Lost on Purpose: Say Yes to You Before It's Too Late | Tracy Smith on Alison Answers

Tracy Smith, this amazing Ph.D. and writer, was 50, feeling trapped as "just" a mom and employee—then boom, she grabs a one-way ticket to Iceland days before her first-ever solo trip across the Atlantic. She ends up roaming 30+ countries, chasing monkey scratches (and rabies shots all over Chicago!), going on 100 dates, and finally ditching the pressure to "fit in" everywhere. It's her messy, real story of finding belonging right inside herself—no fairy-tale ending, just honest growth that hits home.

Watch this if:
👉 You're tired of mom/job/life roles hiding the real you
👉 Midlife or empty nest has you wondering "who am I now?"
👉 You look for belonging out there but miss those tiny daily wins
👉 Big dreams (like travel) feel stuck behind fear or "duty"

You’ll walk away with:
✅ Easy ways to start small—like texting that friend you admire
✅ Spotting your "two selves": the boxed-in one vs. the free one travel unlocks
✅ Real talk on shifting with adult kids or dates who don't match your worth
✅ The truth: You belong to you first—grab it before life passes by

Connect with Alison:

• Instagram: @alisonanswers | @lagercounseling
• Website: LagerCounseling.com
• YouTube: Alison Answers
• Facebook: Alison Lager Lcsw Casac
• Purchase Alison’s book: “The Wake Up Call”
• Alison Answers Facebook Group: Join HERE
• Women of Excellence FB group: Join HERE

⚠️ Crisis Resources:
Lager Counseling Services
Call: 516-221-2123
Text: (914) 363-0381
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Call or text 988 | Visit 988lifeline.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

When you're traveling, you're anonymous and nobody knows who you are. You're creating the story of who you are. It's almost like it's the honest story of who you are inside you, and it comes out.

SPEAKER_00 0:11

My guest today is Tracy Smith, who is a PhD. She is a writer exploring the intersection of travel, identity, and belonging. Her writing is less about escape and more about attention, noticing how freedom, acceptance, risk, and community take shape in everyday lives across cultures and landscapes.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

The thing that I realized as I was writing this book and thinking about these stories and just sitting with them was that belonging was there everywhere. The book is more that this was a really, really busy or crazy and messy time in my life. There are some days I wake up and I'm like, oh my god, but who am I and what am I doing and why am I doing this? Because you can only control yourself. You can't control anybody else. We need to stop judging people and assuming there's something wrong with someone. I'm done living this life on everybody else's terms. I'm going to do what is right for me.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

What is your plan? The plan is to. Hey hey hey guys, how are you today? It is Allison from Allison Answers and Lagery Counseling Services. My guest today is Tracy Smith, who is a PhD. She uh is a writer exploring the intersection of travel, identity, and belonging. Her work focuses on the small, often uncelebrated moments when women begin choosing themselves, sometimes quietly, sometimes far from home. Through personal narrative and place-based storytelling, Tracy examines what happens when certainty loosens, expectations fall away, and life is allowed to remain unresolved. Her writing is less about escape and more about attention, noticing how freedom, acceptance, risk, and community take shape in everyday lives across cultures and landscapes. She's the author of The Purpose of Getting Lost and the creator of The Geography of Connection, an ongoing project that follows these themes through travel, essays, and lived experience. Tracy's work speaks to readers navigating reinvention, midlife crisis, or challenge. She doesn't say challenge crisis, she says challenge, which is beautiful, and the courage to take the courage it takes to live life without neat endings. She right here, this woman, I was interested in having her on the podcast because I think she's a unique guest. She's someone who is a traveler and also speaks to the part of us that needs to be reinvented, that needs to stop being so rigidly, you know, um controlled by our responsibilities and uh what the constraints of our society hold us to. And I just love this so much, and I'm really looking forward to learning myself about how to loosen some of the thoughts, the emotions, and possibly the behaviors that constrict my perspective on life. So without any further ado, I look really forward to having this conversation with what seems to be a really beautiful soul. So let's let's dive in. Hey, hey, hey, everybody, how are you today? Is Alison from Allison Answers and Lager Counseling Services. As I mentioned, I have this wonderful woman on the podcast that is going to talk to us about a variety of things. And what I did mention to you all is that her, the way that I described in her bio about identity, about um loosening certainty, and all these like really delicious concepts that Tracy has come up with. I'm looking forward to to pre-frame it for you that I believe you will leave this podcast as a person who has a greater understanding of how to loosen any of the constraints on your own identity and your own lifestyle. Because I mean, I don't know if I just crack open the whole entire podcast with the the biggest question I want to ask that has nothing to do with her history is this one thing that she did. And I want to know the answer to this, Tracy. You bought a one-way ticket to Iceland. Okay. How come? What and what brought you to that place? And we can certainly get into your history, but this is like this is to me breaking free of constraints. And what what was it about Iceland? And what made you like, yeah, tell us.

