Your Bags Are Packed. Now What About Your Love Life?

Whether you're married to a man who won't leave the zip code, freshly single and figuring out what solo even means, or somewhere in the beautiful messy middle, this episode is for you. Nicky and Heide get personal about the relationships that couldn't keep up with their wanderlust, and sit down with dating expert and somatic coach Lauren Salaun to talk about what it really means to be a woman over 45 who loves to travel and is still working out the love part. No guilt trips. No generic advice. Just an honest conversation about desire, independence, and what you actually deserve, in a relationship and on the road.

Transcript

Your Bags Are Packed. Now What About Your Love Life?

with Lauren Salaun, Dating Expert & Somatic Life Coach

Hosts: Nicky Omohundro & Heide Brandes

NICKY  [0:00:05]

Welcome back to Untethered and Wanderwise, the podcast for women who refuse to let anyone else decide how far they go. I'm Nicky Omohundro.

HEIDE  [0:00:10]

And I'm Heide Brandes. Today's episode might be the most personal one we have ever recorded.

NICKY  [0:00:27]

It really might be, because we're not just talking about travel today. We are talking about love, desire, independence, and what happens when your wanderlust runs straight into your relationship — or what happens when there isn't a relationship, and suddenly the whole world is yours to figure out.

HEIDE  [0:00:45]

That is the story of honestly most of the women I know. Women who have built their lives, done everything right, and are now in this second chapter asking, "Who do I want to be, and where do I want to go?"

NICKY  [0:00:58]

So our guest today is here to help answer that. Lauren Salaun is a dating expert, somatic life and success coach, podcast host, and transformational facilitator — I love that word — based in Los Angeles. She has helped thousands of women reconnect with their feminine power, heal their nervous systems, and step into relationships and lives that actually feel good. Lauren, welcome to the show.

LAUREN  [0:01:26]

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to talk about this. I love to travel, so I am very excited about this topic.

NICKY & HEIDE  [0:01:33]

So do we. It's one of the best things you can do for yourself, I think.

NICKY  [0:01:38]

So I want to read your bio out loud and in full for our listeners, because I think it sets the stage for everything we're going to dig into today. Lauren is a dating expert, somatic life and success coach, transformational facilitator, host, and speaker. She helps women embody their feminine energy, heal their nervous systems, and reprogram their subconscious minds so they can become more confident, magnetic, and aligned in their lives.

NICKY & HEIDE  [0:02:08]

I like the way that sounds. So do I. I'm sure Lauren, you would agree too.

LAUREN  [0:02:12]

Absolutely, right?

NICKY  [0:02:14]

Lauren guides women to step away from hustle culture, embrace their worth, and create more ease, flow, and authenticity. Lauren is especially passionate about helping women attract healthy, loving relationships by elevating their standards and strengthening their boundaries. She is also the host of the Amplify podcast. Lauren, that bio does a lot of work. Tell us how you got here.

LAUREN  [0:02:40]

Thank you. Oh my gosh. So I have always been somebody who loved to do all the things. And as you've heard in my bio, I help women break free from that hustle culture, that go-go-go way of living. I was that kind of girl, that kind of young woman — all of that for so much of my life.

As women who are also high-achieving, when you're operating that way, it gives you a lot of amazing rewards: good jobs, good pay, recognition, amazing experiences — all of those things, which are nice to have. But for me, from a very early age, I was doing all the things and wanting to be the best at all the things. And a huge part of that was because so much of my self-worth was attached to what was happening externally.

How am I perceived? Am I perfect? Am I the best at things? Getting my worth from what I was achieving and doing, not necessarily from the inner stuff. When your worth and validation is so attached to things outside of yourself, you're just feeding a black hole. You're trying to fill a gap that can't really be filled.

So yes — a lot of accomplishments, good jobs, recognition, all of that. And I got to this place where I was incredibly burnt out and depleted. I felt exhausted on a soul level. This was in my mid-twenties. And if we zoom out, that is operating in a lot of masculine energy. Part of that process for me was also attracting a partner — my ex-husband — who was very much in his feminine energy, because we complemented one another.

As I started to do a lot of work on myself to heal what was inside driving that "I must achieve, must be the best" — the perfectionism, the overachieving, the self-worth struggles — as I started to heal that and find more peace, calm, and true confidence, I started to feel more at home in my feminine energy. And I started to see the absence of that really anchored masculine energy in my relationship.

