TAG’s tips for travel no.17: FORGIVE YOURSELF

In order to enjoy our travels to the max, we Anxious Friends need to do the work of the mind, decluttering that which comes from hanging onto past negative travel experiences. This primarily means you must be brave and FORGIVE YOURSELF.

I have not always been up for adventure. In fact, it has historically made me fall apart, retract from my traveling party, and generally act a miserable human being.

This is before I knew I was anxious, before I knew how to speak my needs, before I could name my feelings and had experience practicing coping strategies to answer my frantic and fearful mind and body. I physically repelled travel in all of its forms; I felt my skin crawl each time I thought to leave my home space.

Needless to say, traveling with me was no picnic. I was a wordless agoraphobic perfectionist who had no coping mechanism aside from staying home and sticking to what was familiar. I was not fun. In most every situation abroad I would clam up and act stoic, unamused and unpleasant until I found familiarity.

Because I didn’t know this fear was a cry from a place deep inside that was concerned with my very survival — a place that was sure I was unsafe — I was not helpful to myself or others when they tried to reach out. When it comes to travel (and life!), I’ve been inconsolable. I’ve been downright unenjoyable.

The rubber ducky in this pic? I didn’t know it at the time, but it was my very first cozy travel thing. I carried it through this whole trip, gripping it like it was magic that might take me back home if only I held it tightly enough. It kept me afloat and disappointed me at once.

We must forgive ourselves, Dear Anxious Friends, for all of this. We must accept that we were and perhaps are a work in progress. The work is worthy. The work is beautiful, even if it’s hard. This work is the work of acceptance and it leads to personal awareness and growth.

You are worth forgiving. You are worth accepting your flaws and bad trips. You are worth the work necessary to practice a new way to travel, even a new way to live, without the guilt of the past holding you back. I hope that for you today.

Big Love & Happy Travels,

Brett Jenae, The Anxious Girl