What Travel Taught Me About Trust

Trusting in yourself when everything seems to be going wrong is the true test of adversity. It’s only with trust can we grow far beyond our limitations.

6 years of my life, I felt broken and almost losing my life to trusting the wrong individual, left me with severe caution of the outside world. For nearly a year I couldn’t step outside without someone next to me, I was scared to lose my life.I barely knew myself anymore. I couldn’t live like that though, the universe didn’t give me a second chance to throw away my life by staying indoors hiding from the world.

So I traveled. I went abroad. I decided to trust the world blindly, because either I was going to sink or maybe, just maybe I was going to swim. I could count in my head all the ways it wouldn’t work out and shouldn’t work out, but I would only be scaring myself silly into another corner of my mind.

I was in a foreign land, far outside of my comfort zone. I gave up my 900$ apartment in North Jersey-My two bedroom apartment near the Lincoln Tunnel- a soon to be prime spot! I gave up my secure job. I gave up the majority of my clothes. I gave up all the things I attached myself too.
I threw myself back into the universe, like that trust fall game we played in grade school. Where you fall into someone’s arms backwards and hope to god they catch you, because if they don’t, you just busted your ass on the ground.

Traveling taught me to change and to never be so rooted in the ground that you can’t sway a bit to another direction. It taught me that my own ideals, beliefs, how I have always done things – may not be right. It may have been right at a point in my life, but not now. For example, holy shit, I have never tried a bidet before in my life (a bidet- similar to a kitchen sink spray, but to clean your butt after the toilet) but, I never once thought before that moment there was a better way to take a shit. Now I know and I love bidets. At first though, I was like what the fuck is this?! When we do one thing our whole lives, we usually never question if our way is wrong or if there are other approaches to it. The world is in constant motion and so are you-if you allow yourself to be.

Traveling taught me to be open and not closed up for fear of further pain. It taught me to let go of control. All those times, I got lost in Hokkaido, Japan or took the right bus at the wrong time at the Tokyo Bus Station. I had no choice, but to be open to the experience before me and reach out to strangers that I was lost and needed help. Coming from New York and what I’ve seen, i felt like asking for help implied that they expected something in return or that I was weak- I was at first too scared to ask for help because I didn’t want to be indoctrinated to others. However sometimes you just have to be open and let people help you. Just asking people for help, really helped me speak up in other areas of my life where I stayed silent. It also opened me up to the kindness of the world.

There is a universal language that go far beyond the written word and that is kindness. I don’t know what you’ve been watching on the news, but the majority of folks out here are not bad and don’t want the worst for you. Yes, there are a few bad apples, but that’s just produce for you. Just because you ate the bad mushy apple first, doesn’t mean the rest of the apples in that bag aren’t crisp.

The last thing travel taught me, was to slow down. Patience. There is no rush. It was never about the goal; it was about the journey. My time in San Francisco taught me that. I was so busy trying to get somewhere – anywhere – and go as fast as possible to reach some goal, but what happened after I reached the goal? There was just another goal to be reached, which is fine, but it was the moments along the way to that goal that was worth living for.

It was those late night bike rides to the pier with friends, the moments laying in bed with my lover listening to him snore, the time with my students joking around with them during homework time as we google our name meanings on urbandictionary.com! It wasn’t about what came next, it was the moment and being present in that moment. Not worrying about what happens next, but being prepared anyways .

Traveling has taught me a lot of things and it helped me adjust to the world better. I learned to improvise – make shit up as I go along. Change with the moment and enjoy the moment, without trying to rush to the next best thing. It taught me, that not only I can change- those around me can change too, if we give them the chance. Nothing in life is permanent, we are all just passing through- traveling through this journey called life.

Traveling taught me to trust life again, it was scary.

Traveling taught me to trust . Trust the process. Trust the journey.

Traveling has done that for me. The times i run out of money. The times i thought i ran out of friends. When I felt like I ended up in the wrong city. When that lover quit on me-when I thought I was going to quit on myself. So many times I thought I was going to quit on myself! I couldn’t turn to anyone, because I barely knew anyone!

I had no choice, but to trust. I hope as you find yourself on your journey through life, that you trust in life and in yourself. You ARE the only person who can catch you when you fall.

xoxo,

Teish