So I ultimately decided to end my marriage in 2020, and a whole other experience of growth and healing came from that. It has continued to evolve into: okay, who is the woman I've been created to be? So much of my life up until the last handful of years was operating in survival mode. Really getting to know who I'm meant to be from a much healthier, grounded place — and then asking, what does that look like in relationships now?

A lot of the work I do comes from my own journey, and I want to support women who have had a very similar path. I want to help women not make the same mistakes I made and had to learn the long way, the hard way. Because the one thing we can't get back is our time. If I can help women course-correct sooner rather than later and do that inner work so they can have a beautiful, aligned life and relationship — I love being able to do that.

SHIFTING AT 45+ — WHAT CHANGES

NICKY & HEIDE  [0:06:53]

I think that resonates with so many of our listeners. They've built their lives being strong, being self-sufficient, being in their masculine energy in a lot of ways. Does that shift you're describing happen differently for women who are in their 40s and 50s versus someone who recognizes it in their 20s or 30s?

LAUREN  [0:07:17]

Yes, absolutely. I was at the midpoint of those age groups when I ended my marriage in my early 30s. And I was not super excited about the vision I saw starting to unfold in front of me. It felt like the life I envisioned was going to be very hard to get there — which it was not.

In your 40s and 50s, there is so much more perspective. You know yourself so much better than you did in your 20s and 30s. We become wiser. And it's fascinating — the woman I was when I decided to end my marriage and the woman I am now — I'm like, "That wasn't a hundred years ago?" My life has changed so much, and for the better.

You don't get it all figured out. You just evolve, and hopefully make more effective, better choices with each chapter, and fewer of the same mistakes. In your 40s and 50s there's a lot more perspective. And I would say there's less settling, less justification, less compromise — not in an unhealthy way. Compromise within reason is a good and healthy thing in healthy relationships. But you evolve. You're going to be less compromising on things that really matter. Younger women might be more inclined to compromise on the things that matter, and may not yet know what things are truly important.

NICKY  [0:09:09]

We're in our early 50s now, and I'm two years post-divorce.

HEIDE  [0:09:13]

And I'm six.

NICKY  [0:09:17]

You had mentioned 2020. I think the COVID year made a lot of people reexamine where they were and what they wanted. I remember thinking to myself, "Huh, I'm not really happy with where I am. Do I stay the course? Do I change it? Do I get out?"

HEIDE  [0:09:37]

That happened for me a few years ago, and I was like, "I'm out." I had to examine my life, and I was like, "I'm not willing to tolerate this anymore. I'm not willing to settle." And that was enough.

NICKY  [0:09:47]

And I think it's really interesting what you said about compromise, because a lot of times we are asked to compromise — and of course, this show is about travel, about women wanting to travel. We run into so many women who want to travel but their partners don't. Travel is such a through-line for this whole show. It's a way of reclaiming yourself.

LAUREN  [0:10:12]

Yeah.

NICKY  [0:10:13]

Let's get into the meat of what we're here to talk about, because our listeners are going to feel this in their bones.

SEGMENT 1 — THE NON-TRAVELING PARTNER

HEIDE  [0:10:22]

Lauren, this is what we hear from our listeners all the time. She has the bucket list. She has the passport. She has been saving Airbnb links for a year. And her partner — bless his heart — has zero interest. He would genuinely rather be on the couch watching the game. How common is that, and why does it create so much friction between an otherwise loving couple?

LAUREN  [0:10:48]

How common it is — I can't give an exact number. But it's probably more common than we realize. If travel is such a passion for one person and not for the other, there's going to be some sort of compromise one way or the other. "Okay, then we're not going to travel as much as I'd like." Or you get to that place where it's, "I want to travel constantly — and I don't want to travel at all." Is it all happening separately?

One of the biggest things in that situation is making sure to approach it with as little resentment as possible toward your partner. Resentment in any form within a relationship never works out effectively for either person. So you want to address things before you get to feeling any resentment.

Have really open, clear conversations: "Hey, this is such a passion of mine. It makes me feel so alive. I love it so much. In my perfect world, we'd be taking a trip together this often." And then hear from your partner — what is their perfect world? If yours is traveling together once a month and theirs is twice a year, how can you meet in the middle?

I think it's sad to never travel with your person at all. But if the traveler's soul needs more than just those two shared trips, then you get to have that conversation: "If I really need this, what does it look like for me to take some trips with friends, or go solo?" And then figuring out a system that makes both people feel safe and comfortable, so it doesn't become a point of resentment.

