little bit.

Big Love & Happy Travels!

I’m Brett Jenae Tomlin, The Anxious Enthusiast.

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