It's all a new beginning: Why we are taking a break from traveling

In this episode of the Can We Start Over podcast, Britt and Lindsey discuss the challenges of changing plans when things don't go as expected and the importance of being able to pivot. They share their experiences of adjusting their travel plans due to overspending and emphasize the importance of budgeting and being realistic about travel preferences. And reflect on how they were searching for comfort in the absence of having a home.

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Transcript

Britt: 0:15

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Can We Start Over podcast. My name is Brit. And I'm Lindsay. We're happy to be here with you today.

Lindsey: 0:22

We're all here together. Can you believe it? Feels so good to be back together. Don't y'all feel good? We have a great episode for you. We have some updates. And you're gonna wanna know about it. Where are we going next? We are gonna tell you.

Britt: 0:42

We'll talk about it at the beginning of the episode, not

Lindsey: 0:46

at the end, we should rerecord the whole thing. And at the end say, and this is why we're going blank, uh, man, opportunity, miss,

Britt: 0:58

well, we'll get to it very soon, but we wanted to let you know, we have a giveaway coming

Lindsey: 1:02

up. One lucky winner that rates and reviews our podcast on Apple podcast. We'll win a merch pack. We have awesome mugs, really cool posters. We're gonna pack it all up and send it to one lucky winner. What you have to do to enter, go to Apple Podcasts, give us a rating, write a review, take a screenshot of it. Email it to us at hello at CanWeStartOverPodcast. com or throw it in a DM on Instagram, CanWeStartOverPod. That screenshot enters you to win the merch pack. We'll let you know. We'll send it to you. You know what? We're even going to throw an extra surprise in there. Our favorite book that we've just loved from the last few months. So if you want to get an awesome, super cool, beautiful, wonderful, amazing gift from Britt and Lindsay, enter this giveaway. How do you do it? Now you remember. You go to Apple Podcasts, you rate it, you review it, take a screenshot, send it to us. Throw it in a DM on Instagram or send it to us in an email. Hello at canwestartoverpodcast. com. Also on our website, we have an awesome mini guide called how to start over in your relationship so you can do awesome stuff together. It's our three main keys that we used to completely start over, change our lives, get on the same team and how we. Stay on the same team. We created this guide. We're giving it to you for free. All you got to do is go to the website and sign up and bonus. You'll get a weekly newsletter from us in your email. Our newsletter has travel tips, relationship tips, parenting tips, things we love at the moment, places we've been, places we're going. It's all the stuff that you want to know even beyond the podcast. So you want both of those things, the newsletter and the guide. You can find them. on our website, canwestartoverpodcast. com. All right, well, let's get to the episode. Let's do it.

Britt: 3:15

Hello, Lindsay,

Lindsey: 3:16

happy day. Hi, how are you? I'm fantastic. It's great to see you today. It's good to see you. It's really good to see you. It's better than yesterday. You know what? It's great to see you. Every day is a blessing. It's great to see you. I'm so glad you could make it today. We're really glad you could make it. I made it one more day. Come have a seat. Yeah. Come sit down. Hey. What are you hungry for baby? Take me back to a place where someone who works at a business calls

3:41

you

Britt: 3:41

baby. I like it I know it's it's problematic, but

Lindsey: 3:46

I mean it could be it could be Situation.

Britt: 3:50

Yeah. Well everything depends on the situation. That's true, but I Like an old lady to call me, baby Or sugar or honey.

Lindsey: 3:58

Probably, you should probably talk to a therapist. Yeah. Um. No shame. Well, yeah. What are you hungry for, baby? I can see her. I used to work with, I'm like picturing this woman I used to weigh tables with. And she was, I mean she was definitely in her 60s. And she was a hard ass. For sure. I can't remember her name. But you know. Reba? Deb or Reba or Brenda or something. And she was a hard ass, but if you could, like, get in there, if you could, like, prove to her, you know, she liked

Britt: 4:34

you. I always liked those kind of people when you're working. But at first you're like, you asshole, I don't like being around you. And then you just, like, you know, they start easing up on you when they realize you're doing good work. And then, like, you get it, that they're just like, I don't know, it's part of their personality.

Lindsey: 4:49

And specifically that job waiting tables at a chicken fried steak restaurant when I was 21. Uh, actually right after I came home from a big trip where I left for several months, it was like the kind of thing where it was like no training. I think they trained me two days, but I had no idea how to like write the tickets. It was handwritten tickets. Everyone in the kitchen would just be like, what does this mean? Like, so not nice. And they're all 25 years older than me, or a lot of them. And there was that lady. Uh huh. What are you hungry for, baby? She had the same, you know, just the kind of person, like, same shifts on the same day. Don't fuck with her side work. Don't do it. Not her way. Yeah. She's

Britt: 5:38

going to skip her doctor's appointment to serve some chicken fried steak,

Lindsey: 5:41

probably. No, I think she's going to her doctor's appointment for sure, but that's the only time that her schedule is not the same. There she is. Bless you,

Britt: 5:49

Debbie. Yeah. Well, uh, Lindsay, what are we here to talk about today?

