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What if you’re not lost, just living in a part of the story no one talks about? Holding Patterns is a podcast about the in-between. The messy, undefined seasons of life where nothing quite makes sense. Hosted by Ashton Arnold, a deeply curious traveler who is carving out a life beyond the conventional path. Ashton leads guests through the kind of conversations that get honest, intimate, and are rooted in what it actually means to be human. This show is for people who’ve felt unsure, off-course, or like they’re making it up as they go. Each episode features a conversation with someone who has built a life outside the typical script, unpacking the moments where success felt out of reach. From travel and relationships to money and mental health, nothing’s off-limits. Holding Patterns is here to remind you that you’re not behind, you’re not alone, and you’re allowed to figure it out your own way.
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[00:00:00]
Welcome to Holding Patterns
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Hi, I'm Ashton, and this is Holding Patterns. This is a podcast about the in-between moments of life, the ones where everything feels a little bit uncertain. I've spent the last couple years moving abroad, starting over, and honestly, living in the in-between more often than not.
But through all of my own experiences, I've realized quickly that these moments aren't meaningless. They actually impact a whole lot of who we are. So this is a place to talk about them and to talk to people who've lived through it, too.
Unexpected Solo Episode
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Welcome back to another [00:01:00] episode of Holding Patterns and another solo episode of Holding Patterns that I did not think I was going to record. The plan when I started this and did that first solo episode was to never do another one again. However, I created a podcast all about holding patterns, and I am currently sitting in the most holding patterns of holding patterns.
And so many of these episodes I've recorded are about the aftermath of holding patterns, and I thought that maybe it would be helpful for me to talk through this one and also give some insight into what a holding pattern looks like right at the eye of the hurricane, because that is where I am sitting right now, very much in the eye of the hurricane.
So before I jump into what this holding pattern is looking like for me, I just wanted to say [00:02:00] I missed an episode last week because I have been working for three weeks nonstop, and my job is fully centered around being outside and driving, which does not leave room for a lot of computer time. Also have been staying in places with no Wi-Fi, so I have not been able to edit or record anything for pretty much the last three weeks, hence the backlog episode.
Summer On the Road
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The three weeks have been highs and lows. The last month has been South Dakota, Wyoming, and Montana. Specifically did Badlands National Park, Custer State Park. The Black Hills in South Dakota are just unbelievably beautiful. I think it's one of the most underrated parts of the United States. And obviously Mount Rushmore, and it was completely fogged over after already having two really hard days with the group, and that just was great for the morale.
And then it [00:03:00] started dumping rain, so that was awesome. And yeah, we drove through Wyoming and been in Yellowstone a lot, which is crazy that I get to get paid to be in Yellowstone all the time. Speaking of Yellowstone, I don't know if anyone saw the video of a bison charging an older man, and it literally looked like a cartoon character.
I thought it was AI when I watched it, and he gets, like, flung up into the air. But we, the group and I, were there the exact day that happened. But the end of that trip ended really well because we get to do this wolf tracking tour on when we go to Yellowstone, which is incredible. If you ever have the chance to go to Yellowstone, pay the money to do, go with a wildlife guide and do a wolf tracking tour.
It is worth every cent, and it's also worth the early morning wake-up. We meet the tour guide at, like, 5:00 AM. But that trip we saw a grizzly bear feeding on an elk carcass, and it was [00:04:00] super close. You could see it with the naked eye. You didn't even need the telescopes, which was so cool. And we saw wolves, but they were far away.
Then I ended up having a trip with just one person, and shout out to Lily because it was one of the best weeks of my whole summer, just her and I. It was like being on a trip with a friend. I had so much fun with her. Then had another group that was great, and I was just really working three weeks straight.
I find by the third week, I could not possibly get enough sleep to catch up with all the activities and the driving. Yeah, that's what's been going on the last couple weeks for me.
Small Joys and Gratitude
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I'm reading... It's kind of ironic. I'm reading a book called Lonesome Dove. It takes place going up to Montana through Wyoming.