SPEAKER_03 5:10

Thanks, Alison.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Yeah, diving in. No, that's that's so perfect because it's really where the story does kind of start. Oh, cool. And um, you know, and I guess I could say, you know, it was a one-way ticket to Iceland, but I had previously had like three round trip tickets to Europe that I just decided that I guess I was just, I don't know. I don't know what I was thinking. I mean, I know what I was thinking, but I wasn't thinking. So back in February, if I take you, you know, nine months or you know, seven months before the trip to Iceland, I was out with my friends one night and they said, we're going to Ireland and I Ireland, right? And I was like, oh my God, I want to go. So within 10 minutes, I'm on Expedia looking up for the flight that they took. And, you know, um, I'm booking a flight to Ireland. Now, this is a round trip ticket. I'm going. Um, and at the time, because I had only traveled really domestically before that, like I knew all how to navigate southwest, but I didn't really know like words like basic economy, main economy, like none of that really, like I don't really know. I just knew go buy a fair on Expedia. So I buy this ticket within like 10 minutes of hearing about this trip to go to Ireland. And we don't even know if I'm going to be able to get on the tour because it's kind of like a private tour. So fast forward, I'm on the tour, I've got a spot, and we fast forward to the summer. And over the summer of 2022, I had um been on the dating apps and I had gone on a whole nother podcast, a whole nother day. I had gone on a hundred dates that summer. And I intentionally intentionally, I was just kind of like I was just kind of like, I'm gonna go on dates. And I went on like three, four dates a week, and it was all summer long. I was just going on all these dates. I had nothing else to do with my time. Um, I didn't at the beginning, about like halfway through, maybe like 60% through, I started realizing and I started looking back at the calendar and I was like, dang. And then by September, I had been on a hundred dates. Actually, I think it was a little bit more than a hundred. So, anyways, so one of the people that I met, he was a pilot for um Edahad Airlines and he lived in Abu Dhabi. And um, I remember chatting with him one day because we he was coming through O'Hare and we're chatting online or whatever, and he's like, Well, I want to go to like Norway, and I think he said Norway. And I was like, Well, that sounds really cool. I want to go to Norway. Now, remind you, I have this eight-day trip to Ireland, a group trip, round trip ticket already purchased. And I'm like, Well, that sounds really cool. So next thing you know, I'm like Googling, Googling, Googling, and I'm like, I want to go to Norway. So I take that fare, which I have, I still have a round trip ticket, and I buy another ticket to go to Norway. Because I'm like, why not? Let's go to Norway. So then I I'm kind of like, okay, I'm going to Norway and I figure out my flights with um American Airlines to go through Norway and to end up through Dublin and come home. And it's all kind of good. And I'm I'm good, I'm good to go, right? And then about a week before I leave, a week before I leave, I'm on Facebook, because you know, on Facebook reads our minds and stuff. And Facebook was like Iceland stopovers. Well, you know, you can't do it on American Airlines, right? You got to be on Iceland air. So what do I do? I forget about that American Airlines ticket, and I buy this one-way ticket to Iceland. And the reason why I only bought one way was because I thought I could still take home that other flight that I had on that round trip ticket to Ireland. Well, you know, that's called skip lagging. You can't do that. I didn't, I didn't know you can't. If you don't take the flight out, they cancel your flight back. You're not allowed to do that. I didn't know that at the time. Okay. Like, I mean, I was a new traveler. I had only trip traveled in the US to like, you know, Florida and California and stuff. I hadn't really gone anywhere. So anyway, so I'm on Facebook and I see this Iceland, and I have no idea. All I know is I was like, oh my God, I want to go to Iceland. And I tack on a whole nother week. And here I now have just bought just a ticket to Iceland. I think I'm getting home on my ticket to I from Ireland, but I don't really know. All I know is I'm now going to Iceland. And that was less than a week before I was actually scheduled to leave. And next thing you know, I'm, I mean, this was my first trip out of the country. I had been to Jamaica and Puerto Rico, but this was my first transatlantic trip. And it was completely crazy because I was supposed to be on a group trip. And then I went to kind of like I added on like this travel agency organized trip, like a kind of a travel agency. And then Iceland was completely solo. Like I booked my own hotels, I booked my a tour to go, a couple of tours. Um, I booked my own shuttle bus, which I couldn't find when I got to the airport. I I did it all on my own as my very first transatlantic trip. It was, I really did it backwards, but it was the craziest thing I think I have ever done, or at least since I was 19 years old, or 20, I guess 20 years old or something like that. It was the craziest thing I had ever done.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

What made you decide to do it?

SPEAKER_02 10:35

Well, I think like I had always wanted to travel, always, but then like you know, you get kids get in the way and you got a job and life and blah la la and all these things kind of and I kind of had forgotten. And so it wasn't until I realized that oh my God, like my youngest son, he can drive himself to school. I don't need to take him to school. Oh my god, I don't need to worry about it. And it was like this in like this entire sense of freedom that I no longer had to take kids to school. I didn't have to make sure he could get to football practice or rugby or wherever he had to go, that I could just go. Like it was like this, it was like I was an empty nester at 16 years old when he was 16 years old. And so I and I hadn't taken any vacations and up to that point. And I worked for the state for you know 20 years, so I had all this vacation time saved up because I never took any. And then all of a sudden I was like, Well, I've got vacation time and I'm just gonna go. And and I went and I was gone for like three weeks. It ended up being three weeks. It was my first time away from home, really.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Yeah, and I went for like three weeks. So, did you discover certain things about like in regard to this whole like I don't know if we'd call it a transformation or the discovery, like you wrote a book? Like, how did how does all of this play together? Like, you have a message.

