Episode 149 - The Art of Romancing Yourself Through Solo Travel
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Episode 149 - The Art of Romancing Yourself Through Solo Travel
Hello, beautiful beings, and welcome to Come to your Senses. I am recording from the road today.
00:55
I was supposed to go to Maine this weekend for two dear friends who are having a baby in a small, intimate group of us. We're going up there to bless them and do a ritual and just love them up. And I had a health issue an IBS flair, if we're going to get real personal about it and I couldn't go and I was at Charlotte Airport in a hotel the night before because I was flying out very early the next day and I was so sad and felt so angry at my body and definitely wanted to just punish myself for being bad and being inadequate and there being something wrong with me and just go home and sulk and be depressed and I just isolated in my house and then I remembered who I am and I remember what I stand for, which is that pleasure and presence and luxury and just general sumptuousness is where I find a relationship to the divine. And in those moments when I'm feeling really fractured from the divine and from myself are when I need more comfort and love, not less, and so use some of the money I had budgeted for the trip and I booked myself into a lovely hotel and I've been having the most delicious solo adventure around the city of Charlotte. And it inspired me to record this episode for you, because I was sitting in a hotel bar tonight feeling just so in love with life, writing in my journal, and just so, so grateful for the way that the tools of pleasure and sumptuousness have shown me how to really be intimate with myself and have a great freaking time.
03:12
And if you're interested in this topic of self-intimacy from a place of love and romance and joy, I recommend checking out two episodes on the podcast that will link in the show notes, which are the art of self-dating and the art of self-romance, and those are all about how to have a self-love affair that just teams with excitement and beauty and happiness. And I'm like laughing because sometimes self-care, self-relationship, self-love, self-intimacy. It's like those things can feel so heavy, and that's because they are especially in the context of therapy and growth work and codependency, recovery and all these other beautiful things that we do on a day-to-day basis to survive our human existence and relationship. And it can also be bubbly and romantic and sexy and sumptuous, and that's exactly what we're going to talk about today is how to have a solo adventure come to your senses style. So the first gem is the gem of discovering the kind of things that you want to discover.
04:49
There's a lot of articles out there of, like the best things to see in this city or the top sightseeing attractions, but let's be honest, I don't give a crap about sightseeing attractions, okay, I just don't. I want hipster, trendy, cute boutique. Give me underground restaurant that's like the secret best place in the city that's not flooded with a million people on a Saturday night. And so when I search of how to explore the city I love I mean there's a lot of ways to interpret the word hipster but I just go straight towards what's the most hipster neighborhood in the city, because I know that's where I'm going to be able to find some of the things that I like, like coffee shops, boutiques, cafes, maybe the odd live music venue, things like that and you might be someone who is a much more uptown kind of person and you want, like the most five star restaurant in the entire city. You want the creme de la creme, most panache on wheels experience you can possibly muster, and so you might google or look for luxurious places to visit. You know, here in Charlotte there's a lot of what I would call young professionals, and so if you identify as a young professional, maybe you want to research what's the neighborhood that has the most young professionals, because most likely there might be things there that you like and that you love. So starting your search with a keyword that relates to you, so that you're not just sifting through giant stacks of online articles about bus tours and tequila laden Petal trolleys, whatever those things are that you see going down the street, unless that's your thing.
06:59
The next gem has to do with your home away from home. So for me, one of the most important aspects of planning any adventure is Choosing the best accommodations I can afford, and for me that's a hotel. I have fun traveling at Airbnb's, but ultimately I want to be taken care of. I want you know I'm alone, so like I want people around, I want front desk I can interact with. A Marker for me of whether or not it's the kind of hotel I'm looking for is do they have robes? I am such a robe person and a robe to me is a marker of just attention to detail and little extras like luxury, and you know you can find some amazing deals. I used Google travel. I like to luxuriate over my coffee, I like to watch movies in bed and I like to feel like a princess when I travel, and so choosing the accommodations that match your budget with the most luxury touches possible chefs kiss.
08:19
The next gem is Getting to know the city in the way that feels true for you. So I love all kinds of art, but I'm not a big stroll around a gallery Take in visual art kind of person, kind of get bored doing that. But where I just soak it up like a sponge is by going to a city's boutiques, because you're essentially seeing art in the sense that you're seeing the curation of items. Today was at this gorgeous plant boutique and I'm not really a plant person, but they had the most amazing like candles and coffee table books and ceramic plant pots and it was just extraordinary and I bought this beautiful book about radiance by Heidi Rose Robbins that is 365 Zodiac inspired prompts for self-care and self-renewal. That type thing usually Strikes me as a little too new, agey, fluffy, buffy, but this particular book really has a lot of meaning and gravitas and and so recommend that put a link to that in the show notes as well for you if you're a foodie.
