Wherever You Go, There You Are

The allure of travel has always been that over there, things will be better. We will have more fun; be more fun. We get to drop the burdens we carry when we travel, enamored with new places, shedding our old stories and trying on new versions of ourselves.

This works in large part for vacations - those one or two week sprints where you take off from your 'real' life to explore somewhere new. It's like the first flush of new love, where everything is golden and you are the best version of yourself.

But when you have made traveling your 'real' life, then the 'real' you eventually catches up with you.

And you get to see - so clearly - all the stories you carry about who you are, the identities you take on, the hurts you still hold, the self doubts that get in your way.

It's the same with success. We think - if I get that book published, that film made, that music released - I will be happy. A bright shiny new version of myself. But wherever you go, there you are. Even in travel, even in success. 



Pssst.... now you can also watch the episode on YouTube !

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Transcript

OK my friends, here we go, continuing The roving podcast. I don't know what to call it, but I've been on the road for a couple of months now. I left my place in Brooklyn at the end of August and I don't know where I want to live next. I've always wanted to live in Brooklyn. I've always loved living in Brooklyn and then suddenly realized it wasn't the place for me anymore. And so. On the advice of a friend I have been, I let go of my lease entirely and have been Airbnb being my way across different cities in the country. And. It's amazing and terrifying and also like deep self development work which is very me and I think really, really interesting. And the reason why is because. Wherever you go, there you are like people look at vacations and travel with such longing and fondness and obviously going to new place and getting to experience that is incredible. And it's such a gift of life to be able to meet new people and experience yourself in different situations and see the world in different locations and especially through different eyes. And what I've always found is the more I travel, the more I realize I am always the constant thing there. And so high experience, new place really depends on how I am thinking about myself and interacting with the world around me. And taken to sort of an extreme level is leaving my home base. And so it's not just like 2 weeks or one week of vacationing and experiencing stuff and you know, all that wonder and delight. It's like a new romance. You just feel that adrenaline and that love and when everything is new and beautiful, which is what most vacations and travel are. But when you're really leaving something and launching without a landing pad, it's a really different experience because. The 

newness wears off, and what's left isn't returning home to your old job, your old place, your old relationships, your old coffee shop, your old movie theater, whatever your things were. Your routines of how you do laundry, your routines of. How you pay your bills, all of the things. Um, that? Not that they bind you, but that certainly are familiar to you and also define you. And I think not having those creates an incredible amount of free space in my brain, which is such a gift. Which is why I've been excited this year to have more time to write and podcasts and get back to the things that creatively feed me. And also there is so much more room for your stories. And what I found really fascinating is that. When you strip away sort of all of your routines and all the things that you use to identify and ground yourself, what you're left with is sort of this blank slate against the world. Not against the world, but in the world. And what I notice is when. I'm not having the life or the experience that I want to have. The only differential is me. Like when I'm not writing, it's not because I don't have time or space, it's because I'm afraid it won't be good enough, or I don't know who to share it with, or I don't know how would ever get made into a film. So what's the point? And I think what I see more and more, it's like the matrix stream of all the, you know, that downpouring of the the code in the matrix and the green that you sort of start to see your own programming. You see there's no one else stopping me. But myself, there's nothing here. I kind of like it's limitless right now. Like I have this incredible day job that's grounding that can work from anywhere. And so I get to choose where I want to go, which is amazing gift. And also wherever I go I land. So if I'm not exercising the way that I want to, if I'm not eating the way that I think I should, if I'm not being creative in the way that really matters to me. 

There's no other reason than me, and there's a lot less excuse making around. The commute is really tough for this is really exhausting, or this relationship is stressing me out, or whatever the things are that we all carry. And I think for me, I kind of knew that habit piece would come up. But I think what's also been really interesting is. You know when you go to a new place, I do this sometimes too. And networking events. If I'm just not there to necessarily work with anyone, I make up a new name and I just like have fun introducing myself as a different person. I think that is one of the beauties of going somewhere new is you get to. Even if you don't go as far as I do and add an accent at a new name, there's something incredibly delicious about. Meeting people who have no contacts for you, who have no preconceived notion of who you are and how liberating it is. To for a moment not be in your stories, right? We all carry stories. We all carry ideas of who we are. We all carry wounds from being human, things that have hurt us, things that have scared us, and. And we all have self doubt to some degree and fears that we're not good enough. It's like a very human compulsion and. And so to be in a place you get to that's new, where nobody knows you, you get to both experiment with not having those, and you get to see how clearly when those come up, they are yours. You are carrying those stories of not being enough. You are carrying those stories of. Um, it'll never happen. You are carrying those stories of it's too late. Whatever the things are that you tell yourself that keep you from doing the thing that most matters to you, it's kind of amazing to realize there is there's there's nothing there. There's nothing that inherently exists in the world that is a structure that is telling you you're not enough. Now yes, capitalism, racism, misogyny, there's a whole bunch of like reasons why the world is messed up and we have to work against systemic oppression. But I also mean. The 