SPEAKER_02 12:05

So, yeah, so I don't like so with those first few trips I went on, because we're the book covers like this three-year period of time. And the first year from like September 2022 until my 50th birthday, probably the following summer. I I didn't really, I was just kind of like I'm going on trips, right? Like I went to I did that Iceland trip, and then I decided to go to Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and then I went to Doha and I really loved it. And then I didn't really go anywhere. Well, I went to South Africa the following year, but I didn't really consider that a trip. And then I went for my birthday. So when my birthday came up in July of 2023, which was um 10 months after the Iceland trip, I realized traveling. Like at that point, I realized I was like, oh my God, I love I like for me, it was just I love traveling. I realized that that was a four-week trip, 10 country. Uh, I was kind of like, yes. Well, what happened was I had a trip planned to Southeast Asia for January 2024. And that was um supposed to be Morocco. And again, I thought I was just going to travel. I mean, really, that's kind of what I thought I was doing. Okay, I didn't think anything of it. And I get to Southeast Asia and I I loved it. Like, I mean, I felt so at home. I met like these tour guides in Vietnam who I'm actually going to um one of the tour guides' wedding next her wedding is next month, and I'm going back to that. And um, I just it just felt like I was like exhaling. So after that trip, I again, I still didn't really realize I had changed. I just knew I needed more. So that was in January of 2024. I went to Greece in March of 2024, I went to Belize in June, I went to Peru in July, and by September, I went back to Southeast Asia. So the frequency of these trips were increasing. I still didn't really understand that like internally I was changing. I just knew that I had to go. It wasn't until I was back in Southeast Asia in September of 2024 that I had the first inkling that I had changed. And what happened was the tour guide I met the previous January, her name is Min. I'm going, like I said, I'm going to her wedding next month. Um, I when I got back to Southeast Asia in September, I was not set to meet her. I wasn't supposed to meet her. And I said to her, I sent her a message one day and I said, Hey Min, I'm gonna be back in Vietnam. Um, I would love to see you. Now, for the average person, this is not a big deal, right? We all text our friends and say, Hey, hey, what are you up to? Want to hang out. For me, this was a big deal. And to give you context, when my oldest son was about five years old, um, we lived in a cul-de-sac, and he would say to me, Mommy, mommy, can I go play with these two little boys? And there were two little boys on either side of us, and they're about a year, year and a half older than my son. And I would say to him, No, you have not been invited. You don't invite yourself anywhere. You don't when people say to you, Do you want to come play? That's when you go play. And I had taught my oldest son that. So for me, that was my first real like I'm somebody different. And I'm not sure I know who that somebody is. I loved her, but I was somebody different. Yeah. So it took a while. Like, you know, the whole thing took it, wasn't like overnight. I was like, I'm different. It was more like, you know, I built up to it, and and then September was kind of like the crescendo of all of what happened? Well, because that was the trip. Oh, okay. So then after after that September trip, when I came back from it, by then I realized I couldn't stay at my job anymore. I had been working this job for three years, and I realized that it was just not a good fit for me. And I ended up taking mental health leave. Um, I told my I just said I I can't be here anymore. This is not a good fit for that. It's not in that it wasn't a good fit for me. I was not healthy there. That was the truth, that was like really the culmination of all of it because I finally said that was like the first time where I finally said, I've had it, I'm done living this life on everybody else's terms. I'm going to do what is right for me. And so that was by that was by December of 2024. Well, I went on leave the end of November is when I went on leave because I finally had said like the two the two Tracy's had become completely incompatible with each other. They just couldn't be together.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

Okay. Okay. And who and who are those two Tracies? So there's one Tracy that you were, and who was the new Tracy?

SPEAKER_02 17:32

Well, there's the Tracy who was like um, you know, mom and colleague, employee, friend, sister, daughter. She's she's all these roles, right? That that's who that Tracy is. And then there's the Tracy that is Tracy. Like there's the one that is, I don't exist. It's not that I don't exist without all those other roles, but really it's the Tracy that is the sum of all of those roles, and then some more, right?

SPEAKER_00 18:02

May I ask? And is it the Tracy that was like when you were in those different areas, those different regions, right? Was it the Tracy that was stripped from those labels during those periods of time so that that was not what was attached to you where when you were uh traveling? So like it gave you an opportunity to be to see yourself without the label, the I that that being an identity. Is that what happened?

SPEAKER_02 18:30

Yeah, I mean, I it's the only it's the only thing that could explain it, right? Is that all of a sudden, like traveling, because when you're traveling, you're anonymous and nobody knows who you are, and you know, you're you're creating you're creating the story of who you are, and and not a story that's like you know, all of a sudden trying to say I'm a pilot, but it's the story, it's the it's almost like it's the honest story of who you are inside you, and it comes out. So, like I'm sitting at a bar when I travel or I'm at a restaurant, like in where I live at home, I would never in a million years go eat dinner by myself. Never. I I still I still wouldn't do that. And yet when you go out and you're traveling, yeah, I go and I do it all the time. I have no problem. Like, you know, I went to this in Barcelona, I went to this really fancy restaurant and had this amazing paella and um wine and all this other stuff, and I would never do that. And so I think you're exactly right. It's it's like it's the the person who who who exists without all like stripping away all those other roles, yes, and then it's that person, and but the thing is, is all those other roles don't go away. But when I'm traveling, I get to see who that person is without all those other roles creating like noise that maybe doesn't let me hear it as much, you know. I I I think that's exactly what it is.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

You know what's interesting, it's like the roles, like even a role of mother, right? So, like within the context of mother, there is the behaviors, there's this like inner identity, like the transformation that happens when you have your first child, but then it's also like, and then it's the what you're describing, like it can also be that those extra responsibilities, worries, concerns, the thoughts, right? That and I wonder this is just a conversation, because it's not like I'm proclaiming this, but I I do think that those thoughts, those worries we have about, and even the responsibilities, even though we do need to take care of our kids, obviously. But I wonder how much that is actually an identity. It's just like um, it's just like the avenue that we operate, this identity operates in, and then it bec and then it kind of takes over. You know what I mean by that? Like it's almost like Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:02

No, I I I think I think so, because like you know, you you can't you you can't escape it. And when you know, when I was first getting divorced and you the kids would go with their dad for the weekend or whatever, I would walk around and not really know who I was or what I was supposed to be doing, because the who I was was mom first and foremost, but also mom who had to organize, mom who had to make lists, mom who had to, you know, ensure that the laundry was done. All of these, all of these roles and responsibilities that we have, that all of a sudden they became the only person that I it's really became like the only person that I knew. Yeah. And I mean, I had I had my job and I had an identity there, and I mean, and I had friends and I had family and stuff, but the The real one was that that identity of being mom. And even now, sometimes, like, you know, my kids are in college, my two youngest are in college. And we'll have times where, you know, they're empty nesters and like during or I'm an empty nester. And then during the Christmas break, you know, they were home. Um, we rented an Airbnb back in Chicago and I was there. And I kind of remind myself that that role that I played as mom when, you know, they were 16, 14, 10, whatever ages they were, is not the same role of mom that I am at their 20 and 21 and 24. It's completely different. And that's that in and of itself is a whole other role that you have to figure that we have to figure out. And so you and you try to figure out how can I roll, like, how can I roll with it, R O L L. Like, you know, how can I, how can I move with that as a way to be dynamic enough to so because you have to, you don't, you don't have a you don't have a choice. There was no choice.