09:45
Or my friend, sarah Jane, is Just an absolute Slut for coffee shops. She and her husband will go to a city just for the coffee shops. My friend gala, when she would arrive in a new city, one of the first things she would do is look for all the metaphysical shops, because she was really into all of that. And I don't even really spend a ton of money in these shops. It's really more to soak up the experience of kind of walking into someone's home and Getting to know people who work there, the residents of that little home that is a boutique, like the essence that it's a home of. And you know, I don't really know anybody in this city so I'm not going into anybody's home. So boutique shopping is a way to just get closer to the heart of the city and of its inhabitants.
10:43
And you also might have a miraculous experience, like I did on Friday, which was After I canceled my trip. I was so bummed and then I booked the hotel but was still bummed, and I had a few hours before the hotel check-in started and I found this adorable boutique called Bohem, who just happened to be having an 80% off sale on all their fall winter apparel. So you just never know what kind of miracles you might encounter out there and what kind of connections you know I was Bonding with the staff. I always love boutique shop girls because I worked in retail for a really long time and I just so enjoyed showing them the different things I was trying on. And as I was at the register, I was like I feel compelled to tell you all about my podcast because I think you'd really love it and who knows where those connections will lead. So go find your people doing the things that you love to do.
11:55
And the final gem is what I call my signature self-date, and that is to take myself out to dinner, sit at the bar and take a journal and a pen and just write and enjoy myself. So some of you might be thinking, oh god, I could never do that on a Saturday night in a fabulous city. Are you kidding? I'm not going to look like the stooge at the bar with nobody to hang out with and I will tell you that if you want to become the most intriguing woman in the room, go to a bar, order a meal and take your journal. People will just be so curious about you. People will talk to you like, what are you doing?
12:47
One woman last night asked me what I was writing and I said I'm just journaling. And she looked at me like I was an alien from another planet and I was like you know, just journaling. And she was like wow. And she was just so inspired, like it's so uncommon to see a person out in public enjoying their own company. And I told her about the podcast and I love to do this exercise that I learned from coach Tonya Lee called A Perfect Day, and I just did it tonight.
13:25
And my Perfect Day is always updating, always changing. But a Perfect Day exercise is when you imagine, three to five years in the future, an average Tuesday. What are you doing? What are you wearing? Who are you with? What kind of food are you eating? How are you nourishing your creativity. What do you do at dinner time? Who are you making out with? What is in your closet? And what I love about this exercise is that you know I used to do it and get really caught up in the details and the outcome and be like super hyper vigilant that I was writing it perfectly and quote unquote manifesting the right things. And I don't do that anymore. What I do is I just let my pen scroll across the page. I don't judge what comes out, and when I look back on my writing, what I look for is not necessarily the details, visions and outcomes although those are important and what I look for more is the feeling. And tonight, when I reflect on my Perfect Day, it's like there was a feeling of freedom and limitless creativity and just spiritual abundance and connection. And the good news is that those are all feelings that I can cultivate and practice and become more intimate with right now, even without a convertible. That I drive home at Golden Hour on the Pacific Coast Highway with the sun sparkling as it sets over the sea, and that my friends brings our gems to an end.
15:15
It was a pleasure to share some of the bubbliness of this experience of a surprise solo adventure that I feel so nourished by and that my tummy feels so much better inside of. You know, and reflecting on the experience, if I had gone home I think I just would have been racked with tummy pain the whole weekend. And that was why I didn't travel was because I've been having a difficult flare lately and I've still had some tummy pain here. But pleasure is just this hammock of healing that when I'm at home, in my own environment, in my day to day with chores and with my office and you know all the just minutia of being at home alone, it's really easy for me to focus and interpret what's happening inside my body as pain, whereas when I'm walking down the street in my black cowboy boots, with wonder in my eyes and the misty air on my skin and a brand new book in my backpack, that pain and discomfort becomes a bit less noticeable and therefore a bit less intense. And this is the way in which I think sensory pleasure is just such a powerful and important tool for healing, especially for anyone who has a chronic illness or chronic pain.
16:59
Because I was aware that I might need to just stay in this hotel room and tend to my tummy for the whole weekend, but I was going to do so in a fine ass terry cloth rope and once I gave myself permission to do that, I started to feel better and the pleasure of being here led to a desire for more pleasure by going outside and exploring. I call that pollinating pleasure, that once we expand into even one layer deeper of pleasure than we are accustomed to, it becomes so much easier to just keep expanding and keep expanding, and that is how we raise our pleasure capacity. So, however big or small, I encourage and uplift the seedlings of desire that may be taking root in your heart to nourish and nurture yourself with pleasure today, tomorrow, this week and as always. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoyed this episode. It would mean so much to me to hear from you in a review on iTunes or to have you hit the five star button wherever you get your podcasts, and I'm so grateful to have you as a listener. Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next week
Let's go on an adventure!
In today's episode we'll enjoy a heart-to-heart on seeking delight in life's surprises, and how the pursuit of pleasure, presence, and luxury can become a path to self-love.
From curating rich experiences beyond sightseeing, to an unexpected way to become the most intriguing woman in the room, design your own sumptuous journey today through the art of solo travel.
