Journey To The Soul

A Voyage Through Pages and Places

• Jacenda Villa

Share episode

Have you ever considered how travel can shape your worldview and fundamentally transform your life? Join us on an enlightening journey as we explore the profound impact of visiting new lands, including my first eye-opening adventure to Paris and London in 2018. Discover the numerous ways travel has fueled my personal growth over the past six years, having visited 17 countries despite the geographical challenges of residing in North America. We unlock the secrets of prioritizing travel on a budget and delve into the unique experiences and cultural insights each destination offers, revealing how these journeys have enriched my understanding of the world.

But travel isn't limited to physical borders; it extends to the realms of the mind. Tune in as we celebrate the unparalleled magic of reading, a form of travel in its own right that has transported me to different worlds and provided invaluable life lessons. Whether you're a seasoned traveler or an avid reader, this episode encourages you to explore books that resonate with your soul, expanding your perspectives and fostering a deep connection with diverse cultures and people. Together, let's embrace the transformative power of both travel and literature as they guide us on paths of learning, personal growth, and an ever-deepening connection with the world around us.

Instagram: @jacendamarie


Speaker 1:

Hi, loves, welcome to the Journey to the Soul podcast. I am your host, jacinda Villa, a spiritual life coach and holistic health coach. Every week, we will be diving deep into all things purpose, wellness, spirituality and creating the life that you dream of. This space is meant to be safe and transformative for you to dive into the deepest parts of yourself. I will share what I have learned from my journey along this path years of research and mentors along the way. Having spent many years living life out of alignment and afraid to go after my dreams, I know firsthand what it means to take the first step down, living a life authentic to you. We are on this road of self-discovery together. It is time for you to live the life you imagined. Hello, loves, welcome to another episode of Journey to the Soul. So excited to be here with you this week.

Speaker 1:

As we tune into this week's episode, I am going to be sharing with you one of the biggest things that has helped me expand my mind, and we are going to be talking about traveling today and this could be traveling abroad, but we're also going to be talking about another version of traveling and how, when you travel, you become a student of the world and you explore. You know, exploring different places our version of reality is really so small, and doing something like traveling can really help you expand your perspective, and this has been something that has been so pivotal in my growth and it's something that I continuously see as I travel. Today, I feel like every time I go somewhere, I come back a slightly different person, with a different perspective of life, because each place that I go to always gives me a different experience, because of the people, the culture, the language that is spoken, the people, the culture, the language that is spoken, everything, the places that you get to experience, the people that you get to meet it all changes your perception of the world. So, with every experience like this, you're constantly changing your worldview. Like this, you're constantly changing your worldview, constantly expanding your worldview, and before 2016, I had actually never been on a plane before.

Speaker 1:

My first plane ride, believe it or not, was when I moved to Tennessee from California, which is where I am originally from. I was 20 years old and shortly after that, I went on my first trip internationally in 2018. And that was such an eye-opening experience for me. Before then, I had never been abroad and you can see that it was quite a jump from being on my first plane two years ago and then going on my first international trip two years later. Before that trip, my world really consisted of the city and the state that I lived in, which I know is most of us. There's a lot of people that have never explored beyond that, you know, beyond the place that they have been to, beyond their hometown, their home state. To be on their hometown, their home state and I am originally from Los Angeles and LA is really a world within itself. Anyone who has ever been there can probably tell and feel that, and I had traveled very little within the US as well. I had been, I think, maybe to Arizona and I had gone to Nevada a few times, but my travel beyond that and I also went to Mexico a few times as well, down south when I was a kid, but I barely remember that. But before then, my world was very, very small, and the international trip that I did was in the summer of 2018, and I went to Paris and London and I completely fell in love, and it has really been in the last five years that I really began to travel the world. It's been something that has been so pivotal to my growth and my evolution over those five years that it's played a big role as well.

Speaker 1:

And I know that other places around the world can travel with a bit more ease. There's Europe, for example, where there are many countries within a short distance. So there are certain places in the world where they're able to be exposed to quite a bit of cultures and diversity at quite a young age, because two hours away via plane you are in a different country and it's not quite like that in the US. You know the US is very big, north America is very big and for easy travel wise you either go somewhere within the US, you go to Canada, or you go down to Mexico, and then you know South America is really more of a little bit of a long-haul flight. So we're a little bit more isolated in what we get to see and experience in North America. And when you visit other places in the world you can see how diverse they are and how a lot of these places particularly Europe, but we could also see it in different parts of Asia, southern Asia too that within just a couple of hours they could be in a completely different culture with a different language, different food, different weather, different everything. So, being in North America sometimes I know that that also adds another layer into what we're able to experience at a younger age, but that shouldn't really inhibit us from going out and traveling by any way.