NICKY  [0:12:47]

And that's something that Heide and I have both lived through. When I was married, my ex-husband was very much a homebody — especially after he retired. I kept traveling. I would plan the trips, pack my bag, and go. Sometimes I'd bring one or all three of our children. Sometimes I left him home with the kids.

For a long time I told him — and told myself — "This is fine. This is just the way we are." Because he didn't want to travel. But it wasn't fine.

HEIDE  [0:13:12]

It was not fine.

NICKY  [0:13:14]

And I didn't know this until after we divorced — he had been quietly building resentment that he never mentioned. Both sides had. And then after we split, he actually said, "You know what? I really resented that. But I never would have brought it up had we not split up."

LAUREN  [0:13:31]

Ugh. And that's the thing — your responsibility, and your partner's responsibility, is to bring it up if something is bothering you. The decision you get to make is: either bring it up as neutrally as possible from a problem-solving, we're-on-the-same-team perspective — or get over it. Because if you're not willing to have the conversation, then you're not really entitled to carry the resentment.

I know you both have more life experience than me. My marriage was almost five years, ten years together, and no children. So my perspective is very different. But one of the things I practice within my own relationship and encourage with my clients is: if you feel that little seed of resentment growing, you have to talk about it before it becomes something huge.

View yourself as on the same team. It's not you versus your partner. The problem is the difference around travel, not each other. You can say, "Hey, I need to talk to you about something. I'm on the same side as you. I'm sorry I've kept this from you. I'm feeling resentment over this, and I really want your help finding a solution we both feel good about."

The more you avoid having that conversation, the more it builds up in your body — and the more it will disrupt the thing that you love. If you're carrying that heavy energy when you travel, which should light you up and fill you up, you're not going to enjoy it the way you deserve to.

HEIDE  [0:14:44]

That's a really great point. For people who haven't learned to address resentment, it's an uncomfortable conversation to have, and then you start feeling guilt. Is there a somatic or subconscious signature to the guilt that women feel when they want to travel, their partner doesn't, and they go anyway? What is actually happening in the body when we keep suppressing that desire?

LAUREN  [0:15:13]

I love that question. If you keep suppressing the things you really want, and then do them anyway while still feeling it in your body, you're not honoring that desire very well. Now you're just doing it with guilt and stuck energy, and it is going to manifest somewhere else. That energy is either going to block things in your body, your mind, your emotions — or it's going to come out through possibly dis-ease, or physical pain. It's going to come out somewhere.

For any women experiencing that guilt or resentment: if you haven't talked about it, you can still have that conversation. View yourself on the same team. It's not, "I want to travel and you don't, so we are at odds and you're my enemy." It's, "I want to travel. You don't want to as much. So the problem is our difference around travel — not you. We get to stay on the same side and address that together."

The more you avoid that conversation, the more it will build in your body — and the more it will disrupt the thing that you love. If you're carrying that heavy energy when you travel, which should fill you up and fulfill you completely, you're not going to enjoy it the way you deserve to.

NICKY  [0:17:42]

Exactly. And I love that reframing. I think it's the permission many people need to find that joy again when they do travel.

HEIDE  [0:17:52]

I have to ask — at what point does mismatched wanderlust stop being just a preference issue and start being a signal about something bigger in the relationship?

LAUREN  [0:18:06]

That's such a great question, and I'd want to look at it on a case-by-case basis. What are all the other compatibility markers going on? If this is a big thing, but everything else is amazing, then maybe there's more room for this to be a B instead of an A-plus.

But the other thing — what is the attitude of both people? Is there any wiggle room in either direction? Is there a compromise available? If the traveler says, "I need this," and the partner says, "I want you to do that — what do you need to make it happen? Go with friends, go solo — I'll hold things down at home." That is a very different situation than a partner who says, "Yeah, do what you want," and then is cold or disengaged when you get home, and couldn't care less about hearing a single story from the trip.

That second scenario — while I don't think it's hopeless — is a different approach and requires a different kind of work.

SEGMENT 2 — SOLO TRAVEL & FEMININE ENERGY

NICKY  [0:19:41]

Let's talk about the women on the other side of that. They're single — by choice, by circumstance, by divorce, or by "I finally left" — and they're stepping into solo travel for the first time. What do you see happen to women in that transition?

