Over the course of the past couple of weeks, I went traveling with my husband: first to visit family in London, then to Vienna to retrace the footsteps of my husband’s grandmother before she immigrated to the U.S., then to Croatia for a bicycling adventure, and then unexpectedly to Venice due to our plane’s emergency landing on account of an engine failure.
Whenever I return from traveling, I’m struck by the multitude of experiences I’ve had in such a short time, and how removing myself from my usual environment is energizing and refueling. Whether fun, frivolous, enlightening, or difficult, they inevitably imbue me with fresh, new, and unique perspectives which help me grow and open my eyes to new ways to invest in myself, my friends, my family, my colleagues and my clients. By sharing my experiences, I hope to expand the arc of growth beyond myself, and I am hopeful that you too will share your travel experiences and takeaways with me.
Just prior to leaving for our trip, I’d finished reading neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor’s eye-opening book, Whole Brain Living, in which she describes the lessons she learned about her brain through her eight years of recovery from the massive stroke she had at thirty-seven years old.* Alongside our adventures, her perspective was central to my thinking, and my experiences were layered with a vantage point I hadn’t had prior to reading her book. It is with my new vantage point that I will convey the many lessons I learned while away.
Over the next number of days, my blog musings will be posted in the following categories:
- The Brain Huddle, and Fast Downhill Biking
- Hidden Treasures and Unexpected Joys
- The Play(ground) Must Go On
- Zivjeli
- Seeing Beyond the View
- Keep Calm and Carry On
*In 2008, having largely recovered from her 1996 stroke, she wrote a book entitled My Stroke of Insight, where she describes her experience of losing her ability to walk, talk, read, write and recall any of her life. Her 2008 TED talk was one of the world’s most watched TED talks; you can listen to it here.
