CwL On the road Ep 24 – Trip rundown – Lisa’s Reflection

So I guess it’s time to sort of wrap up this trip from my own personal perspective and what it meant to me. And it’s sort of hard because what I know for sure now about life and moving through things is that clarity comes with time. When we can have a little bit of space to look back and really see how what we have lived through has shaped us and what it’s meant to us. But I guess especially through the writing of moments, which is currently available at the pre-launch price, and you can go and get your hands on that right now via the link in the show notes, writing those stories, I can see this sort of overarching narrative to what this was all about for me. And I think I thought I knew why I was going, and right now I can see in this moment right now at the end of November, the coming back month, what it all feels like it means and what I learned.

But I know that that will also continue to evolve. So I am glad I am capturing this now. It’ll be really interesting to look back on. The ripple effects of this trip will last for a very, very long time. It is pretty much singularly the best thing I’ve ever done for myself and for my family because it was long enough for whatever happened to be enduring. I feel like what I did was I reset myself. And the way that I explain that, and you can’t see me right now, but when I’m meeting friends and family, I put my hands down low at my knee and I say before I left, I was kind of sitting around here in myself and I was kind of oscillating up and down from that point. And then I pull my hand a little bit higher and much higher sort of to my chest.

And I say, now I feel like I’m here and I’m going up and down from this place. It reset my centre point, if that makes sense. And for that, I am just so grateful to myself. I really am. We were at our chiropractor for the first time yesterday and since we got back and I sat on the chair and the kids were just chatting away, I mean, we love these people so much. They are extraordinary, the care that they’ve given our family in different ways at True Health in Ormond. And I was sitting there in the chair just thinking how differently I felt sitting in that chair before we left. How it was just, I mean, it might’ve looked okay on the surface. I might’ve looked okay on the surface, but I certainly didn’t feel like I knew that I needed something. I just knew I couldn’t figure out how to move through whatever I was in.

And it turns out I chose travel and it delivered because sitting in that chair now, oh, I don’t feel heavy. I feel light. I feel hopeful. I feel optimistic and energised. It was a total recalibration. And that’s not to say it wasn’t hard, especially, there was some really tricky parts, but it was extraordinary. And so I’ve written down a few little bits and pieces. I mean, because I was thinking about how to sum this up and it’s really actually quite hard. And I think what I really sank into along the way was how allowing myself to say to myself, I don’t know. I do not know what to do anymore. I don’t know what anything means. I don’t know why I’m here. I don’t know why I do what I do. I don’t know the next step forward for my family. I literally, I just don’t know.

And instead of allowing that to be consuming in a negative kind of way, I allowed it to be the fuel. I allowed it to open up deeper levels of curiosity, compassion for myself for sure, but also creativity. It was like I was unleashed creatively in the stopping to try and fit into a box to create for anything more than the joy of it, the good feelings that it gave me. I realised that in the, I don’t know, and in the throwing it all up to seeing where it land, I set myself free. And I think so many women are trying to take control in the chaos, and I certainly don’t consider myself a control freak, and I certainly lost any sense of certainty in life through the years with Nick in recovery, when it just became the norm to know that things can blow up any minute.

I really did. I mean, I think it’s actually a superpower now to have this knowing that there is no control, and I’ve taught this in my programs, but now I can really see that even though I wasn’t trying to control an outcome, I was in a state of not knowing and I was trying to believe I knew. And when I let that go, well, that’s when the good stuff started happening. I think in the act of leaving and deciding going away, it also allowed me to stop pretending to myself that I was okay or that I was somehow going to become or get through things. I just was like, I’m just absolutely not okay. I am not okay. So not only do I not know, I don’t even feel okay in myself to figure anything out. I needed to admit it to myself, and I kind of wish I’d done that four years ago, but I was so intent on keeping it all together on having it not bring me down. Talking specifically about the ending of my marriage and Nick’s death nine months later, none of it was okay. It was actually really, really hard.

And I know I have been honest with myself about that, but this was the ultimate release of what does a woman do? What choice can she make that moment, what do you do when you can’t find the way? You don’t even know what the next step forward is going to be.

