People with Anxiety Need to Travel
If you have anxiety, you need to travel. And I’m so serious (to an extent). Travel is exposure therapy, which will be uncomfortable in the moment, but helpful later. Nothing in my life has helped more with my confidence, and my anxiety than travel. Breath work can only go so far. Of course, talk to someone before embarking on a trip and make sure it is right for you. I can only speak from my experience and my anxiety is not extreme. I’m able to function in my daily life with minimal interference, I got good grades, I do well at work, I have close relationships. I don’t think I’m generally viewed as a person with anxiety until people really know me. People can’t hear my racing heart as I press unmute, they can’t see repeating thoughts after a conversation, or feel the sticky sweat under my arms. They see my output, and that’s enough. Luckily for me! Travel helps reduce the toll unexpected situations take on me. It’s helped me to know I can handle stress, it’s built confidence. Travel is not only exposure therapy, sometimes it’s just therapy.
Conquering Uncertainty
Throughout my trips, I face new problems, meet new people, and encounter new environments all of which induce fear (aka anxiety). Conquering all the uncertainty during my trips builds my confidence long after I’ve returned home. If I can get my passport back in Tanzania even after getting on a ferry, I can do anything. Especially when I’m in a less dire situation, because truly staying in Dar es Salaam another night was dire. I needed to get out of that situation and the only way out was my passport. Ash talked me out of my initial panic-induced bad idea, and after that I went into full problem solving mode. And, I did it! My passport went through 4 people, an hour drive, and a ferry to get back to me in time for my flight home.
Being Scared is Okay
Honestly, though? Problems only sometimes scare me, travel and work have given me the confidence in myself to solve problems. A little too much too because I’m now the default problem solver on trips. Unfortunately, new people scare me. Even people I know scare me. I’ll be honest, most people scare me. Talking to new people in a new country? Oh man, does that make me want to vomit. It’s frightening. Thanks to Ash, it’s getting less frightening. So far, it’s actually gone really well, which I’m still surprised by. On our last trip to Morocco, Ash turned to me and said “we’re so good at making friends” to which I replied “you’re so good at making friends.” I’m a little scared to say it, but maybe it was partly me too. I want it to be me too.
My Brain is Changing
So recently, I’ve found myself talking to shop owners or friendly strangers longer than usual. I’ve even been talking to acquaintances more to build the connection. It’s me trying. I want to be the person that can make friends with strangers, or at the least not blush when talking to a new person. Accomplishing this is also the result of me starting to let go of the idea that I’m awkward, that I can’t talk to people. I’m also learning to overcome the fear that people won’t like me by building these new connections abroad. Connections with people that still talk to me a year later. It’s creating new pathways in my brain to override the long lived one that tells me people don’t like me. I’m creating a new identity, I’m slowly becoming the person I want to be. Travel has made this identity shift possible. It’s given me the confidence to slowly break my shell, to slowly release a fear deeply instilled in me, and it can do that for you too.
It’s Therapy
Besides the exposure therapy part, travel can sometimes feel like therapy. When I take the time to learn from the people around me, especially the people who are different, I’m in awe of their story. They’ve lived such a different life, yet we’re together at the same time. It kinda feels like fate. There’s so much to learn from the locals and the tourists from other countries that you’ll never learn at home. If you take the time to ask questions, and reflect on your experiences you’ll discover new ideas and dreams that are now unlocked. Just like you would in therapy. On the way home from your next trip, start reflecting because there’s no better time to reflect than on a plane.
Travel for a New You
Travel will make you a new you. It’s made me a new person, and it continues to do so. I’m about to go on the hardest hike of my life and speak spanish with strangers for a whole week. Things I’m scared to do, but things I want to do. It’s funny how that works. How the things we’re afraid of are also frequently the same things we desire. I think it’s because we’re afraid of not being able to do the thing or failing at the thing, so we tell ourselves we’re afraid. Even though we can do it, but only if we try. We might even need to try more than once, and that’s okay. For example, I know I’m going to embarrass myself a hundred more times by speaking bad Spanish before I’m proud of my Spanish. Doing it scared is better than never doing it at all. So start trying.
