Taken at Better Homes and Garden Test Garden Des Moines, IA 2020
Welcome to TheraTravel. The idea behind this blog has been in my head for years. Early on in life I recognized the potential benefits of traveling beyond fun in the sun. My travels sometimes have helped me to restore and heal and other times my travels have broken me down in ways that allowed me to grow in ways I never imagined. As a psychologist I do a lot of “couch therapy” so I recognize what it feels and looks like when people grow. I am a strong advocate for mental health care and the importance of therapy, but even I know there are many ways to get “therapy.” Art, spirituality, creativity, and social support are just some of the many things I have seen people use to heal. Traveling is that thing for me. It is my healer, my medicine, my inspiration, and so much more. Do not get me wrong, travel is not a substitute for evidence based mental health treatment, but it can be a tool that can be used to help us heal and grow.
My vision for this blog is that it can be a place that I can share with others my adventures and how travel can be therapeutic. My hope is that it will inspire others to plan their own adventures and to find ways to make their travels be more than just vacations from life. That people can make their travels life changing and life affirming experiences.
You might say this is a horrible time to start a blog like this. We aren’t safely able to travel anywhere right now and if we do, everything is closed. The pandemic has altered the way that we are able to move about the world both in our immediate surroundings but also locally, nationally, and abroad. I say it is the perfect time because it gives us an opportunity to discuss the definition of travel and forces us to be creative about how we travel in practice.
What is travel? A definition from dictionary.com states travel is “to move or go from one place or point to another.” Merriam Webster has several definitions: “to journey through or over”, “to move in a given direction or path or through a given distance”, or “to move or undergo transmission from one place to another.” All of these definitions have one thing in common, movement. The definitions don’t say “a trip long and far-away” or “an expensive adventure abroad.” Traveling is about changing where you are and that can be both physical and mental. Travel is about moving towards something different than where or what you are now. We could even say that traveling is about moving from the people we were to the people we are becoming. So, in these uncertain times when it seems everything is changing, maybe we are already traveling?
And as we travel, we can explore our intentions. Which path do we want to take? Where do we want to end up? Do we want to take someone else’s path or make our own? These are questions only you can answer for yourself. I am excited to share my path with you and hopefully some of my growth and lessons along the way.