Practicing What I Preach: How Life Coach Training Helped me Navigate Two Weeks of Vacation with my In-Laws
/I'm back! And wow - my latest trip was an incredible opportunity to practice what I preach and also observe what people do with food while on vacation.
In case you missed my blog post on Iceland, I’ve been modeling in my blog how my training as a life coach and my years of personal development work have been paying off and helping me navigate challenging and yet rewarding experiences that I wouldn’t have wanted to miss.
Since my work is also about healing our relationships with food and body, I will write a future blog post about vacation eating. What I saw on this trip validated the need for an intuitive relationship with food and body and gave me a great framework for explaining what that looks like.
As for this post, I wanted to reflect on some of my takeaways from my 16 day trip on safari in Africa.
Yup Africa.
With my in-laws.
Leaving my children (ages 15, 17, and 21) behind in winter in New England during a pandemic.
Now I don't like to spend two weeks with ANYONE without a break so I knew this trip was going to be a challenge. Going to Africa was also not at all on my bucket list so I wasn't exactly looking forward to it.
Heck - I was totally dreading it and I hated having to make the decision to go or not.
In 2021 I was actually having a hard time deciding whether I should go. And I knew I definitely didn't want to go if I was only going to focus on the negative.
So I did the work and the soul searching to figure out if my "yes" was something I really wanted to say or something I thought I should say.
Ultimately it felt like there was a reason this was happening and that saying yes felt like the right answer even though I knew it was going to be a challenging and difficult trip.
So lesson number one is - sometimes things that are good for us, don't always feel great. But we can do hard things as Glennon Doyle likes to say.
I also said yes because all of the reasons I had for saying no were fear-based. I was worried about my kids, I was worried about traveling long distances, I was worried about getting sick in a foreign country and I was worried about not being able to be around people for such a long period of time.
None of these things were deal breakers, even though I really wished they were!
And let's not forget, how many times do you have the opportunity to go on an all-paid two-week vacation which someone was extremely generous enough to gift you with?
The fun thing about not really wanting to go is that I was not at all attached to what happened. Just as we were preparing to leave, Omicron was spiking for example and I didn't care if I tested positive and had to miss things or not. I didn't care if flights got canceled or if the US was going to restrict foreign travel. It was easy to let it all play out however it was supposed to, just like our friend the Hippo does every day.
And as I said in my last newsletter, this trip was the opportunity to practice all the things that I teach in my coaching.
Letting go and going with the flow
(When traveling with 8 people, you have to go with the flow.)
Not being in control
(This ended up being a delight while away. This was not my trip and I was not attached to the outcome so I could sit back and let it unfold.)
Being in the unknown and not knowing what is going to happen
(I had no fear about this, even when armed guards had to walk us to our tents because hippos were nearby and we could hear lions roaring. This guy to the left also walked right by my tent one afternoon. I practiced trust rather than engaging in worry.)
Not participating in future catastrophic thinking
(How would it help to imagine the lions coming for me in the night?)
Being present
(This was a gift, no pun intended. I didn't look at the trip through the lens of a camera like most of the others. I absorbed the weather and the landscape and grounded my body in the moment.)
Being at peace with what is
(Like eating the food I was served or accepting the schedule for each day.)
Being ok with being uncomfortable
(And man was it uncomfortable sometimes! Roads were rarely smooth and we spent hours in dusty hot jeeps. Our trip home took about 48 hours. My body felt like it had been put in a tumble dryer much of the time.)
Finding the beauty in challenging situations
(When the elephants start marching your way, with their elegance and grace, nothing else matters. They walk so quietly!)
Knowing that I am connected to source and can source my own well-being from within, no matter where I am or what is happening.
(I breathed this idea in and out while waiting hours for delayed flights and sitting in tight spaces on vans and airplanes and while experiencing an allergic reaction to malaria medication)
Trusting that everything will work out ok
(Even when two of my kids at home got covid, and there were 2 snowstorms while we were away and the heat went out. How would worrying help?)
Knowing there is a plan greater than I could have created
(I'm actually still not entirely sure what the plan is or was, but I am ok not knowing. I know it will become clear eventually.)
Being curious about what is here for me to learn and absorb
(I stayed open and willing to see which was the most important thing. I could have shut down a number of times with frustration and irritation.)
Having gratitude for being alive at this time on this planet and being able to have a variety of experiences
(It's always a gift to see things you don't see every day.)
Being grateful for the path I'm on and the work I am doing in the world and eager to get back to it
(My views about things helped bring positive intentions to the group for all our travels and offered a different perspective when things got stressful. People came home from the trip excited to explore their own self-awareness.)