SPEAKER_00 23:05

I remember I would, I would say to my oldest, I'd say, now that you have reached the ripe old age of 16, we have to have a meeting. It would be funny, I'd be kidding. We have to have a meeting about how our roles and the way that we interact is different. And he would think it's funny. I'd be like, so what are you, what is your expectations of my mothering today? And I would say, this is my expectations of your adolescence today, because it's not the same as when you were 10. So I don't want to bring the identity as a mother into you being 16. And I don't want you to have to bring in the identity that could even make you feel smaller, but we also have to keep you safe. So, like I would have those transitional conversations. And also, don't you think when we enter into another phase, there's so much communication, which I don't like. I'm seeing it as a negative thing of people labeling the ages of our kids and what to expect instead of expecting greatness at adolescence and greatness at age two, how about we're expecting all these negative things, and also being an empty nester, that right there, like who am I without my children? Yeah, you know, it's really wow.

SPEAKER_02 24:22

It is, it's it's so because so we were home at Christmas time, and um, one of the things that childhood um well when I was like 24 years old, um, I had gone home for Christmas and I was single, and all my siblings, I have a lot of siblings, they all had their families, and I went home for Christmas to go spend time with them. And um everybody was too busy, right? You know, they they all had their families to go to or whatever. And I remember leaving Buffalo and just being devastated. It was it was emotionally traumatic for me. So after that happened, I had decided like I never wanted to be alone on Christmas again. And first and foremost, let me just put out there being alone on Christmas is okay. We we need to learn as we need to as a society, like society and people, we need to stop judging people and assuming there's something wrong with someone when they're alone on Christmas. So let me put that out there because it's not how I think about life anymore. But I remember thinking that, you know, at 20, the right age of 24, I never wanted to be alone at Christmas again. So um, fast forward, you know, 20 years or whatever when I'm getting divorced. And the only deal breaker in the entire divorce decree is that the kids will always come home on Christmas Eve and they will be at my house all day, Christmas Day, and not go anywhere until the 26th. It was the only deal breaker. I I didn't, I legitimately did not care about a single other thing in that divorce decree other than that one at the piece because it had such a profound impact on me being alone. So now, so that we, you know, that followed suit and it was all good. Fast forward to Christmas this year, this past Christmas, and my kids are now 20, almost 20, 21, and 24 years old, right? And they're independent and they're they make their own decisions about when they're gonna come home on Christmas Eve. Right. It's not my decision anymore, it's not their dads, it's they make it home. And um, I remember being really upset with them on Christmas Eve because I think, and well, I wasn't so upset on Christmas Eve that they stayed out until like two because they went to the bars afterwards. Okay, I was more upset about Christmas morning because to me, in that moment, it had changed what Christmas was for me because I was like, you guys are sleeping all day, you're at the bars all night, blah, you know, I was a little out of myself. And then I had to stop myself and and remember that they are now at a different stage of their life.

SPEAKER_03 26:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:49

And our relationship has to change, and I have to change with that relationship. Yes. And, you know, and so we sat down on Christmas and we talked about what that should look like. We, you know, we had this full discussion, and you know, I apologized to them and they said, you know, we had a great conversation because I treated them like they were, you know, um like that their their opinion that their voice mattered. Yeah. And I don't think, kind of getting back to your point, I don't know if we give enough credit to kids that their voice does matter, that they should have ideas and that we want to hear them and we want to know what they're think, what they're thinking. Um, and even when it comes to decision making, like you know, that they they should have some some role, some you they should be involved in that process at some way somehow. And so um, yeah, it it really had a profound impact on me that Christmas way back when I was like, I don't know, maybe 24 years old. I don't know. I was I was in my young early 20s or whatever. And now I realize that the relationship with my kids has changed. And you know, I'm even contemplating, you know, maybe one year I'll go away for Christmas, you know, and I won't be there because to me, that would be the ultimate growth of myself to say you don't need to be here for Christmas, you don't need to be in the same physical location as them on Christmas Day, and you are still worth being their mother, right? And I don't know if we give enough attention to those kinds of things.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Yeah, it's interesting, it's just being able to open up your mind to a different idea as opposed to like the tradition. So, like, um, what made you write your book? And could you explain it to us? Like, when did you do that? And yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:43

