Facing Fears - From Island Life to City Lights

Ever found yourself at a crossroads, terrified yet so excited by the prospect of change? Join me as I open up about my latest journey—temporarily moving from the sunny beaches of St. Martin to the lush landscapes of Portland, Oregon, for two months. 

This episode, "Stepping Outside Comfort Zones," is all about confronting fears and embracing the unknown for personal growth. I'll share my emotional rollercoaster, from the hesitation of leaving my beloved cat Rufus to the excitement of conquering new horizons. 

Chapters

• 0:00 Stepping Outside Comfort Zones
• 12:31 Preparing for an Epic Adventure
• 17:36 Embracing Change for Growth

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

to be able to live the life that you want, you need to leave your old life behind. At the same time, you need to do things that scare you in order to get there. It's only scary because it's new. Welcome to Paradise Perspectives. I'm Rizal, the Traveling Island Girl, and I'm here to help you start living your best life, no matter where you're at. Whether you're dreaming of traveling to exotic destinations, starting a business or even making big life changes, this is the place for you. From the beaches of the Caribbean to your own backyard, we'll explore how to shift your mindset, find your purpose and take bold steps towards the life you deserve. So grab your favorite drink and let's dive into some real talk about living your best life one sunny day at a time.

Speaker 1: 0:56

Hey there, and welcome back to another season of Paradise Perspectives. I can't believe it. I was like. Paradise Perspectives has had two seasons. We are now entering season three. Wow, I am so happy that you're here and I'm so happy that I get to share the new season with you, because there's a lot to tell you.

Speaker 1: 1:18

Hey, my name is Rizal. In case you're new here, I'm known as the Traveling Island Girl, and do I have a story for you. So, first of all, season three is the beginning of a new beginning. We are switching things up here at Paradise Perspectives. Instead of just chatting about Caribbean travel tips, we're gonna go a little deeper this time. We're going to start talking about the inner journey that happens when we step outside of our comfort zone, and not only about the physical destinations, but the inner work and inner destinations that we want to get to. So, speaking of getting outside of our comfort zones, I have big news I'm moving to Portland Oregon. Don't worry about it, it's just for two months. The Caribbean is still home, but I am moving to Portland Oregon, and I cannot stop saying that. I keep repeating it inside of my head because it is something that I've been dreaming to do for a while. Since I visited in 2019, it is practically everything I have been able to think about. You know, I've always wanted to go back, but I've always wanted to go back for a little longer. So I decided on two months just to, kind of like, get my toes wet. And also, this is the opportunity to see if my brand, the Traveling Island Girl, can survive outside of the Caribbean. Because, let's be honest, since the beginning of this big journey. This, you know, I started as a blogger. Since the beginning, nine years ago almost 10 years ago I've had a decade of experience of promoting my solo trips to the Caribbean, other Caribbean islands and my home islands of St Martin. And the little trips that I've done in the past that didn't you know outside of the region didn't really go well with what my audience wanted to see then. But now I'm pivoting. I'm trying something that I've always wanted to try here and then so I'm moving to Portland, oregon, for two months.

Speaker 1: 3:20

I know it sounds a little wild, especially for me. I know some of you who might be listening from the US are like, oh, that's not that scary. Well, for me, having always had this Caribbean background not always I did live a little while in the Netherlands, in Europe for a little bit. But this is different. This is so different. I'm trading the beach for the Pacific Northwest. I'm actually trading a warm beach for a colder beach. But I feel like this pull to do something different. You know I need to like shake things up and honestly, this wasn't an easy decision to make. It wasn't at all, but it was a necessary one. I have decided to do something scary as many times as I possibly can, because, let's be honest, everything that we desire to become is outside of our comfort zone. So I'm starting with this Now.

Speaker 1: 4:18

Let me tell you the days leading up to this move were intense. Days leading up to this move were intense. You know, I've lived in Samaritan for 23 years. It's home, my happy place, and the thought of leaving, even just for a little while, had me feeling all kinds of feels that I wasn't ready for. I mean, yes, most of all excitement, let's be honest, but I had these sinking feelings as well. You know, I kept thinking what if this is a mistake? What if I don't like it? What if things go wrong? What if? What if? What if? What ifs can kill you.

Speaker 1: 4:53

Believe me, I was so worried about a bunch of things that you know I have no control over, but you know what I realized? Those fears were just in my brain, because my brain is trying to keep me safe, and sometimes safe just isn't enough. We need to get outside of that comfortable area. Sometimes. You know we need to. It's like one of those things that I saw on Instagram is like one of those posts. Somebody posted it. I think it was Brianna Wiest or Brianna Weist I'm not quite sure how to pronounce this author's name but she said something of to be able to live the life that you want, you need to leave your old life behind.

