The life as digital nomad might look like a very very long vacation. It is not. It is another format for living. Unschooling, perfect timing, inner peace, and adventure do not derive automatically from the traveling, it takes inner work, it takes focus, it takes good strategies. Read on and learn how we do it.
By Cecilie Felumb Conrad | November 3, 2019
“It would seem like you are on vacation when I look at your social media!”, my daughter’s partner said to me on the phone. It is interesting. With a double perspective. Why does it seem like it, and what does it actually mean to have a life that looks like a vacation, when it is not? What are the differences, how do they feel, and how did we get there? What are the secrets, making this life so amazing?
Planning after the fact is a great relief
First of all, vacation is doing something other than everyday life. Something different from what we normally do.
On that parameter, we are always on vacation. We have a few bases, but we are most often on a new location. And we do not have an everyday life to escape from. Our location and lifestyle changes very often, and very often it does so with no planning ahead. We respond to what is going on, what we feel, and move in the directions pointed out by our hearts and intuition.
We often say we plan after the fact.
Because we do.
Our GPS consists of equal heart and intuition. It never fails.
On the other hand, we are not on vacation, even though we more or less always do something other than last week, since this is our life all the time. Before we escaped the rat race and lived a more mainstream life, we would go on vacation a few weeks a year. When you do that: Leave your base to go somewhere else for a weekend or a few weeks, there are several things behaving psychologically different.
Firstly, we would leave many things behind. Not just physical stuff, but also projects, ambitions and all the little things, that need attention. For the time of the vacation, you leave it behind and (more important) forget about it.
no weekends, no vacations – there is no escape from our everyday life.
This lets the shoulders down and sets the mind free for a while, and this is very liberating. In our life of full-time travels, we have learned, this state is an important one to obtain, by actually doing more of the stuff that needs to be done and letting less stuff end up on a to-do list or a project list. Letting go of planning sets the mind free to stay in the present moment.
Secondly, there is the time frame: A vacation has a limited timeframe, and you need to enjoy it fully. Actually, you always have to enjoy your life to the fullest, but often we don’t know or don’t believe, it is possible. Many people are unfortunately trapped by the idea “it has to be hard” and stay in a work mode, suffering from the not present life. Anyway: Vacations call for this presence and this joy, a more mindful life.
As we do not have the limited time and the everyday life to come back to, we are not prone to be stressed about enjoying our limited vacation and we have to make sure, we stay present and mindful out of pure joy and discipline. It is not too hard. The lifestyle does a lot of the work for us.
Traveling puts us into the moment, we stay present and with open minds
I once talked to a guy who had moved to another country and started to work from home, a different and more stable kind of adventure compared to ours, yet a huge change and a great adventure.
His story is this: On new years evening, he had sat down to reflect on the past year, and realized, he remembered every minute of the 3 weeks of his vacation in Thailand and only a few afternoons and parties of all the other 49 weeks of the year. What life was that? Not memorable, he thought, not very interesting, it seems – and then he pulled the plug and started to change his life.
Life on the move opens our eyes, keeps our minds mindful, keeps us awake and alert. It is a lot of fun. In a not stressful way, since we are not going back in xy days. It sure does look like a vacation, when we are on the beach on a Tuesday, and when we visit landmarks in the afternoons, but it is not. This is our everyday life. There is no escape. And we do not need the escape.
We have created a life we do not need a vacation from. It is the truth, not just a slogan.
This particular week on the edge of November in Andalusia, we spend most of it in close proximity to a pool. We called it poos school week. Letting go of ambition on behalf of our children sets them free and lets them live their life. I have said it before, and I shall say it again. There is no way, we can know, what they would have learned if we did not steal 10.000 hours of their childhood (often more) deciding their life for them (=school). Unless we don’t do it and set them free.
For an educated person this is a challenge. It is an ongoing challenge for an educated person to let go and not put ambition into the relation. To let them be, let them dive into the things they want to, to share life with them, have conversations, play board games and read books and spend days in the pool – and not come running with languages and mathematics, world history and structure.
For an educated person it is a great challenge to let go and let flow, being habituated to structure, curriculum and plan. And I accept it. The challenge.
This week we said yes to an invitation from a Danish woman who stopped at the beach to talk to us, just because of the language we share. She invited us to come to stay in her amazing house facing the cliffs and the ocean, and with the pool, where the children spend most of their waking hours. We said yes, and again we moved in with someone, we did not know before. Read more about how we moved in with “strangers” in Southern France here and at the Canarys here.
