WHAT I'M HOPING TO GAIN FROM TRAVELLING

If you haven’t read my previous post, I am about to travelling with my boyfriend to SE Asia for 3 and a half months, and as excited as I am, I’m also a little nervous. I’ve never done a trip like this before, you know one that only involves 3 pairs of shoes.

Now this sounds pretty intense but I’ve had to do a little bit of deep thinking (my brain hurts), to figure out except from obviously seeing the world/meeting new people etc what I'm hoping to get out of the trip. I’ve listed a few things below…

Clear my head

Without sounding too cliché ‘finding myself’ is top of my list on what I want to achieve from travelling. After reading this article from mindbodygreen this morning I realized that it’s not as ‘self-helpy’ as everyone makes out.

In life, and especially in London you get stuck in a bubble. I feel like I never have time to really take a step back and think about anything because I’m too busy trying to focus on what I’m doing next. I'm looking forward to gaining a little bit of headspace and to press pause for a little.

Stop worrying I’m am a massive worrier, always have been - I’ll worry about something that may or may not happen 3 weeks from now. You know those people that say ‘live in the now’, I want to be one of those people… I’m not talking spend half my wage in the first week of being paid because living in the now meant 8 Aperol spritz and a Papa Johns on a Tuesday night. But really appreciating life in the present moment enough to focus on where I will be in the world at that time, and taking in the experience (rather than worrying about the fact I’ll be unemployed with no job to come back to). If any companies reading this want me though I’ll be back end of January, dead serious.

Learn to relax

My boyfriend & I are top planners. It’s a running joke between my sister and my mum about when I wanted my sister to give birth because it was putting me on edge not knowing when it was. I have pretty much known what I was doing every single weekend throughout the Summer, we always have plans. Even though I enjoy our busy weekends it’s meant that from being so GOGOGO all the time I really struggle to relax. Even when I’m lay down watching TV I’m not switched off from the 100+ things going on in my head. I’m hoping on a secluded beach at some point over the next couple of months I will genuinely learn to switch off... and enjoy my Acai bowl in peace.

Perspective I know I'm not alone that when you hit a certain age you feel like you should of achieved XYZ. I know I'm WAYYYY too hard on myself about certain things and can sometimes feel myself being a very negative nelly about completely trivial things. From visiting somewhere like Asia I'm hoping I will have a slight change in my perspective on my own life and how I go about things.

That I can’t be in control/perfect all of the time

I’m a woman of routine, which I don’t see as a bad thing. However, if for example I end up having a terrible night sleep and don’t make it to my morning gym session I spiral into the world’s angriest bitch. God forbid I forget my lunch and have to go buy something, get stuck on a train and can’t go do something I planned after work etc etc You get my jist.

So from going from someone who loves to be in control to not being in a routine, living out of a bag and not knowing what I’m going to be doing from one day to the next scares me a little. But I think this will be one of the most valid lessons, things don’t need to be perfect/planned 100% of the time and I’ll keep asking myself ‘Did you die though?’.

I’ll let you know if I end up crying myself to sleep cuddling my Filofax.

AbbieJS

xxx