Lindsey: 5:54

We have some big news. Big news. We have some huge news coming to you live from, where are we? Melbourne, Australia. Whoa, whoa, whoa, where am I? Baby? I'm a baby? I don't know what to eat. Um, we have some big news. It's exciting. It feels exciting, right? I feel how do you feel it before we say it? Let's like build it up How do you

Britt: 6:17

feel? Um, I feel very good about it. I feel like we've made a great decision I also feel nervous because we're going into something Brand new. I feel I'm trying not to feel regret. I feel, I feel confused a little bit, but not in a bad way. So all in all, I'm, I'm feeling good about our decision. What about

Lindsey: 6:44

you Lindsay? Okay. Yes. I feel excited. Like when I tap into my body, I'm like, Oh, there's excitement and there's a desire to like, yes, this is what I want to do. And then. In my brain, there can be, like, FOMO. Yeah. I think FOMO is probably the,

Britt: 7:05

like, Do you wanna, do you wanna explain FOMO to our, our fan base? Cause, I

7:11

feel

Lindsey: 7:12

like, No one knows what FOMO is? I don't, I

Britt: 7:14

think it, it was just a flash in the pan. So maybe, people that are, uh, 17 to 21 may know what that is.

Lindsey: 7:22

Excuse me? I don't

Britt: 7:24

think you have any reference to that. Okay, everyone knows FOMO. Go ahead. Okay,

Lindsey: 7:27

no, we should describe FOMO. And it's fart on mommy's orphan, is what it means. And I learned it at that chicken fried steak restaurant. That was what they called the pancake stack. It's a fear of missing out. Early adopter. I'm an early adopter of fart on mommy's orphan. Orphan. Orphan. Man, it would be better if it was Pancake. Fomp is the new FOMO. And I'm experiencing a little fomp, but I think it's all in my brain. Because my brain wants to say, well that was, this is your chance. Are you missing your chance? Are you missing your chance? And my body, my intuition, want to say, Yeah, you know this is the right thing. Go in the direction of, of what feels best. FOMO means fear of missing out. It doesn't mean anything about farting moms, orphans, or pancakes. Well. We're going back to California.

Britt: 8:33

That's it. That's the news. But to settle down.

Lindsey: 8:37

For a while, yeah. For a while. Yeah, we, we are going with the intention of Not traveling for a while right

Britt: 8:44

to have

Lindsey: 8:44

a place to settle. Yeah, that even feels scary to say I guess I've noticed I'm noticing now that I'm like skirting around it to be like well Maybe there's some other option that will feel better and I guess that can still be true when that presents itself But skirting around it isn't doing me any favors. It's like presenting this wishy washy energy. Yeah. Where it's like, okay, what do you want to do? And that actually is really interesting because I think it's interesting to explore, well, what if something's happening that's not fully how you thought something, how is going to work out? So maybe let's rewind a tiny bit and say, as hopefully the listeners know, we've been traveling for the last eight months. Our intention was to travel for a year, and in the last, maybe, month, that just hasn't felt that good. And there's a lot of reasons we want to get into the main reasons in this episode and really tell, kind of tell everyone, well here's what we're feeling, here's how we make a decision together. And hopefully this

Britt: 9:49

can help you, the listener, might help you in some way. So we're going to tell you how this all came about. Yeah. This decision. Yeah.