Speaker 1:

Shape or form. And the world if we allow ourselves to experience it, can be our greatest teacher. There is so much for us to learn from it and the people in it. This isn't just about visiting the place, but it's the people, the customs, the language, looking at other cultures and how other people choose to live their life. I know that what I'm talking about is not as easily accessible to everyone, but there are ways to make this affordable. Where you can work on planning a trip that you really want to do, bit by bit, and making it come into fruition, you can travel very minimally. It really just takes some planning and some devotion to really want to do that, and this is honestly why I didn't travel for the first chapter of my life. It wasn't a priority and I always thought that I couldn't afford it.

Speaker 1:

And I remember going on this first trip to Europe with my sister, and I think I spent the better part of a year working and saving to make the most out of it, because I had never done this before and I dreamed of going to Paris. Paris was always a place that I wanted to go, and she knew that, so that's why we chose these two cities. It is such a transformational thing to experience another country, another way of life, and that experience completely changed my view of the world and I realized that there was so much more to life than what I was experiencing day to day and the little world that I lived in and that I had created for myself. There was so much more to experience than simply living in my city or my state or my country, simply living in my city or my state or my country, and the world completely opened up to me. And I know I talk about this with some people sometimes too who also love to travel.

Speaker 1:

And I know traveling is not for everyone, especially traveling abroad, and I think that that's totally fine. Everyone has, you know what they value and what brings lightness and joy into their life. But I know that if you do love to travel and you allow yourself to experience it, it really becomes like an itch of just wanting to see and experience as much as possible when you begin to think about traveling. If you have never really traveled abroad before, you can do it so many different ways. Or even if you do already travel, perhaps right now you travel more with your partner or family. I think that diversifying the way that you travel and doing a little bit of everything will bring something different to each one of those experiences.

Speaker 1:

Traveling by yourself if you travel a lot with friends and family, being by yourself somewhere will be so different than going on a trip with a family or friend to the same place, and what I'm trying to highlight here is that there's value in all of this because you will have more time to be alone. If you decide to travel alone, and you might be more prone to meeting certain people versus, of course, going with your partner or family or friends, you might just be creating more experiences with them, which, of course, there is value in all of this. There is value in all of this, and I travel a lot with my partner. I travel a lot with family friends. His family travels quite a bit, and so does mine, so those are kind of our main ways to travel, but something that I want to be more intentional about is doing a little bit more solo travel, and not something that I have been doing in my life the last couple of years. So every year, I choose one thing to do by myself, one trip to go on that doesn't involve anyone else, and I think that has been really good for me. And, again, it just expands you in such a different way to, of course, be self-sufficient and comfortable and confident enough to go do this, but to also just open yourself up to everything that's there for you to experience.

Speaker 1:

The other huge thing that I wanted to talk about in this episode is that traveling can also be something that you do with your mind. It's the act of going somewhere, it's experiencing something different, and that is the key to really this entire episode. So the one thing that will expand your mind is travel, but there's more than just a physical way to do this. I do believe that you can also travel within your mind. If you have the ability to physically travel, I strongly encourage you to do that, but that is not the only way. So, whether you have the means or not, the next point that I'm about to touch into is something that really all of us should be leaning to, because it's accessible to us all should be leaning to, because it's accessible to us all. But especially if you feel like right now you know traveling is very limited physical travel, then I really encourage you to lean into this.

Speaker 1:

Next point and the definition of travel, when you take a look at it, is really to move or to go from one place to another. So some kind of transport, some kind of changing your environment, changing your location, and that's something that doesn't have to be done physically. To be done physically. Reading you can explore other worlds from the comfort of your home and it really brings the same exact thing into your life when you take a closer look at it. When you read, it's the same as if you are going and experiencing a new place. When you read, you are open and receptive, you are learning and taking in, you are visualizing in your mind. This is the same thing when you travel abroad, to different countries and worlds on the other side of the world, and this is one of the reasons I love to read. You probably know that if you've heard some of my other podcast episodes about books my favorite books of 2023, and some of my favorite books that changed my life you can listen to those episodes later if you want to.