So travel brought me back to myself. It was one decision that I needed to make to go, and then everything fell in place afterwards. I mean, I recorded podcasts about that. The magic carpet ride of what it was just one thing fell into place after another, after another, after another. It was impossible not to believe that this was the right thing to do when it was this beautiful sequence of events that was saying, yeah, Lisa, yep, yep, yep. We’re not going to put any resistance in your way. Well, apart from a little bit, but it was a lovely thing. And just even in the deciding there was freedom that I don’t know the way, I’m not okay, we can keep ourselves there. I knew that I could keep myself there for a very long time. I don’t know anymore. I don’t know anything. I don’t want to pretend I’m okay. I can’t find my way. I don’t know what to do. I mean, we can get locked in it that and it’s okay. It’s perfectly okay to be there. I was there once I accepted, I was there, then I could make a choice. And my choice was that trip,

Not because I hated, I didn’t want to allow myself to be there, but just because it just felt it was time. It was time for me to just take a brave step, I guess make a decision about something. And there’s power in that. I think in that moment of making the decision, I was more curious than I was afraid, and I’m grateful for that. I think in that moment I had more self-belief than self-doubt. And for that I am really grateful.

And I think also ultimately what I brought in that moment when I really did not know, and I had lost that sense of Lisa is a capable woman. She can do cool stuff. I chose the most creative route out, the most exciting. I mean, in some ways it was really challenging, but I brought a sense of creativity to my decision-making solution hearing, and oh my gosh, I just think I was rewarded for that. And I think most of us are, except it can often feel like the scariest thing. So I’d found myself in this place where I’m like, no, nothing’s working. Nothing is working my life and I am the reason for that. It’s because of how I’m feeling. And so when you kind of lay it all bare and you know are the source back to all the things,

Then you get to be creative. It’s like there’s nothing to lose. I had nothing to lose and everything to gain, and yet I could have absolutely never gone without a doubt. It would’ve been much, much easier to make the decision not to go, and it would’ve been a total waste of those months of our lives. We do. I mean, I’ve talked about this for years. It’s tough to make those big calls, but what about if we just thought about lives as the most creative thing that we can do, and we just bought that sense of what would be the most creative solution here? And what if fear wasn’t in the driving seat? Where would I go? What would I choose? What would I do? Who would I be? And that is a cool way to live. I think we’ve overcomplicated so much in our lives, so, so much. I mean, what I really did think a lot about when I was away was how I have contributed to and been a part of this crazy cultural expectation of more and more, better, better, better growth, growth, growth.

I teach stuff because it comes from this place of wanting to share. I am good at creating learning experiences for people. I have had just so many people over the years say, thanks for putting together what I did. Whether it is a three day free thing on how to make a chicken last in six different ways, like roasting your own chicken, whether it has been about helping people realise that most of the stuff you tell yourself in your head is just a story, and you can free yourself from those stories. Whether it’s reminding women that they do have choices that exist amongst the daily grind and overwhelm is real and no one’s denying it, but does it really have to be our status quo? Does it have to be accepted in the way that we’ve accepted it? Sometimes I’ve had just people thank me, so many people thank me for sharing what I do about grief and about the complications of grieving an addict because I shared a post about it on social media. I do it because I just don’t know.

It’s felt really right. It’s felt good it to be in that place of maybe this might help other people and then having it help other people. But I also don’t want to diminish the huge amount of work that I’ve had to do to get good at creating online learning experiences in particular. It’s not easy to help people move through content and then get an actual outcome at the end. I think we’ve all done those sorts of courses where we’re like, what was I, hang on, what? Nothing feels different, why I’d never want to do that? But in doing all of this, through a period of my life where I was hook, line and sinker into learning more, getting better at stuff, I kind of just forgot that we have this part of ourselves that just knows and that amongst all the expectations, all the formulas, all of the, I mean, even just looking at the way other people do things, the models, the methods. I mean, I’ve got them too. I teach them too.