Lindsey: 9:58

Hey, I have a question for you. Have you fallen out of step with yourself? Do you find yourself striving for more and more, and yet you're just spinning your wheels and getting nowhere? Do you crave a life of more love and joy and creativity? There's something in you that knows there's more to life. And maybe you're just confused or you're exhausted, so you don't know where to start. Your most authentic nature is that you are a piece of infinite consciousness. a part of the universe that has no beginning and no end. There's no way that this is a mistake. You are here now to do something amazing with your life, to be more in tune with your inner guidance, to do more. loving life fully and completely and I want to walk with you along that path, which is why I am opening up very limited space in my one to one embodied healing program. This is a highly intimate and in depth three month container. Just imagine the next few months could be a vehicle for your highest expression and transformation. You could. body love and live in trust that source is guiding you to create something amazing. Or you could stay where you are, but maybe you're ready to dive in. Maybe you're ready to start trusting your body's wisdom, to start unlayering these old programs that you have. Maybe you're ready to start living in the present moment. fully and to be loving what you see every day. My clients have amazing breakthroughs, period. Three months from now, you could be living in a new place, have a new job, a completely new experience, all because you said yes to committing to healing your old wounds and to living in your body. I combine somatic embodiment, mindfulness, inner child healing, and spiritual connection so that you can reprogram deeply held beliefs, heal on many levels, and practice the art of surrendering to the flow of life. If you're done waiting for permission, if you've spent enough time looking for external validation, you are ready. And your time to dive in is right now. Your life will be different after this experience. You will know and trust your body. If you are ready to dive in and you want to learn more, follow the link in our show notes to schedule a short introduction call with me. And now, back to the show. For about the last month, the... Planning or the thoughts of where do we go next, what is the travel, what does this travel look like for us, has felt It's been more challenging and we could just really feel that this adventure or whatever it is, turning in a way that didn't feel like we wanted it to feel or just started feeling like, what are we doing? We didn't feel aligned anymore. Yeah. What are we? I think that was the big question was like, well, what are we doing here? What do we want? What is our intention? What do we actually want this to look like? That's how we decided. Wait, we don't have, I think it was a relief to say, Oh, we could actually just do whatever we want again. And if the traveling isn't feeling that great right now, permission to take a break. Yeah. That was huge. There's like three main reasons why we're ready to stop traveling for a while. The first one is the biggest one and it's money. Yeah. Surprise, surprise. I mean, it might not be money for everyone. I don't know. Um, man, money is so funny because it's interesting because I think this is, I really, the reason I mainly want to talk about this is because I think it's like one of my big shadow aspects is saying like, Oh, I can, I'm, I can be irresponsible with money. Like I am irresponsible with money. I can be responsible with money. But there's a part of me that really wants to be irresponsible with money. So I think that's why I want to talk about that. So kind of going back in yet to shadow, I am, I am scared of saying that I'm irresponsible with money and I'm scared of saying no to spending money and I'm scared. of being seen as someone who can't just make a lot of money. And I think that's always been the truth for me that I can, like, I can like generate income, I can like make things happen and make money, but. A pattern for me is that then feeling safe to hold enough of it to where I feel stable doesn't happen. Like, doesn't happen. What about you? How do you feel about it?

Britt: 15:16

Ooh, I, I just feel like I was very irresponsible. Like, maybe I was dreaming a little too much and not paying attention to the reality. Of our money.

Lindsey: 15:27

Yeah. That makes sense. Okay. Right. And

Britt: 15:31

so a lot of that was budgeting. We started out, we had a budget, but it was

Lindsey: 15:35

Very

Britt: 15:36

loose. It was very loose, right. I'm trying to think of a good word for it. But yeah, it was loose. We didn't really have daily budgets, weekly budgets, monthly budgets. It was just like, this is how much money we have to do

Lindsey: 15:48

this. Yeah. Right? Like, these are our buckets.

Britt: 15:51

Yeah. And what, what I'm confused about is We knew we should have had a, had a more strict budget and paid more attention, but I think we had such a big chunk of money. We were like, okay, cool. Uh, we were in like relief mode, like, okay, we're going to start this trip and we're going to, I don't know, do what we want to do. And we didn't pay attention to money on a

Lindsey: 16:14

close level. Right. And I think that is like pretty indicative of. inner child and shadow to be like, all right, now you can do whatever you want to do. Go do what, you know, like be wild and free. And reality is that you kind of, you need safety. You can't just. Or I can't just be so frivolous. I mean, we've spent the last eight months on vacation. Right. And we are very good at spending money on vacation. Mm hmm. Yeah. We are. And we spent a lot more than we thought we were going to. Why do you think we were overspending?

Britt: 16:58

Well, I think we were maybe subconsciously Searching for the comfort that we lost when we didn't have a home anymore, maybe? Um, because after, you know, we've been on vacations for a week to ten days in the past. That's as long as we've been on vacation for. So, at some point, we're on vacation for way longer than we have been. We don't have a house to go back to. We don't have our things. And I think, for me, The comfort was like, well, we have money, so we'll just eat out or we'll go do a thing or stay in a nicer place. And maybe that was me trying to make up for kind of being maybe, maybe a little scared or just missing having a home.

Lindsey: 17:47

Hmm. That's really interesting. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I think I feel that too, and I don't think it was maybe like, it's not missing our home because I, obviously I've been carrying this pattern for longer than that, so it's more like looking for comfort because there's like some just maybe, like a deeper lack of safety. Like a deeper lack of comfort right beyond like I own my home and here's my and I think that's why so many people Spend money. Yeah, you know, that's why we spend money.

Britt: 18:26

Yeah, I'm at I'm talking like this is a new thing I've been overspending my whole life,