So um the book story is actually kind of quite funny because so over that three years, I had been doing all this traveling. And um, when I first started traveling, my I would do these Facebook posts, and the Facebook posts were kind of um they weren't really travel log, but they were like, Oh, you know, I kind of did this and this was amazing. And you know, there was a little bit of reflection, but it was more, you know, kind of just fun. It was fun. Um, and so I um and I had been doing that pretty much for all of my trips. Well, in September of 2024, when I went to Southeast Asia, I got scratched by a monkey. And um after getting scratched by the monkey, I chased the rabies shot all over Chicago. I needed it was, I mean, the story is okay incredible trying to find a rabies shot and trying. I ran around Chicago with a vial of rabies and a needle in my purse, trying to find somebody who would administer the shot for me. So so and the story like the whole thing is funny. So, anyways, I was telling my niece one day um about this story, and I'm kind of recounting it to her. And she says, You know what, Auntrey? She's like, You should like take up crocheting and start making TikTok videos and telling your stories while you're learning to crochet. And she's like, and you're just kind of sitting there crocheting and you're telling your story, and she's like, and it's gonna be really funny, and everybody's gonna watch. And I said, Yeah, maybe you're right. Maybe these are funny stories, right? Who else chases a rabi shot across Chicago? So I say, okay. So I go out, I buy all this crocheting material. Um, I but I even buy like the thing for your phone, whatever that thing is called, again, the tripod or whatever. I buy all this stuff, I go spend all this money. And I yeah, the shelf and I realize one, I have I cannot figure out how to crochet. And two, I hate how I look on camera. So it completely like within, I don't know, I probably gave up after like three days. I don't know. And I was in the midst of like selling a house and doing all this other stuff. So I didn't really have time to think about it. So I decided the next best thing was I was going to down well, I was going to write a book. She said, well, then write a book. And I said, Okay, I'm gonna write a book. So I download my entire Facebook history, three years worth of travel, and I basically kind of format it, I wrap it up, I do do a few things with it, and I send it off to an editor. My my dissertation, I did a dissert my my did my PhD. I had an editor, and so I sent it off to my editor and I said, Hey, I wrote a book. Want to take a look? And poor he was so nice about it because he was like, Okay, this is okay, but what's your story?

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Well, that's what I want to know. What is the purpose of your book? Like, what's your message?

SPEAKER_02 31:27

He was like, What's your story? And I was kind of like, huh, I don't really know. And so what ended up happening from that was he took me through a series of exercises that really had me thinking about um what I was doing and uh who I had become. And through those exercises are is when I started realizing things like, you know, I've been searching for, and I it sounds so cliche, but you know, I've been searching for belonging for so long. I didn't fit in as a grade school kid. I didn't fit into high school. I mean, for God's sakes, when I was in the fourth grade, I went and faked an eye exam so I could wear glasses like my best friend. And I to this day have to wear glasses because I was too afraid of my parents to tell them I fake the exam. So um, I mean, I mean, this was life, you know, I I was always trying to fit in and wanted to fit in. And so the thing that I realized as I was read as I was writing this book and thinking about these stories and just sitting with them was that belonging was there everywhere. And I just hadn't realized it, right? It like it was inside of me. And what I had to do is I almost had I had to own it. So belonging was with, you know, the woman that I met in in Belize, and then we ended up going out to dinner several nights. We went and swam naked in the Caribbean Sea. I mean, um, belonging was the woman that I met in Indonesia, and we were together and we both got scratched and bitten by she got bit by the monkey. I got scratched, we got bitten by monkeys. Belongings with my friend Min, who I messaged and said, Hey, like, do you want to get together? And then I went and visited her for she invited me to spend time with her family for the Vietnamese Lunar New Year. So I started when I sat down to really write the book, I started to realize I didn't need to look to other people to fit in. That that was no longer part of the my identity, like except I was no longer saying, oh, please accept me, please accept me. I realized that I have to accept myself and the belonging is there, and I just need to be open to it. And maybe it's not those grand gestures of you know, lifelong friends or being asked to be a maid of honor or whatever it is for something. It's in the small, it's in these really small moments that we go through on our in our life every day. And that's so the purpose of that the book, you know. I don't have this neat trajectory in this book where where I'm kind of like, oh, I'm lost, I'm lost, I'm lost. Oh my god, I'm found, and now I'm all better. Like, that's not the book. The book is more that like excuse me, the book is more that this was a really, really busy or crazy and messy time in my life. And it still is crazy and messy and busy and everything else, but the book is more about how I've learned to accept myself and and who I and who I am, because we have to accept ourselves first before any we can ask anybody else to accept us.

SPEAKER_00 34:45

I mean, how many um people are in search of belonging, significance, you know, being validated, valued? And it's so interesting that that journey of looking for that, like it's like I always think of the Wizard of Oz when uh you know the good witch says, You've had it within you all along, my dear, like searching for home. And I've discovered that myself, like you know, wherever I am, I belong because I'm with me. And like and like some of the greatest experiences for me, not and it's not even about the actual experience, but the result being that what I think caused me most of emotional difficulty for me was not having self-trust. So, like wherever I am, I if I can trust myself to be good, to be okay, like I belong to me, right? It's like I belong here because I'm with me. Like we're we're the one person that's with us forever. Like who's with us forever is us, you know?

SPEAKER_02 35:50

No, that's that's so exactly right. I remember I had been dating, I met a guy right after I kind of went on that first trip. And we dated for a year, and I I broke up with him shortly after coming back from my 50th birthday. Um, and at the time I thought I broke up with him. I said to him, Well, you know, you don't love me in the way I need you to love me. And so that's why what I said about breaking up with him, right? And then I don't know, maybe like eight months later or some period of time later, I don't really remember how much later, um, we had a conversation and I remember saying, and I said to him, I was like, you know what, that I was wrong about why when I broke up with you. It wasn't because like you didn't love me in the way I needed to be loved, it was more because I realized that I loved myself enough that I didn't need to be loved by like I didn't need to be loved by him anymore because I had finally realized how much I loved myself. And you know, and it's a journey. Like we don't there are some days I wake up and I'm like, oh my god, like who am I and what am I doing and why am I doing this? And then there's other days that I wake up and I realize, no, you you've got this, and you know, you're gonna it's everything's gonna be okay, and you just need to kind of press forward on the path that you're on because it's it's our path at the end of the day, it's our journey, and you can't like we own it. You we we have to own it, and I do, and I've learned, I really have, I've learned to own that whatever journey I'm on, whatever path I'm on. I've sold my house in Chicago, I moved to Washington, DC. And some days I wake up and I'm like, oh God, Tracy, was that the right decision? And other days I'm like, you know what, it doesn't matter because I did it. And so now, like, you know, you move forward, you you move forward with it, and that's where I'm going with it.