Speaker 1:

And I am such a curious soul and I've always loved to learn and I have always loved to go to places that don't exist in this realm. And growing up, all I would read was fantasy and I would really read just about anything, but this was by far my favorite genre when I was a kid, growing up. Reading is a form of magic how a book can transport you to another day and age, another world, another life, and you learn so much from every book you read. Life, and you learn so much from every book you read. And it really doesn't matter if it's fiction or non-fiction. Of course, non-fiction is very much of it is going to be very focused on. You know it'll be more black and white things in terms of what you can learn from them, but with fiction, these are life situations, life lessons that you learn through the interactions with characters. It's the same thing that we experience in this life to some degree. It's how to be brave, how to be compassionate, how to go after what you want, even if it all is in a different world, in a different time period, in a completely different place in life.

Speaker 1:

And reading truly is still my one true love and when I didn't have the means to explore the world physically. This allowed me to still travel, and I'm so grateful that reading came into my life when it did, because it was at a very pivotal moment in my life. I was very young when I actually started reading as much as I used to and still do, and it was a very hard time in my life and it really became an escape for me, so I was able to experience this early on in life. If you don't have the means to physically go somewhere, I encourage you to read as much as you can, and it doesn't matter what people tell you that you should and shouldn't be reading, that fiction doesn't count or that you should be reading these books on nonfiction, or you see everyone reading all of the same books. Find books that feed your soul and your mind, and there's a reason that they do feed your soul and this will do so much for you in your life.

Speaker 1:

Traveling brings so much into our life, whether it's through reading or visiting new places across the world, and one of the biggest things that you realize is that there is no one way to do life. You can prioritize what you want. You can focus your energy on whatever you want to do. You get to choose what you value, and you can see that so clearly in how some countries value certain things over others and how they choose to live day to day. I've talked about this in another podcast episode. If you want to listen in on how the Italians do this, the episode is called Embracing the Art of Italian Living, but it's really everywhere that you can see this. So you realize that there really is no such thing as normal or the right way. Those constructs dissolve because there is no normal. There is just what you value.

Speaker 1:

Traveling also shows you how big the world truly is, and you can spend your life discovering other parts of the world. The place you live is only one. You can meet new people, people who live and do life in a different way than you do. This allows you to be able to also make friends. All around the world. You can find people who are more aligned with you and your values. Perhaps you struggle to find people where you live to connect with at a deeper level. There are over 8 billion people in this world. You will find those you connect with. You really will. It makes you more compassionate because you open your heart up to all the different people in this world, you realize how different they can be from you in so many ways. You learn to honor and accept each other, regardless of race, sex, religion. Anything that you feel has separated you from them suddenly dissolves because you just see that they are just people as well. When you read, in particular, you learn invaluable lessons about people and life. You get to experience other ways of being, and your perspective of life changes with each place you visit or each book you read. So every time you pick up a book, know that that is expanding your worldview. Know that that is expanding your worldview, regardless of if it is fiction or nonfiction.

Speaker 1:

I have been able to discover 17 countries in the last six years and this, to me, is just a scratch on the surface to all the places that one can experience, and I visited many of them multiple times because they simply capture my heart. There are certain places that will call to your soul. These places in the world exist for all of us if we allow ourselves to explore. There can be places that feel more like home than your home. So if you feel intrigued or called to explore somewhere in the world, I encourage you to do that, because there is a reason that you have that yearning.

Speaker 1:

Travel really has become more and more important to me over the last few years. Life experiences, learning, making memories these are things that I truly value in my life, and traveling is able to gift me all of this, to any of us, and right now it is a huge part of my life and I believe that it always will be, and I just got back from a six-week trip through three different countries, and I always come back home just overfilled with gratitude at the ability to be able to do this and experience these things. I love looking back at the pictures or the book I picked up, or whatever else, and be able to experience it in the most micro way when I get back home. The places you will see, the people you will meet, what you will experience will completely transform you, and it doesn't need to be in this way. Do what you can where you are. Investing your time into traveling, physically or through reading, is invaluable. It has been my greatest teacher and continues to be. If you want to grow, if you want to expand, if you're craving to level up your life in some way really in any area of life read, travel, go, experience something other than the world that you experience on a daily basis, because it will do so much more for you than a lot of other things that we try to invest our time and energy on.

Speaker 1:

I look forward to talking to you all in my next episode. I might be posting a little bit sporadically over the coming weeks. We are actually in the process of moving. There are some life changes going on. We are probably going to be moving at the end of the year and with the holidays as well and everything. I'm just taking it a day at a time, so I will be posting a little bit sporadically as we get ready to move abroad actually, and I'll be talking about that more as it comes into fruition more. But thank you so much for tuning into this episode. I am sending you so much love and light and I will talk to you all next week. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Please make sure you subscribe so you never miss an episode and share this message with any friends and family. I'd love to hear your takeaways, so share them with me by leaving a comment below or heading over to my Instagram at Jacinda Marie. I am sending you all so much love.