Lindsey: 18:32

right? And I think there's also a reframe even there It's like just get curious because it's not good or bad It's just noticing, like, we just notice, oh, this is the pattern that I'm in, and instead of being like, oh, that's bad, I'm, I don't want to overspend, like, welcome with curiosity a different way of being. Yeah. Once you can, once I can see, oh, I'm, like, looking for comfort. Okay. Well, that's interesting. Yeah. Why am I looking for comfort? Right. Because I. I'm deeply uncomfortable with being uncomfortable. Mm. True. Why is that? Oh, that might be because what I was modeled was always find a way to feel good. Right. Because if you feel bad, no one is there to support that, which is like all the way, like shakes it all the way around. But yeah, we overspent. We, we overspent. It's easy to do on vacation, and it's different because we're on this long adventure. We didn't foresee that vacation mindset. Would travel with us so far like like the entire time. Yeah, and we probably actually should just maybe you know Thinking back it would have been better just to be realistic and say what do I actually like doing when I travel? Do I want to travel and eat at home every meal or whatever or stay in the? Because I think there's a lot like right now there's so popular like Nomadic living, travel, you know, especially with young people and you just have to also, I think for me, what is a really good learning point is do I want to live like in a one bedroom? Airbnb. Do I want to be extremely frugal? Not really. Like, I also don't really want to live that way. It doesn't feel good to me. So, to travel extensively, I need a different way.

Britt: 20:49

Right.

Lindsey: 20:49

Yeah. So we came to the, like, we've kind of been at this point now, probably for, I mean, it's probably a pretty good reason why we haven't been feeling that comfortable the last month is because this weight of money of like, what do we do about this? How do we make this work has been looming. Right. And now we're at this point where we have a nice chunk of change to start over and we could have gone two ways. Like we could have said, all right, let's put it all on. Seven. Mm-hmm. or whatever. Is that bad? Uh, put it all on.

Britt: 21:25

Whatever. Yeah. Whatever gamblers do. Put it all on. Uh, short, short stockings. What do you call horses? Horses have funny names. Do a whole episode on that. Yeah. Um, mommy mommy's little friend.

Lindsey: 21:37

Put, put it all on on fomo, put it all on fomo uhhuh and just ride this one out and see where we land. And then be like, okay, now we really start over. And actually I'm like, that could be interesting What we chose to do is say, Okay, here's what we have. Now. It feels good to say, Let's take a break. Let's go settle. Take the money that we have. Take this nice Nice chunk of change that we are so lucky to have, and I'm so grateful for it and reevaluate what we want to do. Right. And that actually feels good because it feels different than a choice that I probably would have made before when everything is just like, let's take it down to the wire. Let's take it down to the bone and like, let's see how far we can take it. Even me saying like, that sounds like that could be pretty interesting. I'm like, I could see how that could be fun. It's a different story when you have kids, but maybe if I was like. Wild and free I might be like I'm just gonna see how far this takes me and the place that I don't have any money Left that's where I live.

Britt: 22:42

Oh, I would I would do that. Yeah, absolutely Or even if it was just you and I yeah, but with three kids, that's not a way to yeah I don't know not a way for us to live.

Lindsey: 22:51

We know we want to do something different We want to like the whole thing that I said about the comfort and the you know whatever I was modeled like that came from somewhere and these Even these, like, patterns that we have with money or with comfort or with communication, those all came from somewhere even before us. So if we're like, oh, now I have awareness, and this is actually gonna stop here, it, like, it doesn't have to keep going, this pattern of... Avoidance or this pattern of using money to be to feel this like very fleeting comfort, not deep safety that can stop right now. I don't need that anymore. I tried it and it's been amazing and it's time to do something else. That's what everyone needs to know about money. And maybe this is just your invitation to explore your own relationship with money. Also, I wanted, I really wanted to talk about money up front because People ask, like, how do you do this? How do you have money? Or how do you work? And that's another part of, oh, I want to hear what you say. A lot of

Britt: 23:59

times people have just said, are you rich? Are you independently wealthy? Which I don't know if that's something, yeah, I don't know if that's something I would ask anyone. I

Lindsey: 24:08

would, no, I probably wouldn't, but I would be curious, so I'm glad they're asking. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so that's why I really wanted to talk about it is because money is so tricky. Like money is so tricky and me too, so I just wanted to, I want to be up front and be like the main reason that we're stopping or a main reason is because money isn't flowing in, it's flowing out and that doesn't feel good. Right,

Britt: 24:35

we, we thought we were going to be, we were going, we were trying to make money on this trip as we go, or that at least was

Lindsey: 24:43

what we were. One of our intentions, yeah, or one of the thoughts, the dreams of it. Right. Is that at some point, and we did that without a real, real actual clear intention or plan. So I can see how it's just like, well, that just falls away because there's no real plan there, but we thought. That we would be working more as we go and I guess that's another reason why I want to talk about it because people ask do you work, do you do this, and we're both just like kind of sorta right now, but we haven't really been working, it's really sporadic and limited and that really, you really start to see that when it's five people spending the money. Not that our kids are, you know, they don't have credit cards or anything, but when you're responsible for for five people's lives Yeah, yeah, and the space of five people

Britt: 25:31

right and the stomachs of five people

Lindsey: 25:34

five hungry people Our bubbly water budget is off the chain. Yeah, so on this Journey without the, it's really now just even talking about it, I'm seeing like, again, we thought we were gonna be working, but we didn't like set a clear plan or intention for how that was gonna happen. So when you don't do that, it's like, well, how's that gonna happen? Yeah. It's not, it's not, or, I mean, and also it could, something could just fall in your lap. But you kind of have to be still and have the space enough for that to happen. And we're constantly going, going last eight months. So it didn't happen.

