No Matter Where You Go, There You Are

This quote, has hugely hugely changed my outlook on life. 

I have been known to want to move away from my home country, start a new life, go on new adventures and meet new people. I have a yearning to LEAVE to RUN AWAY to EXPLORE that is still very strong within me. I really do feel like a child to the world in a lot of ways. However, I also have learned that if I am looking for an answer or new beginning in different geographical locations… once the nuance of the experiences die out, I am still left with me. I can be in the most beautiful, paradisiacal places in this world, and still be extremely unhappy, because if I am unhappy with myself, I am unhappy ANYWHERE. 

That’s what this episode is all about. I hope you enjoy :) 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to a Curious Mind podcast. I am going to focus this episode today on a quote that I read a couple of years ago by a woman online called Lucy Lord. And I don't know if she came up with this quote or uh or if she got this from somebody else, but I really um but I really appreciated her sharing this quote. And the quote is no matter where you go, there you are. Initially, when I read this quote, I didn't really understand what it meant because it doesn't, it kind of feels like it's quite an obvious thing to say. But the more that you actually look into it and and think about what the words mean, the more potent it becomes. And I have taken it, and I think that this is how she intended it to be. Um I've taken it as it doesn't matter where you are in the world, like who you're with, what you're doing, there you are, it you're you. So if you feel like you know you're not happy with the person that you are, or the things that you're doing, and the kind of like habits you're getting into, you can go on holiday, or you can go to another place, or you can kind of like go and visit someone, and you know, you can you can come away from the environment that you're in, um, and potentially like that change of scenery might help you for a little bit, but you'll soon find that your old habits will come back and creep back in because no matter where you go, there you are, no matter where you are in this world, you carry your baggage with you in any place, in any time, with any type of person, you are you, and you are you in you know your parents' home, you are you in your friend's home, you are you on the other side of the world, you are you in the sea. Like you have the same problems, anxieties, insecurities, um, that potentially may have maybe distracted for a little bit of time whilst it's like the novelty is still kind of present, but you will find that you're you show up no matter where you are in this world, and it's one of life's lessons that has to be learnt the hard way, I believe. And I I feel as though, like, as someone that's in her 20s, um that has kind of like gone through different career choices and I've had the privilege of travelling, um, and just kind of like experienced a little bit of her 20s. I feel like I'm quite equipped to talk about this because I absolutely learnt this lesson the hard way. The minute the the time that I learnt this lesson was I was in this beautiful island off the coast off the coast of Rio de Janeiro. Sorry to my Portuguese listeners, and it was this beautiful island uh with so much natural beauty, the beaches were stunning, the uh forestry was really green because there's a lot of like it rains a lot on the island. Um, like the architecture was really quaint, the people were super kind and friendly, the food was really tasty, um, and I was really depressed. I was really, really sad. I was sat on the outside bit of a restaurant on the beach reading a book of mine on my own. I was about to have this really tasty uh barbecue dinner. I could see and watch and hear the waves coming in and out of the of the beach, and I wanted to be at home, all I wanted to be was at home. I was so unhappy. And it's it's so humbling when you are in quite literally like paradise. Like if you speak to anybody that has been to Ilyangarenji, they will tell you how stunning it is. It's a beautiful island, and I was I was unhappy because I was unhappy within myself, and so I I couldn't I I could try to distract myself, which I did, and it worked for a little bit, but ultimately I was not good within myself, and I think that that lesson is one of those things that is really difficult to wrap your head around unless you are physically in that place, and it's also quite a liberating lesson to learn because there was such a huge part of me that was like, if I'm unhappy in this paradise, then I will be unhappy anywhere, which therefore means that this picture that I have been painting in my mind about my home and the UK and how gloomy and rainy and sad it can be back home, maybe I could be happy back there as well. Maybe. Um it kind of like it just really shifted for me this idea that like you are only joyful when you're away from home, or you're only um you're only yourself when you're in a different place, you know. It's like all of these walls I had produced for myself over my life through insecurity and fear of rejection and um closed-mindedness, all of these things that I had, all of these walls that I had constructed started to crumble slowly. Because I was like, okay, so if I'm if I feel like this here, I therefore could feel happy anywhere. Because if I can feel sad anywhere, I can feel happy anywhere. Um and that hugely like shifted things for me in in my perception of you know what brings me joy what happens in my life that causes me to feel joy. And I then I soon after that experience, I I moved from Rio to São Paulo, and then I came home from São Paulo, and when I came home I felt very, very, very lost and very sad. Um, but I threw myself back into this old routine of mine that I had because I felt as though, you know, I know that structure brings me joy, I know that like my career brings me financial security and uh distraction, and you know, I'm developing skills in another area of my life, so I'm using my brain, so this is going to be really good for me. So I threw myself back into my career thinking that you know, change once again the location of where I'm at to see if it helps, but they continued, the same issues continued because I ultimately needed to do the work myself, I needed to look my ugly depressive thoughts and spirals and anxieties in the eye and start to work through them. And