It's really cool to be reading something about where you physically are, which I kind of wanna try and do more. I know and have met people who will always [00:05:00] choose a book about where they're going or traveling, and I never have really tried that out, but I think that I am going to really try and emphasize that for my next trips.
And what else has been going on in my life? I am currently set up in a hotel in Vegas recording this and got a 10-hour drive ahead of me tomorrow. That's kind of more of the lighthearted stuff going on in my life right now and just some fun stories. Yellowstone is so unbelievably packed right now.
That's just how it is in the summertime, but I feel really, really lucky I get to spend so much of my summer in the most beautiful places in this country. We're starting off with gratitude. In the words of Remington Arnold, "The theme is grateful, always." So as I s- mentioned at the start, I'm going through a really deep holding pattern right now, but I wanna, I wanna give context to how I got [00:06:00] here.
I mean, inherently, it's part of living seasonally, but this one is feeling Very different than any other seasonal, like, shift in life. This one is feeling a bit more intense, and I think, and I don't know because I'm not on the other side of it yet, yet, but I do think it's going to be very impactful. I can feel the shift happening.
Living with Anxiety
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But before I dive really into that, we'll start with anxiety. I know I mentioned in my very first episode, and I think some other episodes that I've posted, that I was coming back and starting my tour guiding job for the second season, and I was under the impression that I was gonna be way less stressed this year.
Just the imposter syndrome. I mean, I don't... I wouldn't say it's gone, but fading away as last year was just felt like running around with my head cut off. And [00:07:00] this year I know I went into it knowing what to expect. I know what it's like to live out of hotel rooms. I know what I need. I know what products I like to make the hotel rooms feel more comfortable and cozy, and the answer to that is candles and a blanket.
I think I had this idea in my head that it was gonna be smooth sailing. It's the first time I've gone back to a job, same bosses, same work, same flow since I graduated college. I've switched jobs literally every six months, every four months, every three months sometimes, and that was unfamiliar territory to me.
It was leaving me with a bit of an odd feeling prior to starting, but I just was like, "Well, this is because I am going back to a job for the first time," which I have never done. And I do think it's good for me to not have to, like, rip all the bricks away and start from the dirt and build that foundation.
I actually get to put another brick and more bricks on top of the ones I put there, the [00:08:00] foundation, and that feels really nice. And it did take off some stress. Coming back to the same position has helped a lot, and I have really appreciated getting to improve my knowledge of the national parks and all of that stuff.
But what I was not prepared for was the level of anxiety that I have been experiencing the last couple months. I am someone who always deals with anxiety, especially since leaving home and adulthood. It's been something I go through phases when it's really intense and when it's not, and my anxiety, maybe this is most people, I don't know, my anxiety highly, highly correlates with change, which I think anyone who doesn't know me and maybe looks at how much change and movement I've gone through the last couple years maybe thinks it's easy for me But it's actually, the anticipation prior to moving is unbelievably [00:09:00] anxiety-inducing.
Before I moved to Spain, before I moved to New Zealand, those were by far the most anxious I've ever been in my life. But the anxiety is always there. I have found a way to push through that anxiety so it doesn't inhibit me. And I know this right now as I'm sitting in a period of high anxiety, that once the anticipation goes away and I am in that place I was so fearful of, or the change has happened, I feel so much better.
But the lead-up is so difficult for me. My anxiety manifests really physically. I tend to feel, like, sensations in my arm or my foot, and it just is like this hyper-awareness of, like, the blood moving through there. When I'm in that mindset, it's all I can think about. It's a hyper-fixation loop, and it's very exhausting.
And then once I get out of that anxiety, it's [00:10:00] as if that feeling was never there. And anyone who maybe also relates to having a lot of this probably knows that when you're in the height of an anxiety spiral, it's so hard to reason with yourself. It's a lot of journaling and a lot of talking to people to bring me down, which I appreciate, but it's not fun.
Pushing Through Fear
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I remember before I went to New Zealand, the fear was so intense. I was going there, as I've mentioned in other episodes, I didn't have a house. I didn't have a plan. I didn't know anybody, and I didn't have a job. I just knew that New Zealand has always been there in the back of my mind, and I think I need to go.