Britt: 26:17

The next puzzle piece of this decision was planning. So going into this, we had a plan, and our plan was to travel the world to find a new place to live. Right. And to go to the places we

Lindsey: 26:31

thought we might want to live. Yeah, and when we started, we did, we, we set out with like four or five months of knowing where we were gonna go. You know, we knew exactly what we were gonna do in Baja, and then we knew we were doing this road trip, Ojai, to Maui. And we kind of left it at that, and then somewhere along the way we decided Japan, because it would like open us up to continuing on, and from there I think we kind of slowly just got sick of planning. It just didn't sound fun to be like, We're not sick of it. I don't know. We just didn't do it. Right. And

Britt: 27:13

at that point, that is an important point. When we were in Maui, we were, we should have gone somewhere that was on our radar as a place to live. I don't think Japan was on our radar as a place to live. It was a place we wanted to visit. So our mindsets kind of changed there too. Hey, we have this, this chance to go see all the places we've always wanted to see. Let's just do that. Yeah. Right. Whereas what would have probably been more helpful or what we could have planned better for was. Maybe let's look at the places we want to live instead, because that is what our budget is for, and what our plan is, and we're straying from this plan, but it just sounded good, we're like, ooh, Japan, awesome, let's do this, and it made sense to get there from Hawaii, you know, we're already halfway there, let's just do that, and you know what, Japan was amazing, we're gonna have a whole episode

Lindsey: 28:06

on Japan, it was amazing, it was so cool, maybe I would live in Japan one day, I don't know. Yeah. But I loved it. It was awesome. And that really is when this sort of shifted into, well, we can go anywhere, but without like the work to back it up and with our learned behavior of overspending, that's sort of when things. Just started getting really muddy. Right. Started feeling really muddy.

Britt: 28:33

And I can't pinpoint the exact time that that happened, or exactly what the thinking was. But, we had a great time in Japan, and then we decided to go to Thailand. Why did we decide to go to Thailand

Lindsey: 28:49

next? Well this is kind of funny, and this kind of actually leads to our next main part of this. Of our three main reasons why we're settling down, but the second one being plan, our planning was just off at some point. We just kind of were like, we were making choices kind of like on the fly with our heads a little bit more. So the tie, like Thailand, I want to go to Thailand. I still want to go to Thailand. Cause I feel like I just got like a taste of it, not in the way that I wanted to. But because once we were in Japan, then we were like, Oh my gosh, we can go to Southeast Asia and we know this person here and we know this person here. And should we go here? And it just got so big that we were going to go see a friend of mine in, in the Philippines. And then we were kind of looking at tickets, I'm actually going to say that our, this part, it's funny because it's a little bit opposite of budgeting, it, because we were looking at tickets and then we were kind of basing where we went on what had a more affordable plane ticket, and we, and really, we could have just gone to the Philippines. seen a friend, had a great time, maybe, maybe not, but it would have been, but at least it would have been a little more familiar, you know, and that person is very traveled in Southeast Asia, so maybe it would have been a great resource to, to talk to her face to face and say, what should we do? Because when we got to Thailand, Bangkok was great, but we didn't stay there that long. And we hadn't

Britt: 30:15

planned for Thailand at all. We decided to go to Thailand.

Lindsey: 30:21

We decided to go to Thailand the day we flew to Japan. Y'all, are y'all just gonna hate us and think we're so stupid? But also, it's fun. We decided to go to Thailand the day we flew to Japan. Then, we were in Japan, and we're just like, full on Japan. So, there's, we don't really wanna think about what we do in Thailand. I think that's another part of this is We're traveling as travelers and not as nomads, like digital nomads or whatever people are doing. So, we're going there as like tourists, and that's what we were doing in Japan all the every day. Mm hmm. And we didn't really make space to then even think about what Thailand was like. At that

Britt: 31:04

point, I feel like we started having decision fatigue. Yeah. Towards the end of Japan. Because every day in Japan, we had to figure out where we were going, what's going on. I don't I don't know what led to it, but we didn't want to think about Thailand. We didn't want to research and figure that out. We're just like, Oh, we'll get to Thailand. It'll be Thailand. Yeah. You know, it's just kind of silly to think. And you know, that could have worked out great. Yeah. It's not the stupidest thing we've ever done, but we got there and at that point we wanted a little bit of comfort. So we stayed in a nice resort for like five days. In

Lindsey: 31:39

Bangkok. In

Britt: 31:39

Bangkok. And it was fantastic. It

Lindsey: 31:42

was amazing.

