Live A More Storyfull Life
I was gathering clips from my old YouTube channel for a reel that will inevitably take me a whole ass week to put together and I re-watched my Japan vlog - A Latina In Japan.
Ever since I started dating my now husband, I’ve become like 1,000x more well travelled. This is mostly because…whispers…I don’t really like traveling. THERE I SAID IT. WATCHING CULTURE ON THE INTERNET IS ENOUGH FOR ME. Phew ok, that felt good to let out.
But here’s the thing. I kinda had to change my ways because travel was SUPER important to my husband and relationships are all about meeting each other one quarter mile at a time or whatever Dom said.
So I said yes. Yes to Costa Rica 6 months into our relationship. Yes to London and Paris 1 year in. Yes to Australia 2 years in and yes to coming back from that trip as one engaged b*tch. Sometimes I wonder what our relationship would’ve been like if we hadn’t gone to any of those places. Actually I don’t wonder. I KNOW.
We wouldn’t have as many stories. I wouldn’t have the story of spending my entire golden birthday at 30 in a gorgeous Paris hotel toilet because old school Parisian restaurants do not give a shi*t about your celiac disease. What a glorious send off into my 30s.
Or the time I was on such a natural high stepping foot on the immaculate white sands of Whitsunday Island Australia that I swam without a wetsuit (highly not recommended) into a sea of jellyfish. This was only topped by Neil screaming for me to come back as he nervously jangled around his shorts to pull out a tiny burgundy box and thus making my lifelong dream come true. The engaged part, not the jellyfish.
When we decided to go to Japan, it was the first country we both did not speak the language and I was afraid I would be overwhelmed by not knowing figuring out how to get by and my dietary restriction. But when I decided to document my experiences, my anxiety subsided because I decided to have a specific intention with my trip: to entertain and engage my audience. And based on the comments, I’d say mission accomplished.
In all these cases I realized a few commonalities that I now believe are ESSENTIAL in having a more storyfull life:
Saying YES (even when you don’t 100% want to)
Living with INTENTION
Staying curious
When you do these things, you jump head first into the unknown and when we become more comfortable in embracing the unknown we become more comfortable in our bodies, in our abilities and our mental state. I often hear students and clients have a difficult time the first time they attempt to write a personal story because they can’t think of something “interesting” that happened to them. Number 1 - that is never true. Number 2 - moving forward remember that every moment is another chance to write a new story. When we take the time to ask ourselves - what do I want today’s story to be? We get closer to understanding what we value, what gives us meaning, what we love. And guess what? We get to do more of it whenever dare to dream of the possibilities and whenever we are bold enough to chase after them.
So get out there and make some new stories, will ya?