I think I need to be there. That adventure and the excitement for the new friendships I was going to create and the exploration of a new country, those were like the pinnacles or the s- shining stars that I kept looking to of, this is gonna [00:11:00] be worth it. This experience is worth it. Because I had had the experience of Spain, and I knew- how much positive impact that had on my life, and I knew, my inner gut knew that that was what was gonna happen from this experience, no matter what ha- I didn't have a lot of expectations.
I just wanted to be there for the adventure. But that is not to say that the fear and the anxiety was not there. I remember I pushed my flight back a week from when I told everyone I was going, and it's like that one week gives you so much ease of like, "Okay, I, I don't, I don't have to go yet." But I knew I could not push it back again because that just keeps giving me leeway to keep pushing and pushing and pushing until you let the fear take over, and at one point it's just like ripping the Band-Aid off, right?
You just have to get it over with. You have to go. And for anyone who maybe is anticipating a big change or trying to get themselves to make that jump I think [00:12:00] sometimes we can mistake anxiety as like, "Well, if this was the right decision, I would feel certain about it, I would feel good, there wouldn't be any of this."
And that will never be the case. Anxiety is something that we have to live with. It's part of our evolution. It's supposed to protect us. And I look back on these decisions I've made in my life, and they are the best decisions I've ever made. Anxiety was always there. The fear was there, every single part of it.
And a note to everyone else, a note to myself that that is normal. It does not mean you're making the wrong decision. It does not mean you should let the fear take over and stop you. It's going to be there, and I think you have to learn, I say you, but me included, learn how to manage it, and it's giving you a signal.
Usually anxiety is trying to tell you something. So I think for me it's a lot about trying to tap into that message.
Panic Attack Wake Up Call
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[00:13:00] Bringing it back to this current phase of my life, I have... I'm back in this job. I'm on the road, and I am experience of the- experiencing those physical sensations I mentioned, and it just felt like it was getting worse and worse and worse until I ended up having a panic attack.
And my anxiety does not get to that level usually. I couldn't even tell you the last time I had a panic attack. And I just knew that this is different. This is a level that I am not used to, and I just kept, and have continued to ask myself, "What message is this trying to tell me?" Because I didn't work for five months in the winter, no money coming in.
There was anxiety associated with that. And I'm making money again. I've been making money for four months. It feels really good to have your bank account number going up and not down. And I'm in a [00:14:00] job that I love and I am familiar with. I think and feel like I'm good at it. So I'm asking myself what things could be causing this?
What is happening? And I've had some, a lot of therapy sessions, started doing acupuncture, which I haven't done before, because I'm pulling out all the stops, 'cause my job is literally taking care of other people, and if I can't take care of myself, it really puts a block in, in my ability to do my job. So I've been doing literally everything you could possibly do to bring this anxiety down, but I also know that- I have to listen to that message.
And I don't ha- really have an answer because it's still here, but I'm thinking and have been thinking and reflecting about Maslow's hierarchy of needs a lot and how that baseline need is home and safety. And if you can't meet those needs, then you can't move on to the next level of that [00:15:00] hierarchy. And for me, I don't have a home.
Pretty much everything I own is in the trailer, in my van, and I've been living without a home for quite a while, but this past winter I got the chance to pay rent and have my stuff in a closet and hang some pictures on the wall, and that was the first time I've done that in a very long time. And I think I had this sense of security and home, and then I ripped myself away from that again.
And I'm thinking that maybe that feeling, that kind of baseline sense of safety is gone and possibly contributing to how I'm feeling. Yeah, it's been really... It's been difficult to just live with. I have, thank goodness, just so many tools in my toolbox, and like I mentioned with New Zealand and Spain and moving to Canada, and like every single one of these changes, the anxiety has been present, so [00:16:00] I am familiar with this to an extent.
I'm not familiar with the panic attacks, so, uh, it's like that's a ding, ding, ding. Ashton, freaking look into something . Like, pay attention to what's going on and what feelings are happening.
Nomad Identity Shift
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So the anxiety was leading me to look at, okay, this, this baseline of home is not there. And then it's also leading me into thinking, "Well, okay, I don't have a home.