Britt: 31:43

It was great. From there, we were like, well, we want some, some, uh, beach. Let's go to a beach. So we picked an island, didn't know much about it. We went to that island. And we didn't have a great time on

Lindsey: 31:54

that island. Right. Yeah, I think that entire experience there, which was also fun, but it was just pretty indicative that we were like making choices weren't right. You know? What were those choices? Deciding to go to that island and then picking the kind of everything out of like, well, we need to choose something now. So hurry. Oh, right. Yeah. Like not aligned choices, kind of going back to what you're saying, the decision fatigue and that's like our third main reason that we're going back is. Our feelings. Right. What all the emotional stuff that in this last couple months of travel, we haven't been making the clearest choices. It seems like we're a little bit stuck in this like flight mode. I

Britt: 32:50

especially felt that way in Thailand. Yeah. I wasn't feeling comfortable. I felt like we were And then we'd be like, well, we'll, we'll, we'll buy those tickets tomorrow. We'll look again tomorrow. We'll make a decision tomorrow. And then the next day we would look and the prices had gone way up. So it kind of got to a, like, well, we got to stay for another two weeks to get like a better price or not spending too much, which also makes no sense. Yeah, right. Exactly. I feel you. And I think that's exactly what would happen. Yeah. And then we felt, I felt stuck there on that Island where I wasn't having a good time. Oh yeah. We all. And I had a stomach bug too. Which is the worst. So we couldn't enjoy food. Um, it was very, very hot. So I just, I was just very uncomfortable for a lot of reasons.

Lindsey: 33:43

It's all of the comfort that we talked about at the beginning of this episode is like sucked out of your experience. Yeah. Like no food. No.

Britt: 33:53

Yeah. That's funny to think about. Yeah. So that for me, that was kind of like the descent down. Descent. The descent of the trip. Huh. Descent of the trip? Uh, well that's where I started feeling like this isn't going right. I didn't want to really think about it, you know? I didn't want to confront

Lindsey: 34:13

that. That's when it's kind of like, oh, the next place will feel better. Right. And that's what gets, I mean, we do that as people with everything. Right. With small stuff, we're doing it all day. Like, let me go to target and walk around because that's going to feel better. And then let me go do this. And then let me eat that ice cream. It really goes back to come to finding that like short term comfort. So we kind of thought, Oh, the next place will feel better. And that's actually, it's really all just a good experiment because then we got here. And we're like, where we are now in Melbourne, and we're like, it's great and it's fine. But the like joy and lust for travel or adventure at this point in this way. It's gone. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it took that part of that experiment to, to realize that, you know, so another, so the part of that, that really hits at home for me when it comes to feelings is that in no way starting this journey. Did I feel like I was running away from anything? But, like, maybe in the last six weeks, it's felt like, okay, now go to the next place. Find, find that place that feels comfortable. Find that, and I know, you're supposed to find it within, and I can, and I do, and I have, and I am, while we're on, well, even today, like, right now. But, you could, you could just feel the shift of this part of this.

Britt: 35:47

I felt like it would be a, uh, a disservice to the whole experience to keep going because I'm really like I'm in Melbourne and it's amazing and I'm doing really cool stuff and meeting people I've always wanted to meet and having a great time, but I also am missing something on it that I really need and I'm not fully here. I'm not fully experiencing this place and it doesn't feel good.

Lindsey: 36:11

Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right. Yeah. And then if you kind of map, project that onto this future, where it's like, well, now we go to, do we try to go to the next place? Are we just sensation hopping? Do we try to go to the next place to say, you know what it actually was? We need to go to Bali. Or you know what it actually was? We need to go to Paris. Because those are two places I really want to go. Part of me can be like, no, that's true. But the actual truth is this is when you say, pause. Let's pause. Yeah. And, and stop. Take a breath. That's when, that's when like the grown up highest self comes in and says, we can do this differently. We don't have to be going from sensation to sensation.

Britt: 36:57

Just chasing it, chasing the dragon.

Lindsey: 36:59

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. And I like that you said that it like to continue in a way that doesn't feel good. would dampen the entire amazing experience that we've had that I think I also need a little space to process that eight months ago, like not very long ago, we left eight months ago, we left Texas and just seven months ago we were like with whales in Baja and you know, five, five months ago we were in snow and. Four months ago, we were surrounded by orange trees in Ojai, and three months ago, we were at Ram Dass house, and two months ago, we were in Japan, and it's like, whoa, I need to actually, because if we keep going, it's going to get so, I feel like I'm going to get so far away that I'm going to be like, that didn't happen. Right. Yeah. So that's another really good indication of like, I need some, I need a break. I need some space to integrate, because we could keep going forever without integrating this. Fucking amazing thing that we did for why? Yeah, well, we won't be able to learn the lessons from it. Very good That

Britt: 38:13

a sign that I got was I really liked Japan and had a fun time But after we left I loved Japan, isn't that weird? And it was hard to I'm saying that I wasn't fully present and I wasn't fully enjoying it

Lindsey: 38:29

There's so much to take in there that you kind of have to be, I think that's just true of travel a little bit, that I think everyone does that. You can experience a place and then it's after that you're like, Oh my God, that was really amazing.