Speaker 1: 5:37

At the same time, you need to do things that scare you in order to get there. It's only scary because it's new, right. So I had to remind myself that growth doesn't happen inside of the comfort zone. It does not happen there. There's like nothing happening in the comfort zone. It happens when we take risks right, and try new things, even though those things are scary. So I decided to face my fears and just go for it.

Speaker 1: 6:07

But before I could hop on this plane and speaking of plane, you are listening to this episode, or at least it airs on September 12th, which is, coincidentally, the day that I'm hopping on the first leg to get to Portland, so I might be in the air while you're listening to this. If this is, if you're listening on September 12th, I spent days, days, I'm telling you researching and figuring out how not to go broke, paying for accommodations throughout Portland and, of course, the surrounding areas, because, let's be honest, it's I don't want to only see Portland. I want to see so much of Oregon, and it wasn't until I stumbled on a video on Instagram by a travel content creator that I hugely admire. I love this girl. She is. I think her name is girl versus globe Sabrina. If you're listening to this, you're awesome, because she was sharing how she does it, and how she does it is just brilliant. She revealed how she saves a bunch of money in accommodations by using a website called Trusted House Sitters Girl.

Speaker 1: 7:15

This changed everything and all of a sudden, my trip to Portland, oregon, was becoming a reality, because this was making it possible to live in Portland for two months, or at least make it a little bit easier, without having to be freaking rich to be able to, you know, have a vacation for two months. Although this is not vacation, I'll be working as always, because you know I love my work. Anyways, without having to go too much into details, what I can tell you about this website is that it's awesome. I've always had a fascination with staying at Airbnbs, and if that Airbnb comes with a pet, even better, because I love animals so much. But Trusted House Sitters has just completely blew my mind, because now I can house sit for people that are going on vacation. I can house, sit for them and take care of their pets while they're away, and then so that gives me an accommodation, a place to stay at, and it's also so awesome because I get to experience Portland from a complete locals perspective, right, I get to really take it all in as a local. This is what this is.

Speaker 1: 8:29

This, this website is making that all possible, so, and it's super easy to use. All you have to do is you become a member of the website and, um you pay for an annual fee, which is really, in comparison to what you're going to be spending otherwise in accommodation, really nothing. Um, you then can pick up your dates. You can set your dates for when you want to travel and how long you'll need. You know, ideally, how long you would like to house it for. Um, you can put like for one month to up to like three, three months or sorry, you can put in from like a few days just to up to three months, I think, um, sometimes people do like what I'm doing now and they're leaving their home for extended periods of time. So you can put that in in the search and then you put in the destination that you want to go to, and also you can opt for what pet you want to house it for. Is it a house with no pets at all? There are options like that not many, but there are and you also have that you can put in.

Speaker 1: 9:37

You only want to sit for dogs, or do I want to sit for cats? Do I want to do both? Do I want to do reptiles? I am definitely not doing reptiles. Uh, do you want to do fish or birds? Is that a problem? Do you have a problem with taking care of goats? If it's a farm, you know there's all of that that you can choose and really like hone in on the ideal place for you to house it for.

Speaker 1: 10:03

And that's what I did, and immediately I got like two sits confirmed. That's what I call them. I call them sits, that's what I call them. I call them sits. So I have the first one, which I'm gonna be caring for, a tiny dog which is adorable, by the name of Bijou I know I love the name and I love her already. I haven't even met her yet and the other one will be for a dog and a cat, mitchell and Optimus and I cannot wait because both homes are in Safe areas of Portland and they're also beautiful, really great areas that I can pretty much walk to restaurants and all of that. So I'm super excited. So, after this whole accommodation thing got sorted out speaking of accommodation, by the way, I also had somebody reach out to me when they found out that I'm moving to Portland temporarily and they told me that they have an Airbnb that they would like me to try out. So thank you so much, tiffany, thank you, thank you, thank you. I'm so excited to experience your Airbnb, and it's outside of Portland, so that gives me a chance also to see a little bit more.

Speaker 1: 11:08

All right, so the next thing on my dreaded list of things that I had to prepare for before I could actually get on the plane was, of course, to figure out what to do with my apartment. Now let me tell you something If you are not familiar with this, if you're not from St Martin's St Martin's prices for homes are ridiculous, ridiculous, ridonkulous. They really are. It's so high because we have so many condos that foreigners tend to buy. That is now increasing our cost of living here, but also makes it almost impossible to be able to live for, you know, reasonable prices, to rent up homes for reasonable prices in really good areas in really good areas. But I've been able to find this apartment and, yes, it's not exactly within my budget, so it's not exactly cheap, but I don't want to lose it. I don't want to give up the apartment either. So I found a solution for that. I have the nicest landlord and he has given me permission to supply it. So what I've done is I've put it on Airbnb. Hopefully this will then also generate a little bit of income for when I'm traveling in Portland. So at least that's the idea. So let's go. Let's go see what happens with it. Let's see if the apartment becomes successful on Airbnb. Well, I'll find out later and, of course, I'll keep posted.

