{"id":285,"date":"2010-12-24T03:01:00","date_gmt":"2010-12-24T03:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.healingicons.org\/why-we-travel\/"},"modified":"2015-04-13T15:21:52","modified_gmt":"2015-04-13T15:21:52","slug":"why-we-travel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.healingicons.org\/why-we-travel\/","title":{"rendered":"Why We Travel"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"whyTraditions Become Stale<\/h1>\n

This Christmas Eve, Santa has arrived in the Houston airport, buzzing around on a golf cart\u00a0appropriately\u00a0adorned for the festive day. We\u2014my husband, our daughter and son, and I\u2014are there, bags packed and ready to fly. We\u2019ve completed the rounds of extended-family Christmas dinners and gift exchanges and are embarking on a journey I have always\u00a0wanted\u00a0to take: We are leaving town for Christmas, joyously skipping out on some of the holiday traditions that frankly feel way more exhausting than fulfilling.<\/p>\n

Our daughter, taking what might be her last significant break as a full-time graduate student,\u00a0suggested that we travel to shake things up. I was elated, but it took some\u00a0convincing\u00a0for my husband to jump on board, and our son was initially pretty annoyed as well. Thankfully, everyone came around. While the upcoming trip made it challenging to schedule our annual\u00a0Christmas\u00a0party, which we\u2019ve been holding for over 20 years with some dear friends, we managed to do it early. No one even noticed that we didn\u2019t have a Christmas tree.<\/p>\n

Travel for New Experiences<\/h2>\n

Taking a break, a pause from traditions that have become stale and unsatisfying, gives us the opportunity to\u00a0breathe new meaning and purpose into the rituals within our lives<\/strong>.\u00a0Occasionally letting go of well-kept traditions and\u00a0throwing caution to the wind with wild abandon can allow us to gather up that delicious inner\u00a0phosphorescence that keeps our lives sparkling with vividness and adventure.<\/p>\n

A visit to Guatemala’s indigenous Mayan people of Lake Atitlan, which is about an hour-and-a-half from Antigua, is\u00a0just the kind of adventure we’ere looking for. I\u2019d read an article in the New York Times<\/em> this past summer about Markus and Laura of Magic Carpet Rides<\/a>, and after tracking them down, they placed us with a Mayan family in San Juan La Laguna. One goal for this trip: our\u00a0daughter and I plan to study the relationship between Mayan arts and spirituality with our host family.<\/p>\n

Travel to Reflect and Grow<\/h2>\n

As we reach the end of 2010, take a few moments to remember with gratitude<\/strong> all of the goodness of your year and note any areas in your life that perhaps need a bit of\u00a0tweaking. Maybe some form of travel — whether it’s internal or external — can\u00a0pull you out of the slump.<\/p>\n

To help with this, I found the following bit of wisdom from Sarah Susanka in December’s Whole Living Magazine<\/em> and wanted to pass it on:<\/p>\n

Your Year-End Review<\/h2>\n

The Past Year<\/h3>\n

How have you spent your time? \u00a0What\u00a0were you\u00a0grateful\u00a0for? \u00a0What were your sorrows and\u00a0disappointments, and how did they change you? What books, films, etc., moved you?<\/p>\n

The Present<\/h3>\n

How are you different from the way you were a year ago? How can you integrate the lessons of the past year? Is there anything you’re trying to force into existence right now? If so, what would happen if you stopped?<\/p>\n

The Future<\/h3>\n

What do you want to focus on in the coming year? If you could sum up your desires and longings in one simple statement spoken from the highest aspect of yourself, what would it be?<\/p>\n

This is not a New Year’s resolution \u2013 it’s an anti-resolution. Often, we imagine we have to make<\/em> things happen, but when we’re clear about what we love, those opportunities come unbidden<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Enjoy the last moments of the New Year and look forward with shining eyes to the next! Consider sharing your answers to the questions above in a comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Traditions Become Stale This Christmas Eve, Santa has arrived in the Houston airport, buzzing around on a golf cart\u00a0appropriately\u00a0adorned for the festive day. We\u2014my husband, our daughter and son, and I\u2014are there, bags packed and ready to fly. We\u2019ve completed the rounds of extended-family Christmas dinners and gift exchanges and are embarking on a journey…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":832,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12,23],"tags":[45,71,42,62,70],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healingicons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healingicons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healingicons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healingicons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healingicons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.healingicons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healingicons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.healingicons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healingicons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.healingicons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}