This is really hard. I don't know if I want to continue living like this because of that message I'm getting from the anxiety." I think it's telling me, like, this is not suiting me anymore. But, what, like, where does that leave me? Where do I go? And that is when we enter the holding pattern. We are diving right into it right now.
I'm getting this message from the anxiety like, "Okay, something's off. My nervous system is through the [00:17:00] roof. I am in flight or fight mode right now." So okay, my job is ending. I n- see the last paycheck What the hell do I wanna do next? The last couple jobs, when the end date is coming to that season, I've felt this, "Okay, like, what adventure's next?
What do I wanna go try?" When New Zealand was coming to an end, I knew that I wanted to, like, continue doing a ski season, and then when that heli job was coming to end, I knew I really wanted to do this tour guiding, and, like, this was a really big goal of mine for a- at least over a year. This job coming to an end is leaving me in a place of, do I want to just continue this nomad life and this travel life?
And there are so many other experiences in the world that I want to go have, and they make me really excited, and there's so many different countries I want to go explore, and different, like, ski seasons I wanna go have. But I'm trying to [00:18:00] listen to the anxiety of, like, I think I w- I think I need to have a home base.
I need to have some sense of safety, because this is not feeling good in my body anymore. But holy shit, that's a really big life change for me. I am feeling really lost in what that means for me. I don't have a goal to work towards right now. I don't know where I wanna direct my energy That's all familiar.
I know I recognize these feelings from other holding patterns I've been through. But something that's very different this time around is life is moving at 1,000 speed instead of just being on pause. Right now, I don't even have the time, it feels like, to analyze anything because I'm this to this, to this, to this, to this.
And that's been a little unfamiliar of how to navigate a holding period when life is, is like this. I've had some breakdown phone calls [00:19:00] with friends for sure, and feeling really, really lost and stuck. And like I think I mentioned earlier, there's just this sense of like grief of even acknowledging out loud that living this way isn't feeling good in my body anymore.
I think we as humans have a really hard time being honest with ourselves and acknowledging when we know something deep in our gut, but we don't want it to be true. Like, I can feel it there, but I don't wanna accept it. And I still feel like I'm probably 75% accepting it, and then I would say the other 25% is like, "Hell no, we have so many more countries to go live in, and we have so many weird jobs to go do."
But I just keep thinking about if I sign myself up for another job that's amazing and in a different country, I know there are so many people for me to go meet, and there is an amazing [00:20:00] experience on the other side of that. And I'm not saying it's the wrong decision. But I keep thinking about the aftermath of what happens six months from then, and where am I?
I'm left in another holding pattern with probably no money and back at my parents' house, which again, I've done. I know I can live through it. I know it will be an amazing growth experience and challenge, and some new version of myself will be born on the other side of that. But at what point do we look back on our life and look back on the past and learn from things we've done?
Or do we just keep repeating and repeating? And maybe this is just my frontal lobe developing because I'm 26 now, but this holding pattern period for me is not really about the job necessarily, because I love my job, and it's not about the uncertainty or the anxiety, because even though those are high right now, I've been there.
I'm familiar with how to navigate this. It doesn't make it easier, but it makes it more familiar. I think this one is [00:21:00] about the fact that my identity has been built around this nomadic way of living, and I don't think it's giving me the same thing that it used to.
Travel Is No Cure For the Mind
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And that's harder to deal with, I think, than anything else I've had to confront during these holding patterns I wanted to introduce this article that I have come across, I think it was probably a month or two ago, and I haven't stopped thinking about it since I read it.
It has really helped me sort through, and I think even be able to sit here and identify and articulate what I'm feeling. So I'm gonna do the best summary I can. I will link it in the show notes. But this is called Travel is No Cure for the Mind, and it's actually based off a letter from one of the first stoic philosophers, Seneca.
I think I'm pronouncing that. It has really great illustrations in here, [00:22:00] but it's talking about the whole concept of the box of the daily experience, and how we each have our own individual box, and it's full of kind of the mundane daily tasks of driving to work, and going to the grocery store, and cooking yourself dinner, and doing laundry, and all of these things, and how those are just emotions and experiences that we have every day, so they don't really light us up.