Britt: 38:42

Right. Cause now you know how to maneuver the place too. So you can, the whole time I was there, I was like, how do I do this? How do I do that? How do I get through here? You know? What do you eat for breakfast? I'm a little, I'm a little preoccupied.

Lindsey: 38:54

Yeah. How, how does the toilet work? Yeah.

Britt: 38:57

You stand on the toilet?

Lindsey: 38:58

Yeah. Strange. Um, no, but you're exactly right and, and I think that's really true and common of any big experiences like this is like after is when you can really say, Oh no, that was, that is amazing. There's also an argument for being more present there, but you can only be as present as you can be. You can work on it. You can, we can all every day and every moment, like work toward more presence. But it's like, after is when you digest the experience fully, I think.

Britt: 39:33

I also didn't account for the feeling that I wanted stability in a place. Like, I wanted my own place to go back to. I wanted my microphone set up to do the podcast and just sit there, and not have to pull it all out and start over in a new room. Every time I want to walk over and pick up a guitar, I want to draw. I want to know where my pots and pans are, you know, all those things that I took for granted in life when they're gone and you're moving around from Airbnb to Airbnb and some of them don't even have pots and pans, you'll get there and there'll be one camping pan and nothing else, no, no spoons or whatever, you know, it just really made me miss the comfort of having my own area. Yeah. And I didn't, I didn't expect

Lindsey: 40:21

that. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. I feel that. I mean, I think that's another, it's actually another thing that I think after the experience, you can see the value. It's like your brain is gaining tremendous value right now by having to relearn things every week. We need like a space for regulation and to be like, here's where I know where everything is. And you're right. That's. That's true. All of this brings us to our decision that we made one week ago. So we're still kind of making decisions on the fly, and y'all are on this experiment with us to see if this turns into something beautiful or two. Another learning lesson. Essentially, last week, we're in that same space of, okay, the time here is ending. Where do we go? It's not like we've waited the entire month to decide. We just, nothing feels right. We've been talking about it. We've been feeling into it, looking at places. Do we want to stay in Australia? Do we want to move on to another country? What feels right? So it's not like we just waited till the last week. It's just, we just truly couldn't make a decision. Again, decision fatigue, nothing feels like the right way. That's where that pot, that's when we said, all right, we need to pause. Let's actually feel into what we want to do. And I don't know if you said it first, or I don't actually remember who said it first. What if we go back to Ojai, and maybe I think, was it you?

Britt: 41:52

Maybe. I've been thinking about it. I didn't want to say it out loud for a while, for a while, because, you know, you have that fear of failure. Am I failing by ending this? I said we were, we said we were going to go for a year. Really, I feel like everything kind of came to a head. I just didn't want to feel bad anymore. I didn't want to admit that the money was... Really running out. You know, money is hard to talk about. Yeah, always hard to talk about. Yeah, and it doesn't have to be but I'm still working through that. So when I see that our bank account is dwindling from what it was, and maybe we should start think about heading back. That was a hard decision to make. And so I don't know if I brought it up or you brought it up, but it almost immediately felt like that's what we

Lindsey: 42:39

should do. Yeah, it's like once we came together and said, Oh, yeah, Yeah, again, that FOMO popped up, but actually that was the first time in a few weeks where I actually felt excited and I was like, Oh no, this feels exciting. I can feel this like tingly of, no, follow that, follow that. Then we called my mom. Not everyone has a mom to call, but I'm so grateful that I do because she. Put it in perspective and she's so helpful to talk to us and it's like she knows she has these like spidey senses Where she'll just call at a time when I really need her to call. She's a psychic. Yeah,

Britt: 43:25

and Basically what she said to us is this isn't the end You can take a break. You're not a failure if you take a break. You can relax, you can pause, and you can't do it wrong.

Lindsey: 43:38

Right. Which is so, exactly what we both needed to hear. You can't do this wrong, and if this is what you're feeling, then you should do that. And that was a

Britt: 43:47

huge moment of clarity. When that happened, I felt like a huge weight was lifted. I got the most excited I've been. And a long time, and I felt like, finally like, oh, this is

Lindsey: 43:58

right. Yeah. Right. That, I. You know what? I think it's the different, what I'm noticing now is the difference between what FOMO is, is like this hopefulness that something will feel exciting when I get there. And I think that's the difference. Because I've had this FOMO of, what if I don't go? To, to Europe, to Spain, I'll, there's a hopefulness that, that, that, that that's going to lead to something exciting, even though right now I kind of feel like I've seen enough. Right. Actual excitement that I feel when I think about, oh my gosh, let's go. Be in one place, and let's be in a place that we have already loved, and let's be in a place where we can already talk to people and have some friends. It's actual excitement versus hopefulness that something's gonna turn out exciting.