SPEAKER_00 37:36

Right. You know, and like I learning about yourself, like and I'm curious about something that you said, because you said to the gentleman, you know, I don't feel like you love me the way that I need to be loved, but then you just your discovery is that you love your maybe he there was a disparity between how much he loved you and you loved you, like you saw the difference. Is that what it that was? So would you say that your ability to love you and accept you and belong to you raises the bar for who you would have in your life? So it would be like a different type of um love that you would be more aligned with receiving, right?

SPEAKER_02 38:21

Yeah, oh 100%. I mean, a hundred percent. That's exactly the point. Is like I realized that I loved myself enough, like that I like that whatever I was getting in return had to match what I could give myself or more, because anything less than then became unacceptable, right? And interestingly enough, like after I'd had kind of this revelation, we started we started dating again and we dated for I don't know, like four months, five months, or something like that. And at the end of it, when I when I broke it off with him the second and and final time, it really was that no, this this is my this is where I need to be at. And you can't meet if you're not gonna meet me there, then we there's just nothing more to talk about. And I think it's really hard because, and especially as we get older, because I think when you're in your 20s and your 30s, you know, and I talk to my daughter about this a lot, you know, it's easy to think there'll be somebody better out there, somebody, you know, like you know, you think there's an infinite number, right? An infinite number of connections. Yeah, and um, you know, but when you're in your 50s, you you become acutely aware that there's not an infinite number of people that could meet those. And so you have to start deciding, like, and I had to decide what were my deal breakers, yeah. And at the end of the day, I told him I was like, This is my only deal. I had one deal breaker and only one deal breaker, and that was it. It was like, meet me where I'm at in terms of how I love myself. Any other deal breaker I could have dealt with. Yeah, you need to meet me where I'm at, and and he and he couldn't. He still, you know, he still had whatever he had. And I said, Well, then this is this is it. This is this is it's over, and if and I don't I have no regrets about it. There's not a single thing I would change. I might not have broken up with him in Paris on his birthday. I might have changed, I might have I might change that and just maybe wait till we get back to it. Two hours later, maybe I don't know. Maybe I would have changed that piece of it, but um, it was a very uncomfortable flight home. Let me tell you, it was a very uncomfortable flight home. But um, yeah, at the end of the day, I have no regrets. And now when I date, I date in such a different way because I I don't even spend time with anybody if I feel like they're not going to be able to meet me where I'm at. Whereas before that summer I went on those hundred dates, I was, and you know, and that was only a couple of years ago. So it's not like I was as a young, uh a 20-something. That was, you know, a few years ago. So when I went on those, I was so much more willing to accept interest kind of the crud, right? Because I didn't know who I was, I didn't love myself enough. And now I'm like, I don't have to, I do not have time for that. And I I just absolutely refuse to engage in it. I just refuse to.

SPEAKER_00 41:24

Yeah. And each time I think we level up in terms of like our frequency and actually who we actually are, we attract who we are, you know, we attract right. And I always have wondered, which um wonder when I say that, I mean in curiosity, you know, like I ask the questions. So if like a situation comes into my life or a person or who, you know, whatever it happens to be that doesn't feel aligned to like, wait, like this is I don't like this, whatever it is, it could be anything. Um, you know, it could be that I hired someone or whatever, and something that challenges me. Like what I used to do is like be you'd be upset about it, right? Now, like what I say is like, well, I'm curious about how what is it in my life, you know, like the darkness I see in you is a darkness in me. So, like, what is it in my life that has drawn this type of a person again or this kind of a situation to me? What is not cleared out? Like, you know, like if I had a mom who was incompetent, I will find myself repeatedly in situations with people who are like not competent and then upset about it. So then it's like, wait, you know, what is in me that needs to be cleaned out? What do I have to forgive? You know, and that's that's deep. And it's such a cool way, like um to no matter what you're doing, like if you're looking for a position or if you are dating, or if you're, you know, in a relation, whatever relationship, anything you're doing that you start to notice like throughout the day or the month of the year, like, oh instead, we get so caught up in how we want to change that external thing thing instead of like taking that external thing and taking everything in that external thing and using it to determine more about ourselves to understand, like what made me like when you have the the woman, I'm not sure what you called her, Mia, Maya, but like I as an example, like what made her come? What made her become a person in your life? So that's also the light. Like, what what has changed in me that drew this to me? What has changed in me, right? That yeah, and like because basically we're the writers of our story. Like it's my movie, it's not a dress rehearsal. Like, so even like if at day, like I start noticing a lot of things happening. I'm like, Wait, what was I thinking while I was sleeping? What was I what was I afraid of today? What did I was I gossiping? Was I judgmental? How come I'm drawing that friction into my life? And I want to know. So then, like, how can I upgrade? Because we tend to look at how other people can upgrade. And if that is a waste of time, you know, how can I upgrade so that my life is better? Because it the other things won't you won't even see the other things if you're upgraded. Right. It won't even be there.

SPEAKER_02 44:36

Yeah, I I I love that. I I mean, and it's yeah, God, I I really love that to think about, like, you know, because you can only control yourself. You can't you can't control anybody else. And you know it's not a worthwhile exercise to try to like change somebody else. Yeah. So it's kind of like, okay, well, right, like what do I want to change about myself so that I don't attract those kinds of people, right? And whether that's confidence or you know, whether that's risk taking or you know, being adventurous or spontaneous or whatever the whatever you know the catch-all term is for that particular thing, that's the truth, right? Like you you project, you get what you kind of project, and we know that, right? We know that people are attracted to the quality we we also know that people are attracted to the qualities that they want to see in themselves, right? But you know, and so that's kind of like with men, is because men, she's got this super outgoing personality, my friend in Vietnam. She's super, super outgoing, and you know, she's always smiling and laughing. And I know I want to be like that. And so part of what you're saying, part of it is it's probably somewhere in there inside of me. And I just haven't figured out how to bring it out, how to fully bring it out. And I think that that's a really interesting way to think, you know, to think about that.