ways in which we think about ourselves and our possibilities, I think a lot of those, and maybe they're internalized from some of that systemic oppression, which is totally valid and fair. And if you're aware that it's systemic and you don't want it to control your life, like the only place that you get to really work on it is inside of yourself. And so the places where. I worry I'm not pretty enough. I'm not young enough. I'm not thin enough. I'm not all the ways in which women are told they are not enough. Yes, that is in the larger culture and the larger capitalism and whatever. But it's also me picking up that slack and telling that to myself. And there's sort of two ways to work around that. There's one of practicing, teaching yourself something new to think, and there's also just. Being like, yeah, letting it be there and still go about doing that thing. Worrying that the film will never get made. And still sitting down to write the script. Worrying that you're not skinny enough and still going out for the audition, worrying that you'll never figure out how to play. Guitar at the level that you want to and still practicing and showing up for open mics. I think that is actually the hardest part is sort of having your old stories match with a life that you want and holding space for both. Like taking the action for the creative person that you want to be while you're still acknowledging that, like your brain is just going at you in terms of the ways in which it thinks that you are not enough. 

I haven't figured this out yet. I'm very new to this and I've definitely had a rough. Couple of weeks where I feel like I just tripped over into my own stuff. And that's the other part of it, is being away from all my routines and structures. They also really propped me up. They really kept me safe. I most of us really crave routine. Most of us crave some kind of grounding. Most of us need that. It's it's a human brain thing. Like animals need to be grounded in the earth and grounded in community. And those things are incredibly healing and mental health important. And so stripping those away, yes, you get to see yourself more clearly. And also you lose those structures and you have to kind of fight harder to rebuild them. Some people are amazing at wherever they go. Whatever vacation they're on, they're going to go for a run every morning and they're gonna work out and go to the gym. They're going to eat really well. I'm not that person. I have to work really hard at finding time to be creative every day, finding time to rehearse guitar, finding time to write, finding time to pitch and submit myself. And so when I leave the routines, um, I'm having to kind of figure out how do I, how do I innately build those habits so that wherever I go, I am the creative force that I wanna be. Wherever I go, I can set up a mic and a light and make the podcast wherever I go. I'm stealing time between layovers and airports to write my TV script. Or I'm submitting, you know, my pitch stack to something let him really, really showing up. And I'm doing open mics in different cities. I think that takes a level 

of courage and also a willingness to fall flat on your face and willingness to explore who else you could be. And so there's this incredible joy and. One of the gifts of sort of taking flight, of leaving everything that I knew and know is discovering where I'm holding myself back and what else I want to play with in terms of how I identify myself and who I hold myself to be, and also this incredible challenge of how do I keep. Propelling myself forward. How do I keep digging deep into what does matter to me? What do I want to spend my day on? What do I want the end of this year to look like? What will make me most proud and most satisfied about the person that I want to be? So I would invite you to ask those questions as well. You know, I'm trying to move away from the metrics of I got this film made or I got or I got cast in these three roles. Because a lot of that we don't always control. And I think a lot of it more is how did I show up as an artist? How did I show up as a writer? How did I find my voice and put it out in the world? And kind of build from there, so. Wherever you go, there you are. If any of you have been traveling recently, are thinking about it. I am really curious because I do think, especially in the age of Instagram, who we have so much more visual, quote, UN proof that people everywhere else are living a much better life than we are and it makes going away look so freaking attractive. Like that is the solution to all the boredom and frustration and stuckness that I feel in my life. If I just go over there, it'll be better and I think we have to really take stock. And realize there is no there. There. There is still you and all of your stuff. And it's an amazing thing to know, because that means there's opportunity to figure out who do you want to be. And if you can't leave right now, and if going isn't the thing that's right for you, how do you figure how to be that person now here? Alright, my friends be well.