it now means that I'm in a place where whether I am in a place that I'm extremely familiar with, that I've gone to a thousand different times before, that I'm almost like bored of, or if I'm in a completely novel place with a beautiful view and an incredible um like landscape, I will still be the same. I'll still be me. So that you do not need any external any external players to make you feel better, whether that be food, drugs, alcohol, people, landscapes, different views. I think it's super important to, you know, make time to travel, change up scenery, learn more about the world, learn more about different cultures, understand what certain cultures prioritize and see if that fits better with who you genuinely are, and then potentially try to apply that to your life. I think that those lessons are extremely important and super valuable because you kind of are able to pick and choose the life that you would like to construct through learning more about the world. And I think that the world has so much to offer us when it comes to understanding, you know, like how certain cultures like prioritize very much community, other cultures prioritise much more independence, certain cultures prioritise tradition, other cultures prioritise innovation. I think that all of those things like is it it helps it better informs us of the type of life that we would like to construct for ourselves. Florence Given says this that um and I think that she says that uh Abraham Hicks says this, so I might be like um I might be stealing from a couple of people here, but she says that our lives are an accumulation of days because the only thing that we are in control of is the here and now. And so the better informed you can be, and it's not just sort of like I'm not saying this in a hyper-productive, hyper-optimization way of like get as much information and data as you can and make the best decision off of that. Like, no, it's just allowing yourself to go through the ebbs and flows of life, collect the information, understand it, process it, drop things off that you don't like, pick things up that you do, and allow that to churn within you and sit within you and feel like what it is that it brings up for you, so that when you go forwards, no matter where you are, you are happy with yourself, happy with your life, happy with your home, happy with your community, happy with what you've constructed, because you're okay with yourself, because you're okay with your faults, because you're okay with the fact that you have learning to do and growing to do, but that's part of being human, and that's okay. You can be sat in your mum and dad's home with a cup of tea in your hand, with your dog on your lap, or by your feet, and it can bring you the same amount of contentment that it would in another place. No matter where you go, there you are. The idea and the reality of looking at the life that you've built and realizing that it may not be quite aligned to what you would like for your life. It may not be aligned with who you genuinely are, and you've sort of been allowing life to happen to you rather than for you. You know, you wake up and you realise like, holy fucking shit, the life that I have constructed and spent so much time and effort prioritizing things that I thought were important, which I now realize and not. That realization is very, very, very scary. I was somewhat in that place where I was in a job that I was not happy with at all. I was really, really unhappy in that job, and I did need to change my environment when it came to that in order for me to be able to move forwards. But I sit here now in a much better place, thankfully, but I'm unemployed, and that doesn't make me happy. I I don't like being unemployed. It's it's not something that I like, of course, it's luxurious, and I have more time on my hands, and having more time on my hands has been hugely amazing for me, but I still have the same issues and the problems that I would have whether if I was working or not, and so I realize like that your external situation and your and and like the place that you're in could look on the outside very luxurious and um somewhat desirable. But if you were to sit in the reality of that for a whatever it is for that person, you would really quickly come to realise like it's still a human being just getting through each day of their lives that may be dressed up and accessorised by a really pretty yacht or a nice island or loads of beautiful girls or beautiful men, but you're still just a human being figuring life out, trying to understand what it is that makes you happy and joyous, and those distractions will work, they will work for a little while, of course they will, but soon enough you'll become numb to it, and that's when things start to get hairy because then you think, okay, no, what's happening is I don't have enough of what I've got at the moment, so you want more and more and more, and you're constantly looking externally for those answers, and the answers are in here, the answers are all in here, they are in here somewhere, they may be under a lot of rubble, a lot of scar tissue, a lot of neglect, a lot of pain, a lot of grief. But they're here. They are because no matter where you go, there you are. We cannot escape our bodies. I had this realization at the weekend. I went away camping with a few mates, and um, I was like, man, living takes effort. Living takes effort, like obviously, camp camping is somewhat closer to like how our ancestors used to live. Somewhat, I know that it's still very far away. Like walking to the toilet, walking to the showers, having to like you know, turn the stove on and make sure that everything is sorted and you get the food out, and like everything is just like it just takes more effort to live, sorting through your stuff, and like how often the tent just goes like a bomb's gone off because you're trying to find a specific thing because you don't know where it is because you've not got like wardrobes and cupboards that make it easier to filter through things and sift through things. Like living takes effort, being a human being takes effort, it really does. And like we fall into these routines and these ways of life that facilitate it, and it's kind of like almost like the autopilot comes on, and therefore life feels a little bit easier, and like, and that's when you realize, like, god, so much time has passed, and so much has happened, and you know, I've not really lived, and then you do