What Will My Family Think If I Start Traveling?

At the end of the day, who’s life did we just live? Did we walk around telling the kid who wants to go out and see the world, and still be successful that he couldn’t do it, or were we that kid? Ultimately, although we may take to heart what is said to us, especially by those close to us, we must lead our own life, and the only we to do so fulfillingly is by listening to our intuition, and following our heart. A heart filled with the expectations and wishes of everyone but yourself is a confusing heart to follow.

I talk to so many people daily that are utterly speechless that I finally left my hometown, and began traveling the country in my car. So many people give me respect like I’m running a mile for them in a race that they think they can’t run. All I do is tell people that the only things standing between where they are, and where they want to be is themselves.

I feel as though a reason I was guided to endure this adventure is not only to come into alignment with myself, but also to live as an example to others who are too convinced that they never could. Observing my own change in perception regarding my capabilities, and my determination to make my visualizations manifest matter, I began to pick out what kept the majority of people from switching up their lifestyle. Ironically it is always the smallest, overlooked things, so overlooked in fact that they are unnoticeable to whoever the tendency has become so deeply rooted within.

The most redundant reason I have observed for someone to refrain from chasing their dreams is the fear of disappointing people. When family and friends rain on the visionary’s parade with all the reasons they told themselves they couldn’t follow their own dreams, it is difficult to separate their role as a relative or friend from their self doubts that they are projecting onto others.

This separation is difficult and painful, especially for those who have grown up with great regard for other people’s opinions. I had a hard time overcoming the fact that everything I did for myself was a disappointment to my family. I developed such an anxiety from my refusal to accept this, and I created a horrible inner reality as a result. Finally, after a long time of painful self-imprisonment, I realized that I had fed a side of myself that could not be satisfied without their acknowledgement, knowing very well I would never get it.

This is a situation where only I could have gotten myself out of that static mind state, for I was blind to it until I meditated on it, and slowly opened my eyes to see it fully. We are truly blind to ourselves until we look in a mirror. I began to look into the eyes of everyone around me as mirrors, and learned to see myself in them. This way I was able to perceive the coding of my personality within that of my family’s, down to the tendency they had to doubt themselves, and to neglect their deepest desires. To see our reflective nature, and even more so habitual reflexes, assists us in stripping our identities of unoriginal and unwanted parts of ourselves.

Don’t let people’s pleasures come before yours. Once you have learned to love yourself, you will be in a position to love others with the proper boundaries set up. Uprooting these procurations of our upbringings and our spongelike receptivity in order to proceed with our ambitions allows us to fill the space created with new knowledge, healthier habits, and most importantly self love. Ask yourself what it truly is that is keeping you where you are, because you really are the only thing standing in the way of doing what you really want to do.