SPEAKER_00 46:03

Yeah, my daughter or any young, young women or you know, anybody younger, whoever, that you know, when they have a circumstance, I'm like, it's just data. It's data. Yeah, use it, understand yourself, understand because if you think about the society or the whole world, basically, most of our life we've been taught that we're victims of outside circumstances. It couldn't even be a bigger lie across the face of this earth. Really, the truth. I mean, some people are victims, I'm not saying they're not, but the the thing is is that what is actually I always teach people like emotional sobriety is going inward. Like what is happening, like but but most of us are taught to blame outward, try to fix, adjust, change those people, people, places, and things, right? Right it's such a freeing life. Like when you leave and you go to another, you start traveling, right? Tracy, now you're the external environment, like I would imagine that your internal environment becomes like the volume goes up.

SPEAKER_02 47:15

Yeah, well, you know, you're you're you I think part of when I'm traveling, like I'm you're hyper aware of everything. You know, I'm already a person who notices everything. I notice, like, um, it's funny I did the uh Clifton Strengths, whatever that thing is called report. And I had done it, did it a year ago, and I was reminded of it. I looked at it today and it was like, oh, you notice things. I was like, oh my God, I do. Because and I had been already saying for the past few months, I'm like, I just know I notice things. So when I travel, I'm even more aware. And you know, and I you know, I'll have a lot of people who'll ask me things about like how do I stay safe or how do I feel like how do I feel safe when I travel? And I I would I always just say the same thing. I'm like, I'm just hyper aware of everything because it is, I'm just listening so much to internally what I'm what my voice is speaking, that I'm just I it's allowing me to notice everything that's happening around me. It's a it's super um, but it's not exhausting. Like I think that's the kind of the crazy part about it, is because it's energizing, it's a very energizing feeling for me when I'm when I'm kind of noticing these things. And I'm kind of like this. I mean, I I know people when people think of being hyper-aware, they think of it as very tiring. Yeah, but I feel very energized in that state. Um, it leads me to believe it's probably my normal state that you know my body probably wants to be at. But you know what that's true. I don't know, that'd be for a psychologist to figure out.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

No, that's well, right here. But basically, but I find that really fascinating because to when I travel, or even if I'm in like I also have a home in another state, so even when I'm not as familiar of an environment, I do feel definitely more aware, definitely more like a lack, maybe a lack of trust. So basic, you know, for me, that is not as great of an experience as what you're describing, because I have traveled in different, you know, to different countries and um haven't haven't had that. But it's interesting to me also like side note, which just because I'm a therapist, I have to say it, like it doesn't mean it's true for you, but hypervigilance, like a lot of times that can happen for little kids whose like they didn't trust their parents. So then they have to always look around, you know, you know, children of alcoholics and children of, you know, if parents were not like on top of things, like then they're always looking for the problem in the room or they have to be aware of everything to stay safe.

SPEAKER_02 49:59

So I'm not saying that to you, but I'm just saying, no, yeah, because my hyper awareness is not all is not, you know, it's just safety. It's not about fear of them, but like I notice things like you know, the the gown, the robes that um women are wearing as they're walking through the market, and I notice like the colors that they have on, or I notice like what's uh the the market stalls look like, or I notice like an animal as it's running through and kind of like the various colors of the skin. So I notice stuff, I notice stuff like that. Yeah, and it's you see the beauty like and I think it's just and that's where my writing has really gone to now. Yeah, is that so the more I write, the more I'm focusing? But now I'm I'm really trying to think about like women's postures and behaviors and how they move as a way that signals that they're belonging, right? Or maybe they're not belonging, right? And exactly to your point, right? Like a woman who's scanning the environment all over, her eyes are going every which way, but maybe she's kind of like making herself smaller. Does that mean she doesn't feel like she belongs? Right. Versus, you know, this woman who's kind of like doing this kind of scan, but her eyes are wide open, she's standing tall, and maybe instead she feels like she's in her element of where she, you know, she's owning her environment. Yeah, and so um that's the kind of the the trajectory my writing is going to now is really focusing on these these moments where I feel like I'm seeing somebody women, specifically women, um, in a belonging state. I wonder that is so cool.

SPEAKER_00 51:37

That's what I meant about like that's what I wanted, like the message is like, but the observation of a woman in a belonging state, that is very cool. I love that. You know what you um I was gonna say at first, like you notice everything. So I always feel like people, whatever we look for, we'll find, you know. So like you're looking for beauty, you're looking for, you know, like the posture of just understanding an environment. But at first, I was gonna say, you should be a cop, but you know, like you know, like they could see they remember a room, like they could just come in and see everything, right? But yeah, that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 52:13

But it's terrible because I have a really I I have a really terrible memory for like um places like if I've gone out to dinner, like somebody will say to me, Oh, we went to dinner, don't you remember that? Or didn't you watch this TV show before? And I'll be like, I don't remember. Did we watch this movie? I'll be like, I don't I don't remember. So it's really the the the this attention is really on these kind of like small things, very like, you know, on the very much on a micro level, yeah. Where I know, like for instance, I'll give you a really good example. Um, you know, I take the train to work um every day and um on the escalator the other day, there was um two women with strollers, and the strollers are on the escalator with them and big strollers, not like you know, little umbrella ones, but like the really big ones. And I didn't know, but I just knew that the escalators were backed up or whatever. And so the things that I tend to notice are I notice like the guy standing next to me tapping his fingers on the railing and the other person behind him leaning over trying to see what the holdup was. And then they get we get to the top, and I notice this woman like pushing the stroller up over, and then she goes over and she sees her friend, and her friend waves to her, and then they just walk naturally across this busy crosswalk in the middle of downtown DC and acted as if they belong there. So I noticed things like that. Like I noticed these kind of this how that woman with the these two women with these baby strollers, like how they belonged in this space, which really, for all intents and purposes, it was nine o'clock on a rush hour morning. It was like Tuesday morning in Washington, DC, in the center of the Capitol, you know. I mean, like we're a couple blocks from the White House, and I noticed these two women with their strollers nonchalantly crossing Connecticut Avenue as if they belonged there. Yeah, like beautiful, and so those are the kinds of I but I wish I could remember because people will be like, Mom, don't you remember we went out and we ate at that restaurant? And I'll be like, Oh my god, I don't know. I don't remember. Did we really go eat there? I don't remember either.