something like camping, and you realize, like, god, no, like living really like it can be a lot, and in the best way, I loved it, I loved it so dearly because I I was present with every single thing I was doing, brushing my teeth, making sure I take my toothbrush and my toothpaste, and I've got the right thing, and oh no, I need a hairband to put my hair up so that I can wash my face, and like it's just so many things that you do that, like it takes effort, you know, it takes effort to do these things, and it brings you back to the moment so much more, and it gives you time to think about like, oh my god, I really enjoyed doing that one walk, and god, I love for me. Like, I was like, I love the water, I need to be by water more often. I I I love going in water and being in water, but I like like open-body water, like big spaces of water, not just like a swimming pool. So it's like doing something different. I've I've collected that information, and I really hope that I apply that to my everyday life going forward so that I can enjoy that part of myself, you know. There's only so many answers you can get externally, but you are you till the day you die, so you kind of need to be the one to look within and understand yourself the best, so that when it comes to spending your hard-earned money on a trip next time, you know what kind of place you'd like to go to. Would you want to go somewhere that's you know on a beach with like a slower pace of life? Would you like to go to somewhere where you can do long walks? I never thought I was a walking person, funnily enough. I never thought I was someone that enjoyed like long walks and doing that style of life. I love it because I was exposed to it one day in my life, and all of a sudden I'm like, wow, I love the I love the satisfaction that it brings. I love the sense of adventure, I love the problem solving, the active problem solving you're having to do. Like, I just I love all of those things about that experience, you know. It's something I never would have thought I would be doing, like thinking about doing like a walking holiday, you know, spending my money on that something like that. I wrote down here as well on my little ideas page for the for the episode: give into fear, worry, or the unknown, and trust in your strength to get through it. And I I really like that because I remember when I started the job that I left at the beginning of this year, um I quickly realized that it's not the kind of role that I'd want to be, it's not the kind of job I I thought it was gonna be, and therefore it wasn't something I was interested in. And I was I was flooded with anxiety, like I was really, really scared about like this being my reality for a long period of time. And I was sat down having lunch one day, probably second weekend, and I was like, oh my god, I'm gonna be like this for the next few years. Like, what am I gonna do? I'm not gonna grow the skills in the areas that I want to grow them in, like, how am I gonna move forwards? I'm like going down this. I could like I envisioned immediately this career path in my mind and like this thing that I would be doing, and I was like, I don't want that for myself, I do not want that for myself. That doesn't make me happy or excited in the slightest, and then I caught myself and I was like, uh, how much have you achieved and accomplished in your life? I trust in you that you will not allow us to sit in this type of place for too long. I trust that you have it within you to be able to construct and produce and create a different environment for us soon. Sit with it for now. This is the reality for now. But I know that I won't be in this for too long because I knew in my in my strength, I knew in my bones that I had this. I knew I knew I could do this situation, I knew I could deal with the unknown, I knew I could navigate this difficult moment because I have done it before in many different ways in my life, and I'm strong and I'm versatile and I adapt. And it was no different for this certain situation, so much so that I went above and beyond anything I could have ever, ever imagined in my mind. I went above and beyond realizing that no, I genuinely am going to pursue a career in becoming a therapist, and therefore I'm gonna leave this career completely and throw myself into this new career. Like I could have never, I would have never imagined that that was going to be the case for me. And you know, potentially pursuing a career like working in a gym or a coffee shop or something like that, like it wasn't even like a possibility in my mind. But it's because once again, I showed myself I have the fucking strength, I'm so able, I can do this, I'm enough. Because no matter where I go, there I am. Whether I'm in whether I'm traveling, you know, in a country that I barely speak the language, barely understand, don't really know the culture, on my own, trying to know where to go, who to talk to, and what I need in order to do this one thing, and da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. I'm the same woman that did that as I'm the same woman that fell into a role in a new career path that was not for her, and therefore she decided soon enough, like, nah, this is not for me, let's take this opportunity as a growing curve and fucking throw ourselves into this next phase. And like we forget, we forget that we've got that power and that strength and that resilience within us. That's okay, because we don't always need to be powerful, we don't always need to be resilient, but when we need to, you can trust in yourself. Allow yourself to trust in your strength, allow yourself to trust in your resilience, allow yourself to trust in the fact that it may not go the exact way I want it to go, but it's because I don't know all the possibilities out there. You don't know what you don't know. You don't know what you don't know. So just give in. Hold on to what you know, know that you've got enough to get you through. And the rest you'll learn and adapt and overcome. We are so much more resilient than we think. We are so much more resilient than we think. I'm gonna wrap it up there for this episode. No matter where you go, there you are. And you are beautiful, and you are welcomed, and you are loved, and you are enough. And you're resilient, and you are worthy. But no matter where you are in the world, no matter who you're surrounded by, it's you. It's you with you. Okay, thank you so much for listening. I will see you again next week.