But is it what the world needs right now? What women need right now, what I need right now? Because what I’ve found is getting out of my head, giving myself total release and relief from any expectation that I was doing anything more than waking up each day and thinking about what are we doing today? How can we have a really good time today? And then reporting on that in my Insta stories and just focusing on the kids and me and what we can learn and adventure in the actual world with our feet on the ground as a little crew.

What I realised was, wow, my head has been busy being in life, choosing to live again kind of held the secret key for me to see with a little bit of perspective what it is we’ve created here for ourselves. And I mean in harvest my story, which you can actually also purchase as part of the moment series if you wanted to get your hands on harvest, it’s a good time to do that. Now I talk about how we’ve set ourselves up or society has set us up for just literally never being able to feel like we’re on top of stuff.

Good gut health, good sensory friendly environments, the right type of exercise for where you’re at in your life, where your hormones are at. It’s just God, it’s a lot. What if living a good life, what if feeling good in ourselves was actually just about stripping away all of that, removing ourselves from the constant need to learn and know everything about everything and instead just be in life. Take the lessons, take the gifts, and just paint our lives with what feels good to us like a canvas. Take charge of the story of our lives in the change method. I teach people how to see the stories that they’ve been telling themselves for often a very long time that have been holding them back from doing what they want. And now it’s like, well, I mean when you know that everything just becomes very, very obvious and you can’t unknow it.

And to me it’s still one of the most helpful things in my little toolkit is going, oh, hang on a minute. Are we telling ourselves a little bit of shit here? Is this actually, no, I think that that might just be coming from a place that is not actually serving you anymore, Lisa, so let’s just call bullshit on that right now. But then, then well, then we take control of the narrative. This trip was me choosing the story. It was choosing the next stage. Literally everything is story. We give things meaning I gave this trip meaning before I even set away, and then the story evolved because life happened and I allowed myself to be in it. I wasn’t structured about it. I just let it do its work on me. And how often do we give ourselves the chance to do that? So tightly zipped up and expectant of ourselves, whoa. There was this moment in Thailand and I realised that even though I thought I was unattached to any particular outcome for the trip, I was, I started to get a little bit panicky right at the end of the trip that I hadn’t figured everything out.

And I realised in that moment, I caught myself and went, oh, Lisa, you did bring expectation into this. You wanted this to make everything clear. Hang on, let that go. Just keep doing what you are doing, which is just being in the moment with the kids, exploring, taking each day as it comes. Just don’t get all in your head about that. You can figure that stuff out when you get home. But there it was. We can be aware of these things and deconditioning ourselves from it all is a whole other thing. I guess I realised on this trip I was way more capable than I had believed.

In fact, there’s a big story about that in moments. I think it’s going to be very relatable for a lot of you who are going to read those stories, and I hope it reminds you as well. I lost confidence somewhere along the way, and it’s been a beautiful thing to find that part of me again. I realised I am a lot more fun. I just gave myself permission to be really, really fun and do things that I wouldn’t normally do. So liberating and that is not going to go away. Now I know what that feels like as a, well, I mean, I turned 44 on the trip year old woman. God, we can be more playful. I don’t think getting older needs to be losing that part of ourselves. I actually think we need to bring it back far out. I have done the hard years of someone else needing my body to grow in it or to grow from it. People physically requiring my body.

I am bringing back the fun for myself for sure. I realised also I didn’t become a better mom, I don’t think. I don’t even strive to be a good mom. I love Maggie. Dent hole, take on parenting. Just be good enough. I wasn’t exceptional on that trip. Oh gosh. I mean three kids who like to talk, just talking all the time. I absolutely found that draining sometimes. It was one of the biggest things, guys, stop one person talking at a time. Why are you interrupting? Don’t talk over each other. I can’t hear you if all three of you are talking at me.

And some days they probably had way more roadblocks than they’ve ever had in their life because we were staying in small spaces and no, I’m not going to play games all the time. I’m not even going to expect you to. It’s been a big day. I don’t even care. Go on your screen. Who cares? Just, I mean, I could have taught them more. We could have done more educational stuff. I just realised it is, you are still exceptional when you are being good enough. And that was a beautiful thing to realise. I think also on this trip, I realised the kids are doing great and I don’t really give myself the chance to stop and see that. I don’t think us parents, there’s always something, right? There’s always something that we might be a little bit concerned about for our kids. We’re helping them work through what we’ve got to work on or there’s a new realisation or diagnosis or whatever it is.