Britt: 44:55

And that's why this decision was so important, for us to get some clarity, to give ourselves that space. To acknowledge that we are feeling clouded in our judgment, or even what we want, you know? Having to reassess what we even want in life. So that's like a whole starting over within the starting over.

Lindsey: 45:15

Yeah, and it's huge, and talk about, like, trusting the flow of life, and like, trusting and surrendering. That is so easy to say when you're just, like, bopping around going wherever you want to go. But can you trust when you're being led in a direction that you didn't think you wanted to go, that isn't turning out how you thought it was going to end up? Like, that's some real shit. Can you actually trust then? And I'm asking myself right now because I'm still like, I don't know if I can, but I'm going to do it. Okay, because I'm pretty sure this is where I'm, where I'm led. So I'm going to trust this way, but that's like high level. Like everyone, everyone can say like, I just trust wherever I'm led. Yeah. But what about when, when it's not actually where you maybe want to go or not how you thought it was going to end up? Right. Yeah. That's some real trust. This thought of being in one place for a while, it just really feels like the right move and being in a place where there's community, being in a place. Where we can work and when I say, I mean, I leave, I don't want to be so heavy handed with work, but like create because there hasn't felt like a much space to create. So work on the things that we love working on. Right. That's been something that has not happened.

Britt: 46:45

We could also tell that the boys needed a break. They really thrive when they have a routine, and a routine has been very challenging for us on this trip. The

Lindsey: 46:56

way that they communicate with us, we are so lucky, because that doesn't, that wasn't my experience, you know? I didn't tell my parents, like, I don't want to do this, or I feel this way. And I, Jack, I don't remember, it was after Hawaii at some point, maybe even after Japan, but he was like, Yeah, I just feel kind of more and more sad the longer we're on this trip ever since we left Hawaii. And I was like, yeah, bud, thanks for telling me that. Or they say, I don't want to get on another plane. And really being here in Melbourne, we've been so chill.

Britt: 47:38

And in being chill and mellow like that, the boys are thriving. They're in a better moods. They, they seem to be having fun. They're happier. They joke around more. You can tell that they're thriving when we're staying in a place. Longer.

Lindsey: 47:52

Yeah, because travel is exhausting and they're little. Right. I mean, if we're doing like clock in like 17, 000 steps, imagine what that's like for a little eight year old. Right. That's a lot. So we could feel as a family, this like shift. And we made a plan. What's our plan?

Britt: 48:10

Well, the plan is developing right now, because like we said, we just decided this about a week ago. So we are flying back to L. A. and the plan is to find a house, probably in Ojai, that's where we're looking, maybe stay in an Airbnb until we can figure out a long term situation and look for work and whatever way we're going to earn income. Make that happen. Find our community. That's the plan.

Lindsey: 48:38

Yeah. And be in a routine. Yeah. More of a

Britt: 48:41

routine. And that's happening in a week. Yeah. Very soon. We're on our way there, basically.

Lindsey: 48:46

The day this comes out is the day that we'll get there.

Britt: 48:50

Oh yeah, that's right. Yeah. You're hearing this the day we arrive. If you're listening on the day that it came out, the day that we arrive to our new lives.

Lindsey: 48:58

What I want to make sure that I know is that traveling isn't the only way to start over. And that just because this part is ending and a new chapter is beginning, it doesn't mean that we stop starting over. It doesn't mean that we like stop committing to living the way we want to live. We're trying we're trying it on and we're learning as we go and that's so important. Mm hmm. What are you? Wanting most going forward. Well, I

Britt: 49:33

want to Redirect my routine from what it was before we left on this trip. I don't want to be just working a nine to five Not seeing my family and getting burnt out. I want to keep, make sure that I'm keeping my vision of having the time, the time and the freedom to create, to be with my family and to do what I want to do and still keep traveling, you know, not be stuck in one place. Because I've only got one week of vacation a year.

Lindsey: 50:07

I know. Yeah. It's huge. What about you? What I want going forward is everything you just said. And I want to commit to knowing that it doesn't have to be one way or the other. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. It doesn't have to be... Only travel and family or only work and there is this like middle way and middle road and that's what I want and to really know that that's possible. That doesn't equal success. I've already done that. I don't have to spend 100 hours a week working, never see my family and I don't have to not work at all if there's something I really want to work on. I want to feel comfortable in a space. Yeah. I want to like have my own little. Slice of the world. The other part of this is I do still want to keep traveling for long chunks of time. Doesn't mean eight months. I don't know. I want to be open. You know what I, one of my real wants is let me really trust, like, can I, let me really trust. That I'm being led in the right direction.

Britt: 51:16

So that's our decision, y'all. We're headed to California. We'll see you there. If you're there. We'll give you an update soon on how things are going.

Lindsey: 51:27

Doesn't mean it's the end of traveling. It doesn't mean it's the end of anything. It's another new beginning.

Britt: 51:33

It's only a beginning. That's all it is.

Lindsey: 51:36

Bye bye.