But things outside of the box are where we find those emotions of excitement, and fascination, and adventure. That's where, like, new shiny objects would be, is outside of the box, like a new car, or a new job, or a new relationship. But we work, and we work, and we work for those things. It's something that keeps us going, is like, "I'm gonna reach outside of the box."
And once you grab those things and bring them into your box, so once you buy the new car or you enter that new relationship, slowly with time, as I'm sure we've all experienced, that becomes one of those other mundane things in the box. The new car becomes the old car. [00:23:00] And as we get more and more used to our box and it's really not lighting us up, this is where travel comes into play.
And this is where I really relate to the box analogy, because travel completely gets rid of the box. It immediately provides excitement. You're taken out of your box of daily experience, and this especially happens if you decide to move abroad and move to a completely new country where the box is shed in every aspect.
It's igniting every single one of your five senses, and you get a new chance to do something you've never done before. And there is a really good quote within the article I wanted to read. It says, "This linear movement of time is nature's way of testing what we have labeled as meaningful. Only time can reveal whether a certain pursuit is driven by fleeting novelty or if it is motivated by a strong sense of enduring purpose."
I think where this is leading to is [00:24:00] that sometimes we look to travel or we look to these experiences as that fleeting novelty and not necessarily an enduring purpose. That new place soon becomes the new box, and you can try to outrun it, but the box will follow because if you haven't caught onto this yet, the box is your mind.
Our mind controls our daily experience. Basically, the essence of this, of where it's getting to and why travel is no cure for the mind, is because you can delay this, like, restlessness and angst that travel gives you. You can delay it by going and experiencing new things, and you can keep going through the cycle.
But eventually Those feelings are going to find you, and it doesn't matter where the location is. And it has solutions at the end of this, which I won't, like, dive into all of it, but gratitude and meditation and all the things we probably all know that is good for our mindset and mindfulness. [00:25:00] I wanted to pull some of my own insight and how I experienced this article.
I started thinking about my relationship to travel and where it stemmed from, and I think when I sit with myself and I'm, I'm honest, travel never started off as running from my box, my box of daily experience. I've always had a fascination with people and different cultures. I love asking questions. I love getting to know how people experience life in other places because it's so, so, so different to what I have experienced.
Travel has given me the chance since I was so young to walk in somebody else's shoes. It's the only thing that has given me that experience, and I am fortunate enough to have had the awareness from a young age that the world was so much bigger than just my little bubble and circle. [00:26:00] The only word that feels correct for it is fascination, and that's why I've loved living abroad, and I haven't necessarily found satisfaction from just taking a trip because that experience of living in a place for a year or a couple months has given me insight into what it's like to grow up in Spain or grow up in New Zealand and live day-to-day life and what a birthday party is like and how it's celebrated in these countries versus America.
I just am endlessly curious about it, and that has never, ever gone away. I don't think it will ever be satisfied. There's a lot of other countries I've yet to go experience that in. But I will admit that this whole concept of the box, I'm a visual learner. It's a very helpful analogy and visual for me.
But I will admit that I've always been terrified of that box. I remember college graduation coming closer and closer, and I'm sure [00:27:00] a lot of my friends from college will remember this. I was a mess. I was so nostalgic. Every single thing we did, I was like, "This is the last time. This is the last time." My college graduation party, I was bawling my eyes out.
There was no reason. It was just crying, crying, crying, crying. And I spent my childhood growing up and witnessing people fall into those routines and I would say repetition Because that's typical in the suburbs of the United States. And there's nothing wrong with that, but I had this feeling or this sense that there was more out there in the world, and I felt that the second I left college, life was just going to become so routine and boring.
That's what I perceived it to be. So the thought of subjecting myself to that was extremely unbearable. It still is a little bit unbearable to think about just life not having this sense of [00:28:00] adventure that it's had for the last couple years.
Building Your Own Box
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But as I mentioned, that reason that where travel started and this deep-rooted love and fascination for other people and cultures, I think I've lost that being the motivation, and this running away from the box has taken precedent most recently.