SPEAKER_00 54:19

It's it's embarrassing, honestly. I don't remember so many things, but then I can tell you about a whole psychological and neurological thing. But anyhow, so tell me that what I usually ask people is if we were summarizing everything, it's like okay, okay, so and if I were to say to you, what do you wish I asked you that I haven't asked you? What would that be?

SPEAKER_02 54:48

Um what's the plan?

SPEAKER_00 54:54

You mean you wish that I asked you, okay, Tracy.

SPEAKER_02 54:56

What's your I wish you would ask yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:59

What is your plan? What's happening? Tracy, is that what you wanted me to ask you? What is your plan?

SPEAKER_02 55:07

Okay, what is the plan? Um the plan is to write and travel full time somewhere, maybe in Africa, maybe in Southeast Asia. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 55:25

And how are you gonna do it?

SPEAKER_02 55:27

That's well, unfortunate. What's the plan? Unfortunate because um I was a state employee, I still am a state employee, just a different state, but I'm a state employee, so I have a pension, and I plan on um uh I don't know, just selling all my crap one day or putting it into a storage unit and moving to Vietnam. Or um I was in West Africa in um November, and uh the the guys we stayed at this hotel. I did like this motorbike ride through um West Africa, and the guys have this little hotel in uh La Simone, and they said, Oh, we need somebody who wants to come and stay here, it'll be free rent, and we can give them some money to like learn some learn language or learn some dances. I'm like, Oh my god, sign me up. Me, me, me, me, me. Um, if I can get over the idea of um what society expects us to as mothers at this grandmothers, which I'm not a grandmother right now, and I hope to god I'm not a grandmother for probably like you know, at least six more years, um maybe even more. But if I can get it past what society's expectations are for women with adult children and families, then the plan is to, you know, go go help open an English-speaking school in Vietnam with my friend Min, or you know, go um, you know, open up uh a brewery in Senegal or something.

SPEAKER_00 57:00

Or life is before you, Tracy.

SPEAKER_02 57:04

Right, it's there, the sky's the limit.

SPEAKER_00 57:07

And so what would you want people to like if they're gonna reach out to you? So we always have everything about you in the show notes. If they were gonna reach out to you, what would you how would you want them to access you? How would you want them to what would you want them to do? Like follow, purchase your book, like what are the things, how do you want to interact with the audience? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:29

Yeah. So um I have two primary ways that they can interact with me, and both of them are equally as great. I have a website, it's Tracy Smith Author. And on my website, there's a way to contact me if they wanted to contact me, say they want me to come and speak to um a group full of women who are learning how to kind of take all of those identities and also find themselves within that identity. I would, I would love, love, love to be able to do that. Um, so my website is a great way. And then also I have a Substack um that's Tracy Smith PhD, or you can also find the Geography of Connection. And that's my project that I'm that's this project on belonging that I'm working on. And um, I would absolutely love to talk to um anybody, but especially women. I would especially love to talk with them more about what they think about belonging and um, you know, start helping them, not helping them, but start showing them some of the ways that I make I notice things and how maybe they can start noticing things in order to find belonging within themselves.

SPEAKER_00 58:40

Tracy, I want to thank you so much for being here, just sharing your experiences, you know, and just the beauty of you know, your heart and just the natural process that you're going through with identity and belonging. I think, you know, it's um I think all of us women and human beings, we all struggle, you know, with that. And it does take time to just continue to evolve and learn and grow. So I'm always, you know, trying to feel better, you know, like some days are harder than others. But anyhow, so I want to thank you for being here. Is there anything else you'd last thing you want would like to say to everyone?

SPEAKER_02 59:21

Or um, you know, thank you so much for having me. I've really enjoyed talking with you. And I think the biggest message I would want to pass along is it's really hard to say yes to yourself. And I think this is true of anybody, but and especially for women, because we do have all these identities and roles that we have to fulfill. Don't think you have to do a grand gesture to do it, to start. It's not like you have to go book that one-way ticket to Iceland to say yes to yourself. You can do it by saying, I'm going to sit down and read a book instead of washing dishes because that's something that I want to do. And that is saying yes to yourself. And I think that starting small will lead up to you being able to maybe do the grand gesture of booking the one-way ticket to Iceland.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:14

I just have to say something about this. I love what you said, saying yes to yourself. And isn't it such a female um issue the difficulty of saying no to others or being able to like there they there's such an ease in saying yes to others, but there is not that ease to saying yes to ourselves. And I did this little practice, I still do. I had a little break from it just the last month, but a little practice where every single solitary weekend I would do one thing I've never done before, and I would do it alone. And I just even if it's walking through a neighborhood that I've never seen before, just I that's like my tick. Like, I'm gonna do something that's unique, and it could be a big thing, like ride 39 miles in Florida on my bicycle, that's one thing. But I'm just saying, like anything that's unique and different that expands me, and it's that's that is part of that saying yes to myself, which I love the way that you put that. So thank you for being here. Yay! Thank you so much.