My first love affair with travel began with my grandmother. She was a housecleaner and would work many luxurious homes in South Florida. I would spend the summers with her being her little assistant house cleaner. She would walk me around each of the homes and show me the trinkets from all the places in the world where her clients’ traveled.
I’m all about habit-hacks, rewiring our system and brain to work smarter not harder. I knew there were a few habits I felt I needed to break and a few I needed to start to support me. Trouble was, I couldn’t figure out a system yet.
For years I’ve experienced anxiety and depression.
It took me a long time to realize this is what was happening, to seek support, to find acceptance, and to learn tools to manage the waves of anxiety and depression that came through me. It took a long time because I didn’t have adults around me in my upbringing that modeled what it looked like to ask for support, to take care of their mental health.
Reflection is a huge part of my personal growth and daily life, of being able to make sense of the things that don’t seem to make any sense at all. Taking the time to contemplate life and make meaning helps us deal with the experiences of life that have impacted us, consciously or unconsciously.
In an instant—everything changed. I had no idea, in that moment, that my life would change forever. Or even more shockingly, just how much it would change…
