Ireland Adventure

“Security Is Mostly A Superstition. Life Is Either A Daring Adventure Or Nothing.” – Life Quote By Helen Keller

Ireland, a gorgeous and dreary place but worth every minute traveled to get there. This was our daring adventure. Four girls in our mid 20s looking for adventure and traveling by car for 10 days across this beautiful landscape. If only the pictures did it justice! There is not much to report that would be of interest to you (I won’t bore you) but there is one moment on this trip that felt as if it may be all of our last. So why not share?! When getting to Ireland we decided we would drive (OH BOY) for 10 days in a car using GPS.

Four American girls who had never driven on the opposite side of the car, on the opposite side of the road, with a plethora of roundabouts. What could go wrong?! Ironically the roundabouts were not the issue (though we were honked at many times- sorry!) but the GPS system. Which, unbeknownst to us was set to “scenic route.” Now, if you have ever been to Ireland you will know that scenic means hills and giant drop offs. SO as we traveled from the North tip of Ireland to the South we found ourselves driving through mountains and hills like we had not seen in the golden state of California. Not to mention it rained, a lot. As we climbed a mountain in a tiny car, miles away from any rest stop or other car, with drop offs of thousands of feet, what better way to continue driving that in the pouring rain!?

As the rain slowed to a drizzle (we were only driving 10 miles an hour-an endless drive) we were hoping for a reprieve when at the top of the hill a herd of sheep blocked our road and continued to cross. This may not seem strange to anyone else, but for four Californian girls it was quite the scene! The best news is we did make it home (don’t worry mom and dad it was THAT bad…)! And lived to tell a tale of adventure. Live your own adventure, drive the roads that seem less traveled and find the moments with friends the solidify what life is all about: A daring adventure.

“Life is like a cup of tea; it’s all in how you make it.”

Until next time. Enjoy your road and travel always in adventure!

Travel

Today’s memory 6/22/20

Keeping Busy Traveling Italy

More Memories

“You have been criticizing yourself for years and it hasn’t worked. Try approving of yourself and see what happens.” — Louise Hay

“To love yourself right now, just as you are, is to give yourself heaven. Don’t wait until you die. If you wait, you die now. If you love, you live now.” — Alan Cohen

In the summer of 2018, a girlfriend and I decided to travel through Germany and Italy. I had recently been dating a string of terrible (read: immature) men and realized I would rather see the world than go on another date. Hence, the Italian dreaming! My friend Mel (one of my first friends from college!-we grew up so fast) traveled through Cinque Terra (pictured above), Pisa on a whim (pictured left) and Milan (pictured below). If you ever want to travel to Italy, I couldn’t recommend a pit stop in Pisa more!! We took tons of these pictures trying to get the right angle and the craziest part is how much I hated every one of these pictures that day, I made Mel take over 50 of them. But no matter what she did I would not like them because I hated my body. Now I look back and I am sad that this girl couldn’t love herself nor focus on the hilarious (yes, cliche but when in Pisa) pictures being taken with one of her best friends. This is my story here. While we loved traveling through Italy, eating delicious Italian food (Hint: coastal food is DEFINITELY more fishy than food in Rome or Florence), seeing beautiful sites and tasting wine, all during this time I was hyper-focused on my body. What it looked like in pictures. What it looked like in clothes. Looking back in retrospect, I should have focused on how this body of mine was able to walk up the hills carrying heavy backpacks, and how it was capable of miles of walking and hiking. It’s amazing what you can learn later in life once you begin accepting yourself. It’s still a constant struggle but this is one piece that I hope you find meaningful (that I am still learning), love yourself, love your body and don’t look at every wrinkle, double chin or body flaw you see (we all have our own integer critics). Look instead at this experience that you get, in this one life, and live in the moment! Take the picture and put the phone away, DON’T over analyze and nitpick, take the picture and move on to more exploring.

Love YOURSELF, Love your BODY, Love your MIND. And even if you aren’t there today, maybe you will be if you replace the negative words with positive words. Most of all be KIND, in a world that is not always kind to us.

It is never too late to turn over a new leaf, so whether you’re at home eating pizza, in college studying all night eating pretzels (this kept me away during my study hours-thank god that part of my life is over) or traveling the world snapping photos in new places, be your own friend and tell yourself that you are meant to be here. The more we all do this the more we can help our next generation. Because they deserve to have a positive voice in their head! I know that’s my goal for my beautiful niece and future children.

“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller

What If…

“The next time you look into the mirror, try to let go of the storyline that says you’re too fat or too sallow, too ashy or too old, your eyes are too small or your nose too big; just look into the mirror and see your face. When the criticism drops away, what you will see then is just you, without judgment, and that is the first step towards transforming your experience of the world.” –Oprah Winfrey

This post is dedicated to the thoughts of “what if.” I find myself often having thoughts of “what if they see my thighs rub together”, “what if they see my stomach isn’t flat”, “what if they see that my stomach rolls over when I sit own”. If you don’t have these thoughts, then PLEASE share your secret! But if you are like me or us, you have questioned your self-worth based on the physical aspects of your body and how others perceive it. How unfair that we do this to ourselves!? Even tonight, when thinking about writing this post I find myself super aware of my stomach in my sweats. My stomach feels full from eating ice cream and tempura with my boyfriend to celebrate and treat ourselves to a nice date after he had a very important ceremony. I should be happy and content. Instead I find myself worrying about the scale and what this will do to my “weight-loss week”. But this should not be the case. We should be able to balance life and our mind/body while treating them both with care. So tonight (I hope you’ll join me) I am changing the words of my inner critic. She wants to say: “you’re fat”, “if you eat that you will gain weight and you will never end up losing it.” “If you eat that bad food you will become that food”, “you might as well just throw in the towel.” These were easy to write. Even easier to think. The negative phrases, the ones that knock you down, they just come so easy. But tonight, instead I am training my inner voice to be gentle. She is no longer controlling the dialogue. Tonight I am going to tell myself: “You had a great day celebrating with your boyfriend, you enjoyed the ice cream and the tempura, there is nothing else to do but keep on living. Tomorrow I will choose foods that will nourish my body. Tonight I am okay.” If you find yourself in this situation I hope you can be kind to yourself. It is much harder to be kind to ourselves, than it is to be kind to someone else. Yet at the end of the day we are the only ones who can build our own self-worth. So let’s give it a shot! Below are quotes I found that make me remember why I am on this journey. I hope some of them inspire you too!

*Notice the bolded words above, let’s aim to use these words more and bold them in our own inner thoughts. Kindness starts from within. Have you been kind to yourself today?

“What if you wake up some day, and you’re 65, or 75, and you never got your memoir or novel written; or you didn’t go swimming in warm pools and oceans all those years because your thighs were jiggly and you had a nice big comfortable tummy; or you were just so strung out on perfectionism and people-pleasing that you forgot to have a big juicy creative life, of imagination and radical silliness and staring off into space like when you were a kid? It’s going to break your heart. Don’t let this happen.” –Anne Lamott

“Your self-esteem won’t come from body parts. You need to step away from the mirror every once in a while, and look for another reflection, like the one in the eyes of the people who love you and admire you.” –Stacy London

“Stop worrying about whether you’re fat. You’re not fat. Or rather, you’re sometimes a little bit fat, but who gives a shit? There is nothing more boring and fruitless than a woman lamenting the fact her stomach is round. Feed yourself. Literally. The sort of people worthy of your love will love you more for this.” –Cheryl Strayed