My fear of having this box, my fear of the routine, th- my fear of repetition has led me into this path where I now have run completely to the other side, and I feel as though I don't even have a box to live in. And I know that sounds m- kind of abstract, because of course I still have my life, but not a single part of my day is routine or repetition except for driving.
That's about the only thing I do consistently right now. [00:29:00] And I think I was running on the novelty of that last year and the novelty of the new experience, and I had never lived this way before. I've never met anyone who's lived this way before. It's so unique and stimulating. But now I'm wrapping my head around the fact that it doesn't feel as though I even have a life of my own.
It doesn't feel like I have anything to take for granted, if that makes sense. I don't have a consistent grocery store I go to where I know where the food is in the aisles, and I know that sounds so simple. A big thing for me is I don't have a yoga studio that I walk into and the teachers know my name.
And these are things that I did not appreciate before living this way, and I honestly, I don't think I even appreciated it until, like, this year. It's a very, very new realization for me. I'm saying it into this microphone in real time because I still haven't fully processed what that means for me [00:30:00] going forward into the future.
It's something I'm acknowledging now that may be obvious to people who are not me, because sometimes we just can't see our own lives and we don't have that perspective. But I guess I'm circling back to where I started with the anxiety talk and feeling like, "Okay, something's off in my body. This isn't serving me the same way it used to."
And- I think I'm, I want to appreciate And create a box of my own to have and be able to, like, have gratitude for. But at the same time, I know that's not gonna look like anybody else's, because I can't see a life for myself where I'm not traveling and I'm not immersing myself in those other cultures.
Like I said, it's a point of endless fascination and curiosity for me. It's where I find a lot of [00:31:00] fulfillment, and I can't imagine not having that in my life. So I think going forward, it's trying to create and learn and discover what that will look like for me. Potentially having more of a home base and being able to travel from there.
Maybe there is another job opportunity where I do wanna go live abroad and it, it's feeling right in my body. I don't know. I don't know. I don't really have a, a shiny bow to wrap this up. Like I said at the beginning of the episode, this is, this is what it looks like to be right in the thick of it. This is what a holding pattern is, and some days I am fine and I can sit with that uncertainty, and other days are really lonely and hard.
That's another characteristic of this holding pattern. I think all of them is [00:32:00] that feeling of loneliness, but I am in hotel rooms by myself a lot, and I'm meeting new people all the time, and by the time I get a chance to, like, actually feel like I have a relationship that's deeper than surface level with them, I have to go start all over with a new group of people.
Navigating so much uncertainty when you don't really have people, your community around you. Obviously, I am so grateful for phones and the abil- the ability to call friends. And when I am in certain cities, I do get to go have friend time, which is so impactful and important. But that loneliness is really a big battle for me as I'm navigating this holding pattern I'm in it, and it's hard, and I'm hoping by talking about my experience, it can maybe reach somebody who's feeling in it right now with me and we're not alone, even though it can feel like that sometimes.
Tools to Get Through
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[00:33:00] And as I've talked about in other episodes and asked guests who I've had on what helped them get through these periods and holding patterns, I have my tools and I have my toolkit. Time is my biggest, uh, inhibitor right now to accessing and using those tools, but I'm really, really trying to implement the gratitude list that I think I talked- Lexi and I talked about last episode, and trying to just write three things in the morning, even if it's as simple as the sun outside today.
I really am trying to move every day, even if it's just a walk. That one is hard because it comes at the expense of sleep sometimes. But I do feel, I just notice I feel better. I know I feel better when I can do that every day. Some weeks I've journaled so consistently, and I've also gone weeks without it, which, again, all of these tools, like, I feel better once I use them, and thank God I know they're there.
I don't have to try hard to access them. Therapy is also another [00:34:00] one that is very money and time restricted , but I do it when I can and I'm so grateful to have found a, an amazing therapist. And if you're on the verge of going to therapy and finding a therapist, I know it can feel like dating, and it's really hard to get yourself to take the jump to just go find one, but it is so worth the benefit when you click with somebody.