LAUREN  [0:19:58]

Absolutely. You already said it — travel can be so healing. It reconnects you with yourself. You get to go on adventures with yourself, and I think you learn a lot in that situation. A lot of people never do any sort of solo travel at all.

My first solo travel experiences came after my divorce. I also traveled a lot during COVID with friends — but the solo trips are so freeing. You really learn about yourself. You get to go somewhere where nobody knows you. And so in a way, you get to try on new versions of yourself.

Where it's like, "Oh, this feels fresh. Nobody knows me here. I've been wanting to lean into my confidence more." You get to lean into different sides of yourself. We as women are very multifaceted, magical, complex beings, and you have freedom to explore that more when you're traveling — with less risk, in a way.

NICKY  [0:21:38]

I love that you said that, because that's something we've talked about. When you go somewhere solo and nobody knows you, you can be anybody. You don't have to be shy Jenny from high school. You can be wild, brave Jenny — who, as far as anyone else knows, has always been this very confident person.

HEIDE  [0:22:02]

There's a certain freedom to that — and a certain fear too, because you're solo for the first time. You don't have someone to split the meal with or navigate the train station with. It's such a complicated dichotomy, but also a beautiful one.

LAUREN  [0:22:21]

Absolutely. And I think travel can also bring out a lot of your feminine energy. The masculine energy side of it is the planning, making sure you're safe, the structure, all the logistics. But when you're actually traveling — you're in a new place. You get to be so present: trying new foods, seeing new architecture, new experiences, new people. It forces you to be more present and in the moment, tapping into your senses. And also more fluid, able to go with the flow.

NICKY  [0:23:05]

And let's talk about feminine energy, because you hinted at it. I want to be honest — that's a concept some of our listeners have complicated feelings about. I know up until my divorce I kind of did. I didn't feel like I could dive into my feminine energy. A lot of women who have built everything by being strong and independent, by being in their masculine — how would you explain feminine energy to a woman who has had to run on hustle her whole life?

LAUREN  [0:23:36]

On a very basic level, masculine energy is our output and doer energy. It's thinking, doing, taking action. Feminine energy is our receptive energy. It's more in the realm of emotions. It's about receiving and being, compared to doing, thinking, and taking action.

So many high-achieving women are very comfortable in their masculine energy. And just by way of living in the Western world — especially if you are single and taking care of yourself — you have to be good at being in your masculine energy. It's never about never being in your masculine energy. It's about what balance feels best for you.

For me and many of the women I work with, they've been in that high-achieving, overachieving, perfectionist mode — struggling with self-worth, but to the outside world looking so confident. And yet so much of their worth is coming from that doing. That do-do-do. Over time, operating that way, you get exhausted.

So it's not about, "Never be in your masculine; feminine is where you should always be." It's about asking: is how I'm operating right now producing the results I want in my life — including how I want to feel? You can be crossing everything off the list, have the house, the career, the bank account, all the accomplishments — and feel terrible. That's where there is work to do.

NICKY  [0:27:02]

There's a mismatch. And in the work you do, you focus on what you call the Queen Codes — four keys that make you the most magnetic woman in any room. I think they map directly onto travel in a very real way. Can you walk us through them?

LAUREN  [0:27:24]

Absolutely. The Queen Codes are four keys to really step into that magnetic, what I call queen energy — that feminine energy that is truly embodied, elevated, and customized to you.

The first is an unshakable self-concept: being so clear on who you are and being so grounded in that, that someone else's opinion doesn't completely derail you or challenge your entire identity.

The second is free self-expression. Because if you are so clear on who you are internally, one of the ways you prove and affirm that is by how you express yourself in the world. When you know clearly who you are and what your standards are, that is captivating. People are drawn to people who are very clear in who they are — and when you express that outwardly, that's magnetic.

The third is being very present — undistracted presence. This is highly magnetic. If you think about someone who is fully focused and present with you versus someone who is distracted by their phone and their next meeting — which one pulls you in more? Obviously the one who is present. Undistracted presence is such a powerful feminine embodiment tool.

And the fourth is owning your feminine and sexual energy — and I don't want people to get confused by that. It's not about sex. It's about remembering that we are designed to be incredibly magnetic. In nature, the egg comes out on her own schedule. If nobody is there for her, she moves on and comes back the next time. The sperm is what chases after the egg. She is not changing her schedule or her path for them. We are designed to be magnetic. So when we do less and we be more — when we're more present and more connected to ourselves — that magnetism gets cranked up automatically.