And sometimes it’s just nice. It was nice for me to go, okay, the worry that you have about them losing their dad, living life without Nick, all of that sort of stuff. Look, they are actually doing okay. No one’s perfect. No one’s coming through life unscathed. Everyone’s got their battle scars and still they’re okay. That was a really nice realisation to have. I think also a big realisation was the conversations that I had with other people and the importance of speaking to people outside of the inner circle. Different perspectives, just I think I for sure became really kind of siloed into my own little world, even just in terms of what I believe Lisa can do in the world and contribute in the world. Talking to people about what I’ve done in the past and what they’re actually interested in learning from me or the value that they can see in, I guess the skills that I have built over these last few years.

Getting out of my own head, seeing it all from a different perspective happens for me through conversations, through sharing and meeting different people, hearing that different, interesting things are happening in the world. I mean it’s, there’s interesting solutions out there to some of our biggest problems. And I think I had really started to feel like we’re fucked and in lots of ways we can’t get around it. There is going to be huge, huge repercussions from the fact that we have absolutely missed the chance to stop climate change, and we really need to start being real about that. We need to start having real conversations about it and it can feel devastating. And I can go into climate anxiety a lot and then travelling reminded me, well, in some ways I remember being in Japan just thinking, oh, we’re really fucked. Look at this. This is real troublesome stuff.

And then in other places I thought, oh my God, these solutions exist. Humans are amazing. They’re capable of really great things. Good stuff is happening. Don’t get into the feeling like you’ve got no, that this is just on a one-way path to not a great place. That was really great. And I think the biggest thing that I realised was how much stories matter when I just was showing up and sharing the story of this. When I decided to tell the story of Harvest, when I decided earlier this year when I was really sick on, I was going to take a break from social media or from uploading daily stories just because I didn’t feel like I had anything to say, anything of value. I wanted to just experiment with what it felt like not to show up. And I promised myself I would only create content on socials that felt like it really mattered.

That felt like it was a contribution to something. Maybe it was funny or entertaining, or maybe it was interesting, whatever it was, it just had to actually matter. And I realised that as I was going through this experiment, and I have never had greater reach. I’ve never ever gone viral this many times that we’re aching for realness. But more than that, just stories that connect us. Humanity is in crisis in many ways because, so there is just no solid footing right now for anyone, I think. And if we can just kind of embrace that, embrace the not knowing, have examples of people who don’t know and yet are still making a go of things, are still trying in terms of just living life that’s valuable right now. I’ve never realised that the story mattered so much to so many people. And I allowed myself to get braver, sharing my story, being honest about my story, building content around our shared experience of humanity, not to teach none of that. I just let it all go to see what would happen. And I can’t tell you how fulfilling it has been. So if you have followed along on this trip in any capacity on the podcast, in this daily stories on my posts, my newsletter, whatever it’s been, it’s been a gift for me that you interacted in any small way to just let me know that the story mattered that me doing that was helpful to you.

I don’t quite know what to do with it all. I’m writing moments because I know how many people loved hearing the stories and the words, and it’s a gift to me to be able to sit down and write them to reflect. So I really genuinely want to say I had felt like the community aspect to showing up had been lost this last little while. I was fatigued. And social media didn’t feel like a place of connection anymore. It used to. I mean, I’ve been showing up since 2012 people, it’s a very different time. I was cynical about what I saw people following these formulas and these rules, and I gave myself permission to just ditch all of it and then get back to what mattered to me. The connection that I felt from people following along on the trip, the fact we do feel like a little community and the opportunity that it’s given me to sink further and further and further into who Lisa is right now. I mean, I figure it out through self-expression. So I am grateful to you for being a part of that, for allowing me to share. And if that has been valuable to you,

Well that’s one of the best outcomes of the trip for me because I’m just little old Lisa trying to figure out her life. I do not have it figured out. I’m just on the path, all of us, and I’m really, once again, grateful you are here. Thanks for following along.