How Travel Helped Me Heal
iStockPhoto
Travel has always helped me rejuvenate but traveling while working never provided me with enough time to truly clear out the cobwebs in my mind or get the distance from it all to really focus on what I needed to do to heal and head on a new path.
For me, the extensive travel has given me the strength to stay on this healing journey. Travel gets us outside of ourselves and the daily situations that keep us from achieving clarity. This is why I love driving so much. Though I love to fly, too, there is nothing that clears my mind like a long, long road trip. The stillness of being in a car for hours gives me time to think and process the complexities of life without interruption.
At the beginning of 2023, after completing a major project at work, the post-project hum provided my brain with plenty of room to start pondering life. This was the first time ever working for my former employer that I had time to think and regroup. The stillness took my mind to some surprising places.
I realized I really didn’t know who I was outside of my profession. I had no creative outlet (other than the Lego projects I loved to work on while watching football). I had serious regrets about spending my time and energy on a career that never lived up to hype or promise. And there were other burning questions:
Is there life outside of Corporate America?
Who made the rules we live by anyway? And why did I think adhering to them was the path to a prosperous life?
What would it be like to wake up every morning knowing the day was mine?
What would I do if I knew I would always have the resources to make life happen?
What would life look like if I could live on the road?
What would a less-structured life look like?
I got my financial planning Excel spreadsheet and figured out how much I needed to save for a six-month unpaid leave of absence I could take the following year. I desperately needed time for just me.
Though I was initially shocked when I found out my job was being eliminated in March 2023, I realized quickly that I manifested this. After years of being kicked in the brain, I was simply tired. Through it all, I believe now that the Universe has bigger plans for me.
Backstory
By the end of 2019, I was completely burned out. When I began working this demanding job in 2015, I came in with large suitcases of unhealed emotional baggage, so I made many life decisions out of fear. So, I threw myself into the job and doggie motherhood to avoid looking at it. The baggage just compounded and compounded.
I knew I needed to make a change, but I was obese and depleted physically, mentally, and emotionally. Knowing that no one would hire me if I didn’t get my physical health in order, I started my weight loss journey in January 2020, then found out in March 2020, one week before the first COVID cases in Austin, that I had breast cancer. Going through cancer is extremely stressful and filled with worry, but doing this at the beginning of a pandemic was a special hell.
That was the shot across the bow that started me on the health journey I remain on to this day. I completed my weight loss by spring 2021 and have kept the weight off ever since with sensible eating, consistent exercise, and therapy for stress management.
I was warned by a colleague with cancer that the mental strain was the toughest part. What I didn’t understand at the time is that it takes years to clean up the psychological dust that cancer kicks up. I will never be able to fully articulate how this impacted me. And coming into my diagnosis already brain-fried, it really didn’t help matters.
All told, the layoff was a gift.
2023
When I took my first post-layoff road trip in April 2023, all I knew is there were a lot of places I wanted to go. I did not know how long I would not be working, and I did not have a complete picture of where my travels, or life, would take me.
From April through October 2023, I took six separate road trips. Initially, I only planned the first three, including a short one between medical appointments. But as I spent more time on the road, I was achieving healing and clarity one mile at a time.
When I returned from my last 2023 road trip in October, I got a lot of the muck out and was ready to start making life changes that enhanced my mental health and personal development. Getting away from my life for all those months healed me enough to ready me for the real work to come.
It was around this time I started a daily meditation practice, a game-changer when it came to my mental and emotional health. Even 10-15 minutes a day is all I need to slow my brain waves down to help me become less accident-prone and better regulate my emotions.
I also made changes around the house that helped me keep it clean with less strain; I’m deeply affected mentally when my home isn’t clean. I started making my bed every morning once I discovered that seeing my bed made kept me happy. Since then, I have made my bed every morning. This discipline has helped me on the road.
2024
After staying home until my annual medical checkups were done in April 2024, I still had the resources to temporarily suspend my job search and take another trip. I had not planned on hitting the road, but I received an invite from my sister to stay with them in Pennsylvania, and I decided to turn this into a month-long road trip. I again saw new places and reconnected with people I had not seen in years.
When I returned to Texas in June 2024, the time on the road gave me a renewed commitment to continue molding myself into a better person.
In early 2024, I started seeing a therapist who had experience with cancer patients; this time was valuable for her to get to know me and how I work to heal. I take therapy seriously; I’m there to get better, not use my therapist for a confidential place to complain about my life. We established a collaborative relationship where I identified areas I needed to work on; through her insight and use of EMDR therapy, I was able to reach three key healing milestones:
I let go of my corporate career.
I realized that everything I had been through in life served a purpose, and none of that time was wasted.
I am worthy and deserving.
Solid Foundation Through Healing
Healing is never neat, pretty or painless; if you have had surgery, you know there is a lot of pain and ugliness that comes with the healing process. Then that day comes when you realize you are yourself again plus the scar that reminds you of it all.
When I got back into life, I wanted to be fully, truly healed, and the silence at home made me realize I had a lot of work to do.
What I have learned in the past couple of years is that, if you want your abundance, your dream life, you must heal, first. If you don’t, even if you do manage to get it, you won’t be healed enough to hold on to it and have it stick. Knowing I am laying a solid foundation for my second act gave me the will to keep going through the worst of it. I learned you must:
Confront, process, and forgive ugly truths about yourself and your life decisions, then be grateful for the wisdom and compassion you gained though it all
Confront, process, and forgive ugly truths about the people around you to make tough decisions about who remains in your circle so you are surrounded by affirming, healthy people
Cultivate the confidence to set boundaries and expect people to honor them
Cultivate confidence in your ability to deal with life’s disappointments and obstacles
How do you know when you are healed? When you know, from the depths of your soul, you are worthy and deserving!
As I write this in September 2025, I have had 2.5 years to reflect now that I have done the serious, hard work to heal. For the first time in my life, I know what it is like to wake up healed and in peace, to not live under constant stress and anxiety I became accustomed to since childhood. It is amazing! I hope everyone can feel this. If that were the case, think of how much war, crime, and strife would disappear!
I have achieved peace, and I’ll fight you to the death if you think you are going to take this away from me. I set boundaries and expect them to be honored without discussion or argument. When it comes to respect, I give as good as I get, but I didn’t go through everything I have been through to lose what I have gained; it’s not an option.
Travel is essential for my health, which is why I started Annie All Around. Even if you only want to travel through me, it reminds us there is a world outside of our little bubble, and we must leave it to gain perspective and rest.