Speaker 1: 12:31

So then, the last thing on my list was my cat. Oh man, this part was rough because I've always been traveling and every time I travel, the longest I've been without him was for three weeks when I was in Europe visiting my family. So this time, for two months without my dear little Rufus, was going to be tough, and also I did not want him to feel like mommy abandoned him. So I needed to make sure that he was going to stay in a place and with people that love him, that will take care of him, give him the treats, give him his little tuna here and there, and also give him lots of love and pets, because he loves to be petted and he loves to cuddle he's a cuddle monster. I love him so much. So, yeah, that had to be taken care of. And then finally I found somebody. It's the same people I always leave him with and they found a best option because he, this person, is going to kind of take him to her house and take care of him there, where he will have plenty of cuddles but also plenty of treats and friends. He's going to make friends with other cats. So it's a win-win, I think. I hope. I hope Rufus is going to be happy in those two months as well.

Speaker 1: 13:44

So you know, while I was really stressing about these three main things, there were also, of course, the regular shit like applying for an ESTA and making sure that all my paperwork is in order, making sure that I know exactly where I'm going, that I studied the neighborhoods I'm going to be staying at. Um, you know it's flying into the US for me has always been scary because I have been pulled into that little room. I know we're talking. You know what little room I'm talking'm talking about right. It's where they take people that have like questionable passports or stuff like that. It was a big mistake.

Speaker 1: 14:18

That happened when my best friend and I were traveling, and the two of us I don't know, I think I don't know all black people look alike I don't know if that was the case or not, although we have like the same complexion and we wear the same clothes pretty much. You know best friends for life. You know we've been best friends for like 30 years. So of course when we travel together we tend to kind of like oops, we've put on the same colors or whatnot. Anyway, we're standing in front of the immigration officer and he takes my thumb scan, but with her passport, and then just completely ruined it for me every time I had to fly into the US. Now, thankfully, my passport at a time was only valid for another couple of months, so I only had to endure this for a couple of months, but every time I was traveling to the US I had to be pulled inside of that room, and that has now left me with trauma. I have trauma flying into the US.

Speaker 1: 15:19

I'm scared of immigration officers y'all, because they all look at me like I'm trying to like hustle my way into the country and I'm not so. But honestly, I love my Caribbean home and I will always come back to this. There's no way that I'm moving, or I won't say no way, never, ever. You never know what destiny has in store for you or what the universe has in store for you, but I love the Caribbean, so I have no reason to leave my home to just move forever to the US. But anyway, so that all had to be be.

Speaker 1: 15:52

That was another kind of like emotional thing that I had to get over as well. You know, I was scared of I'm always like nervous when I travel to the US because of that. And then before uh, I knew it, it was the big moment I'd arrived. The day that I had to leave actually was here and I was standing in my empty apartment with my bags all packed and it's smelling like roses because I mean to make sure that this Airbnb guest is going to have a fabulous time while they're in my apartment, and it's just such a weird mix of emotions. You know I was sad to leave, but overall I was so excited for what's ahead and in that moment I felt so incredibly grateful. Grateful not only for this opportunity to step into the unknown, but also grateful for myself that I've decided to completely go for it, you know, and to see where this journey will take me.

Speaker 1: 16:54

So here I am, about to embark on this new adventure and, believe me, I'm going to be sharing everything with you about this trip, because I have a feeling that it's going to be life changing, but in a very good way, and I cannot wait to tell you all about it. But this season, season number three of Paradise Perspectives with a Traveling Island Girl, we're going to talk about it. But this season, season number three of Paradise Perspectives with a Traveling Island Girl, we're going to talk about not just where we go. We're going to talk about how we grow along the way, because sometimes the biggest adventures aren't about the places that we see, girl, they're about so much more All right, they're also about who we become. So thank you, thank you, thank you for being here with me.

Speaker 1: 17:36

If you've ever thought about making a big change like this, or maybe some kind of different big change, or you're trying to get to step outside of your comfort zone, I hope that this story inspires you to just go for it. It's scary, but it's worth it. Do it scared, all right. Until next time, keep exploring, keep growing and remember paradise is more than a place, it's a state of mind. And like the genie says at the end of Aladdin, I'm out of here Bye-bye. See you in the next episode. My name is Rizal, the Traveling Island Girl. Thank you for listening.