After 5 days of co-living, we get to know each other. Louise even invited the other family we traveled with, very kind of her. Letting ten people move into her house is quite brave. We all had a lot of fun, and everyone was happy with the situation. We had thought we would want to go on our adventures, but as the children wanted to swim in the pool, we let them and we more or less stayed in Louise’s house. Five days of another kind of peace, and of getting to know a new person in our life. It has been very interesting and we all left the situation smarter and grateful. Louise is an interesting and warm person, in a conscious transformation phase in life, changing perspective and job and location, with clear intelligence and a clear heart. Wonderful.
This moving in with someone, who had actually never heard of unschooling before, got us thinking, again putting down in simple words and values, why we do what we do. Just grab life as is, dive into what is right there in front of us, and letting go of the urge to control, structure and decide for our children.
And we have seen them grow. Also on the traditional academic levels. They have been doing a lot of math, both calculus and geometry as they have been playing board games with lots of calculating and also studying Islamic art, which is geometry when it is the most interesting. And they have been swimming! Improving their skills, all of them. Pool School as I said.
Letting go and letting in is also letting grow. It is not an unambitious style, it is a different style. A style that needs more trust in the process of life, more inner work, more courage.
Letting go and letting in is also letting grow. It is not an unambitious style, it is a different style. A style that needs more trust in the process of life, more inner work, more courage.
It seems it is a general rule. As long as we try to hold on and control, things stagnate, but when we let go and let be, things grow and flow.
I just love this new label, I have applied to myself. Radical worldschooler. Enjoy the story of how this concept emerged in Granada, Spain right here.
So, there is an underlying truth here to pay attention to. It all seems very good and fine, but how does it actually work? To have a life on the move, to live with an open heart, to just say yes and chose to be amazingly at the right place at the right time? How can we plan after the fact, and live in mindful presence let go of control and flow with such success? It seems too loose, it seems too disorganized, too blablahippie-sh*t if you will.
Now I shall give you the clue. Clues. They are Trust, intention and inner peace.
It is that simple. But it is complicated, and it takes work. You need to put in the hours.
To be able to trust the process of life, trust the intelligence, that created both you, life itself and the idea of it all, trust your own presence, your own values, and choices, your options and obstacles, your heart-based intelligence – it all takes the inner work, rehearsing, focus.
It takes doing it all the time, it takes the courage to fall off the wagon, feel the doubt and the fear and the chaos and it takes the power to pull yourself back up. The more times you do it, the better you get at it, and the less you actually fall off.
It is that simple. But it is complicated, and it takes work. You need to put in the hours.
One of the basic things to do in this work is to set intentions. Intentions differ from plans. Very much so. Intentions derive from values, and these are easy if you define them by huge themes like family, health, joy – but complicated if you have to explain your value system by more defined structures in your life, by choices you actually make, by things you chose NOT to do or have or believe in. This inner work is one of the most important ones, to find out what you hold valuable, and what is sacred to you – and (very important) how to transform this to actual lived life.
Once the values are set, and the markers – the visible life elements that let you know you are on track – you can also set intentions. You will know what you want on a deep level, but at the same time in a concrete way. With clear intentions, life becomes much easier.
Now, this is the secret(s). It is somewhat easy to share it, to explain in short terms what the code is. I know of experience, it is more complicated to actually get there. I have done many years of inner work and studying myself, and I coach many of my clients in this exact art. It is a journey, a very interesting one, and it is also a personal development that takes attention and steady work over weeks and months and years. To change habits of the personality, modes of thought, perception of reality s not a simple task. I know.
But I do assure you, it is worth it. It is the code of an amazing life.
This inner work is one of the most important ones, to find out what you hold valuable, and what is sacred to you – and (very important) how to transform this to actual lived life.
Thank you for reading the blog. I write to share our experiences and perspective, and would love to hear yours. Please comment in whatever way feels right to you: Facebook-comment, personal e-mail, text-message, whatever you like. It brings a lot of joy in the bus, when we hear from readers. Thank you and may the sun shine on your path.
Tak fordi du læser med. Jeg skriver for at dele vores erfaringer og vores perspektiv, og vil elske at høre, hvad du tænker. Skriv endelig til mig i kommentarfeltet, i en personlig e-mail eller en tekstbesked – det du foretrækker. Det bringer megen glæde i den lille bus, når vi hører fra læsere. Tak og må solen skinne på din vej.
Places and people – week 45 / 2019