HEIDE  [0:32:53]

These are things I think we know inherently, but we forget in the hustle and bustle of regular life. Lauren, let's get real — because I think a lot of our listeners are going to be very excited about this next part. They're smart, experienced women who in a lot of cases have not dated in five, ten, even twenty years —

NICKY  [0:33:25]

Twenty-eight.

HEIDE  [0:33:27]

Twenty-eight years — suddenly back out there. Or they're dating while traveling. Or they're wondering if they will ever meet someone who can actually keep up with them. What is the biggest mistake you see these women make?

SEGMENT 3 — DATING, TRAVELING & ATTRACTION

LAUREN  [0:33:42]

The biggest mistake I see women making around dating — and travel gets to be a part of this too — is not getting crystal clear on what really matters to them and what kind of relationship they're looking for.

Everyone should get clear on their must-haves, their nice-to-haves, and their deal-breakers. Must-haves: if somebody doesn't have one, they're disqualified. Deal-breakers: if someone has one, you end it there. Because what I see so many women do is either not have clarity on those things at all — setting themselves up to waste their time — or they put nice-to-haves in the must-have category.

I see this a lot: "He has to be 6'1"." Does he? Really? "He can't be bald." He can't really control that. How much does that have to do with his character? Put that in the nice-to-have column.

Or they've got their must-haves and deal-breakers, but then they meet someone with great chemistry and suddenly they're willing to ignore a red flag. No. Stop it. If you truly love to travel, then travel goes in your must-have list. You get to decide what that compatibility looks like. If you need a partner who will travel with you once a quarter — that's a must-have. Know what it looks like for you.

Also ask yourself: what are my dating goals right now? "I'm only dating for marriage" is very different from "I want to meet interesting people and have interesting experiences." Not being clear on that will end up wasting your time and someone else's.

HEIDE  [0:37:25]

This is something I genuinely struggle with. Like Nicky, I was with the same person for many years, then we split up. I'm single right now. And when I'm on the road — which is often — something just shuts down. I don't even know how to describe it. I don't know if I'm too in task mode or too in my own world. But connection feels harder when I travel, not easier. It's almost like I've got this built-in excuse: "Well, I'm on a trip, so I don't have to connect with anyone."

NICKY  [0:38:05]

And I see the complete opposite. When I'm traveling and was fully single, I would literally open the apps just to see who was out there. Mostly swiping left. But then the second someone got demanding about my time — wanting more attention than I could give from, say, Cartagena — I was done. Completely out.

HEIDE  [0:38:28]

Yes. And that's the thing — we love the idea of meeting someone while traveling, but we are also on our own schedule, in our own freedom. The moment a man makes it feel like a job —

NICKY  [0:38:35]

Deal-breaker. Instant.

HEIDE  [0:38:37]

And then they wonder why we're not more available. I am standing in front of a cathedral in Seville. I am not checking my phone.

LAUREN  [0:38:45]

I'm sure that part of it for you, Heide, is feeling like, "I'm only here for a little while, so what's the point?" I would invite you: if you're curious about making a fun connection, all you need to say to yourself is, "I'm open. I'm open to connecting with somebody interesting today." That might be a friendship. It might be some fun chemistry. But just that — because the energy we go out into the world with can dictate so much of the energy we receive.

If you're going out with, "I have to get to this place at this time, and there's no point in making connections" — that energy gets felt. But if you're going out with, "I want to have an interesting conversation with somebody new today" — even just that can put you in a completely different energetic state.

NICKY  [0:39:31]

I like that. That feels like it removes the pressure — it's not "I'm going to get on Tinder and set up a coffee date in Peru." It's just, "I'm going to be open today."

HEIDE  [0:39:44]

Open to having an interesting conversation with that stranger who looks very interesting right now.

LAUREN  [0:39:52]

Exactly. It doesn't have to become this whole production. And Nicky — for you, with something new going on relationship-wise, which is very exciting — when you're on these trips, part of the point is to feel free and experience freedom, to spend your time exactly how you want. So when someone challenges that freedom, you're like, "Get away." And that resistance is actually information. If you feel, "No, I really don't want to change my plans for you," sometimes that's a signal to honor. Then don't.