Learning more about myself under pressure
(I was grateful that I didn't end up in a negative homesick spiral, I was able to remain neutral even during challenging travel days and meet myself where I was at. I allowed myself to feel what I was feeling and I journaled when I could.)
Allowing myself to just be while out of my normal routine
(I didn't try to keep up with anything from back home other than checking in with my kids. I didn't try to "be productive" while waiting in airports or on planes.)
Not being attached to any outcome
(If covid was going to get in the way then it was going to get in the way. If a flight was going to be canceled, then it was going to be canceled. If I had to eat every meal, every day with a group of 8 people then that was what was going to happen.)
Knowing that life will always be a mix of experiences we would call "good" and ones we would call "bad" and in the end, it's all part of the rich experience of being human. You can't have one without the other.
(The trip definitely had both elements as all vacations tend to do.)
What were some additional takeaways from the trip?
Well, the insight I loved the most came from one of the guides talking about zebras. He was saying that the zebra backbone is fragile and they can't be ridden or carry heavy things on their backs.
And then I thought - wow - zebras are loved not for what they can do, but for who they are and for just being zebras. The same goes for all the other animals we saw. They were all uniquely themselves and not trying to be anything else.
This brought me a great sense of relief. I didn't have to pretend I was a grand adventurer on this trip, I could be me and that was enough.
Each animal has their blueprint to be what they are and they don't have to try or make their development happen. They know what to do to survive and they each have their special talents and adaptations. There was no way a giraffe could be an elephant or an elephant could be a lion.
What would life be like if we simply accepted who we were and didn't try to be something else? What if we didn't have to be productive to be worthy? My only job is to be uniquely me without apology, and I practiced this while on the trip.
Another takeaway I had was this idea of keeping it simple and appreciating the "little things" that actually aren't so little. Fresh whole foods, clean water, a bed to sleep in, fresh air, and refreshing showers felt amazing during long, hot, dusty days of bouncing around on safari jeeps.
(I also can't wait to write about the food because I appreciated that part of the experience so much.)
The other two comparisons I kept making were to the animals and to the Maasai village inhabitants that we visited in Tanzania.
I learned that the cheetah lives and hunts alone and the cheetah mama has to find food for her kids. I saw a mama with 4 cubs and it make me think of all the single moms out there doing the best they can every day to support their children, teach them, and help them survive.
And sometimes it will work out and sometimes it won't and that is the inevitable cycle of life. I don't know why we tend to think we are all that much different from the animals in the wild. Why do we judge ourselves so harshly when life does what it does as if we could stop it?
I also heard people on the trip feel sorry for the Maasai living in their dusty huts. But I thought the Maasai were the ones who were lucky. They weren't trying to earn big salaries in order to buy a bunch of stuff they didn't need or pay for things like cable and internet. Things that suck the life force out of you in the end.
It seemed to me that they had real freedom and joy - living on the land, being supported by the community, doing their part to serve, eating whole foods, and being a part of nature every day.
Why do we think our way of being in the US is so wonderful? With all the stress and anxiety we have and our disconnection from nature and our bodies and each other. How is that better? I actually didn't feel an ounce of pity for the Maasai at all - I admired them and saw how they represented what is really important to me.
So I’ve come home with:
a new awareness and appreciation around food
an appreciation for my ability to do hard things and not get lost in stories of how hard it is
an increased ability to be with the present moment and notice what is going well
gratitude for humans engaging in relationship with each other even when it's messy and complicated
an increased desire to continue exploring the health of my body and finding more ways to support it
an increased desire to own and expand the self-healing work that I do
a desire to be more proactive and involved in what I want to offer the world without apology or fear
Being in Africa was different and yet there were so many similarities to being in the USA and living our lives and wanting to be the best people we can be. That’s all they are doing over there too. Living on the same Earth, looking at the same sky, and being subject to the same life force energies.
Underneath it all, we are very much the same and want the same things for ourselves.
I look forward to bringing simplicity and truth into 2022 as my guiding principles as I continue to evolve both personally and professionally.
Thanks for witnessing my experience and I look forward to continuing to support all of our self-healing from food and body issues using an integrative and mind-body approach in 2022. This is my 10th year of personal development work focused on better understanding our food and body relationship and I can definitely say that how I feel in my body keeps getting better and better.
My wish is for others to experience the joy, freedom, and ease that comes with doing this work and choosing to know themselves.
Happy New Year and I'll be back with reflections on food in Africa next week.