NICKY  [0:40:46]

One thing I know we haven't talked about yet — you speak a lot about the science of attraction. Activating a man's bonding hormones, deepening desire, inspiring commitment. Break that down for us, because I think that's something most of us were never taught — or are seriously out of practice with.

LAUREN  [0:41:09]

Yes, absolutely. This stuff is super fascinating. There are a handful of hormones related to attraction for both men and women. Dopamine, oxytocin, testosterone, and vasopressin. Men and women feel attraction and bonding very differently.

Dopamine is about novelty, excitement, that rush. Testosterone is about accomplishing something — that take-care-of-business energy. Vasopressin is the hormone attached to achieving or earning something under healthy stress. And oxytocin is the bonding hormone — more strongly activated in women, which is what gets us to bond deeply. Men experience it too, but it generally comes later for them.

As women, we are more oxytocin-driven. When we feel closeness and emotional bonding, we want to give all our attention and energy — it feels amazing. But men, in the earlier stages, need more mystery and spikes in dopamine before the bonding really kicks in. And vasopressin gets activated when a man works through some healthy stress to accomplish or earn something.

A very simple example: asking a man to do something for you. "Oh my gosh, I didn't realize I ran out of my favorite oat milk for my matcha. Will you bring me some later?" He has a task. He has to go out into the world and accomplish it. He gets the reward of your genuine appreciation and acknowledgment when he does. That's going to spike his testosterone and dopamine. Those are the kinds of things women don't realize they're bypassing when they do everything themselves.

And this is where a lot of highly independent women get in their own way. They're so used to doing everything themselves — often because they learned from an early age that they were not going to be taken care of the way they needed to be. So as an adult, that becomes, "I am the only person who will take care of me." Which means they're not leaving any room for a man to step up. And so they tend to attract men who are more in their feminine energy, because that's the space that's available.

NICKY  [0:44:40]

And part of it too is that a woman will think, "I really need that oat milk, but I don't want to put him out. I'll just do it myself." You're saying she's actually depriving him of the gift of being able to show up for her.

LAUREN  [0:44:53]

Yes, exactly. I believe that healthy, masculine men want to do things to make the woman they're interested in happy. They want to go do it. We set the energetic blueprint of the relationship and cast the vision. "Oh my gosh, here's what I would love. This would make me so happy. That would be amazing." And then he takes that, goes out into the world, gets it done so that vision can come to life.

A lot of women don't realize that we have so much more power over what our relationship looks like — not by doing and orchestrating everything ourselves, but by being so in tune with the vision we want, communicating that clearly and directly, and then allowing him to tap into his task-oriented, masculine energy to go make it happen.

For women who have been hyper-independent, they're not leaving any room. They end up more burnt out and exhausted. And they're more likely to attract men who are in their feminine energy, because they're not leaving space for anyone else to step in.

NICKY  [0:47:45]

I have a perfect example of this. New relationship. I'm so used to doing everything myself that early on, he looked at me and said, "Would you please let me do my job?" And I said, "What are you talking about?" He said, "It's my job to get the door."

LAUREN  [0:48:00]

Yes!

NICKY  [0:48:00]

And I was like, "Oh — you would like to do that?" He said, "Yes ma'am." And I said, "Well then by all means, go ahead."

LAUREN  [0:48:08]

I love it. And that's exactly it. Something I like to say to women: "Yes, you are capable. You can do all these things. You've been living alone and handling everything. Of course you can." But — would it be nice if there was someone helping carry that load? Would it be nice to feel more supported? Would it be nice to have somebody pour into you that way? Most of the time, the answer is yes.

LIGHTNING ROUND

NICKY  [0:48:49]

This hopefully has everyone nodding their heads. Now — I want to do our lightning round. Are you ready?

LAUREN  [0:49:00]

Yes, let's do it!

NICKY  [0:49:03]

Destination that completely changed you as a person?

LAUREN  [0:49:06]

My biggest solo trip was in 2023. After the Maui fires, I went out there for a week to volunteer. That was the farthest and longest solo trip I'd done, and it was so beautiful and so incredible. Friendships that still last to this day.

NICKY  [0:49:33]

Question number two. The one item you never travel without?

LAUREN  [0:49:39]

Saying my phone is too boring. I would say a good book — though I don't always crack it open. But actually, a journal. Definitely a journal.

NICKY  [0:50:02]

Most magnetic city in the world for a single woman?

LAUREN  [0:50:06]

Somewhere in Italy — like Florence. I studied abroad in Florence in college. Or Bali. One of my best friends is living there right now. Actually — it's Bali.

HEIDE  [0:50:28]

Biggest red flag on a first date?

LAUREN  [0:50:34]

I'll give two. The first — if they talk badly about their exes. Calling an ex "crazy" or anything like that. That's a red flag. How someone talks about past relationships matters. And if someone is unable to see how they contributed to the dynamic, that's something to pay attention to. It's never just one person.

The second — and this might be controversial — if he wants to split the bill, it's not a date. It's just not a date.

NICKY  [0:51:26]

And if he wonders why he's not getting a second date, you have to inform him that it's because he asked to split the bill. It happened to me. When he got the bill, he said, "You appreciate transparency, right?" I said, "Yes." He said, "Do you mind if we split the bill?" And I said, "I don't mind at all. But you did ask earlier why you weren't getting a second date — this is why."

LAUREN  [0:51:52]

And that would be a signal to me that he doesn't actually want a second date. If you're genuinely interested, you cover the bill.

HEIDE  [0:52:03]

He also told Nicky he'd had another date earlier that same day — one of his dates had cancelled, so she was the backup.

NICKY  [0:52:11]

He was an oversharer. So — red flag addition: if you cannot self-edit and share things that absolutely no one needs to know on a first date, that's a flag too.

LAUREN  [0:52:20]

Hard flag. I'm all for dating multiple people until you're sexually involved or explicitly exclusive — I think that's fine. But you absolutely do not need to say, "My lunch date today was great. How has your day been?" Self-edit.

NICKY  [0:52:49]

Last question: what is the most untethered thing you have ever done?

LAUREN  [0:52:59]

Honestly — I think one of the most untethered things I've done was getting my divorce. I truly believe the trajectory of my life would have looked very different had I stayed. I stayed too long. I knew we were headed toward a red line. But I also could have stayed much longer, because it was "good enough" — and it was good enough in a way that was actually not good enough at all.

The second part of that answer is: I've been working for myself for the last decade. That has been the best adventure and so well-suited to who I am. Deciding to pave my own path, steer my own ship — it's a beautiful, exciting adventure that changes all the time and gives me the freedom to work from wherever I want. Even if I choose to work from my home office most of the time, I love knowing that all I have to do is close my laptop, throw it in my bag, and go anywhere.

CLOSING

NICKY  [0:54:42]

Same for us. Lauren — this has genuinely been one of my favorite conversations we've had on this show. You've given us so much to sit with. Where can listeners find you, and what do you want them to do next?

LAUREN  [0:54:56]

You can find me at laurensalaun.com — L-A-U-R-E-N-S-A-L-A-U-N dot com. If you want to do any coaching with me, explore my programs, all of that is there. My podcast will also be coming back in June, which is super exciting — it's called Amplify.

What I would want everyone to do for themselves next is get really clear on this question: what does the next-level dream version of my life look like right now? What's going on in her life? And then take one action step toward that.

A couple of years ago, one of the things on my vision board was riding horses — I used to ride growing up and missed it terribly. I thought, it probably doesn't make sense to get my own horse right now. So I started volunteering at a horse rescue. I've been doing that for over two years now, and I get to ride horses every weekend. What does that dream life look like? Take one step closer to it.

NICKY  [0:56:22]

That's beautiful. And listeners, we will have all of Lauren's links in the show notes — her website, her Instagram, her podcast Amplify — so you don't need to scramble for a pen. Lauren, thank you. This was genuinely a beautiful conversation.

LAUREN  [0:56:41]

Thank you both so much. I loved it. I really enjoyed it. Thank you for having me.

NICKY  [0:56:46]

And for anyone listening — if this one landed for you, please share it. Send it to a friend who is about to take her first solo trip. Send it to a friend who is back in the dating pool. And send it to yourself for the moment you forget that your desire is not the problem. Your desire is your compass. Until next time — stay untethered, stay Wanderwise, and take up every inch of space this world has for you. See you out there.

CONNECT WITH LAUREN SALAUN

Find all of Lauren's resources, coaching programs, and podcast in the links below.

Website:  www.laurensalaun.com

Instagram:  instagram.com/laurensalaun  |  @laurensalaun

YouTube:  youtube.com/@laurensalaunofficial

TikTok:  tiktok.com/@laurensalaun  |  @laurensalaun

Podcast:  Amplify — available on all major podcast platforms