And I will be an advocate for therapy for the rest of my life. Yeah, as I said, there's not a shiny bow to wrap this one up with. I'm navigating. I don't have an answer. I have no idea where I wanna live next. I have literally no idea what job I wanna do. I don't know if I wanna stay in seasonal work or if I want to build something for...
I have no idea. So the answers to those questions, not here yet. I know they'll come with time. I am trying to be really conscious of the fact that this is a season [00:35:00] of my life. Who knows if I'll ever relive again, and there are so many good parts about... I know there are parts about it that I'm going to miss, like being in the national parks as much as I have been this summer, and all the new people I get to meet, and the cultures I get to experience through people coming into the, into my van.
And I have learned so much about the US, and specifically our native cultures, and animals, and the history of the national parks, and trees, and fire, and plants. I am so grateful for the expansive knowledge that this job has brought, and I'm grateful for my desire to learn more about them. Every single time I go to a park, even if it's the 17th time I've been there, I learn something new.
I don't take that for granted. I wanna celebrate that in this period, and I am trying to soak it up as much as I can because at the end of the day, [00:36:00] it is a season of my life that will forever, ever leave a huge impact on me. So it's not all bad. It's just when you're in the uncertainty, when you're in the holding patterns, it can be so much easier to go to the negative, and it takes a lot more work to search for the positive, I think, when you're in these mindset.
I am putting the work into for that, and I am finding it, which is so helpful. Multiple things can coexist at the same time. Two things can be true. You can be going through a really hard period and also be so grateful for what you're living in right now, and that is exactly how I feel.
Media Picks and Closing
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If you've gotten through all of that in my rambling, I'm going to end the episode with the questions I've been asking or starting to ask everybody because I think these are really great tools, and I am going to compile a list of them.
Anyone who wants to have access to these recommendations can. But I'm gonna do the four book, podcast, movie, [00:37:00] article type of media that is helping me right now currently in this holding pattern. So- The first one I came across is called, is a book called Build the Life You Want by Arthur C. Brooks, and actually also by Oprah Winfrey.
I think it is so fitting for the concept of holding patterns. It is all about how happiness is not a destination, it is the journey there, and how negativity and fear is normal and not something to push away, which ding, ding, ding. It also talks about how those emotions are signals to help course correct.
So again, note to self, anxiety, negative emotions, signal to course correct. And lastly, they say something about practicing vulnerability and how that creates connection, and connection creates memory. So here I am doing exactly that, hopefully giving people that sense of feeling less alone or that [00:38:00] parasocial sense of feeling connection.
Okay, the second one obviously is what half this episode is about, is Travel is No Cure for the Mind, and it is by Lawrence Yeo. I don't know if I said that right, but I'm gonna link that, too. And a podcast episode that I love, that I think is great for if you are in the midst of a holding pattern, is On Purpose with Jay Shetty.
It's one of my favorite podcasts. I have a whole album on my phone of favorite podcasts, and this is one that I have... It's from 2023, and I was going through that list the other day and I re-listened to this and it's amazing. There's a reason it, it's on my favorite podcast list. So it's called Why Discomfort is the Key to Growth and Strategies for Unlocking Your Hidden Potential, with Adam Grant.
If you are not familiar with Adam Grant, he is amazing as well, so go... I think we're pretty sure he has his own podcast, but go consume media [00:39:00] from Adam Grant, 'cause I love his perspective on the world. Some, not everything I agree with, but it just is so thought-provoking And I was trying to come up with a fourth thing type of media that's helping me right now, and then all I could really come up with was like a comfort, make you think about the world, make you think about your life movie, which is my favorite movie of all time, and it's Past Lives.
So if you have not seen Past Lives, go watch it right now. It's the best movie ever created. It is. It is such a comfort movie for me. A comfort in a way of like, oh, life is so complex, and we all feel so many emotions. And just also, the cinematography, the plot, the writing, every part of it is just so beautiful.
So that's my movie recommendation for everybody. That is where I'm gonna end the episode. Again, no answers. I'm just sitting here in Vegas in my hotel [00:40:00] room, about to go drive 10 hours tomorrow to San Francisco with the same thoughts running through my head. I have a lot of time to think, so maybe, maybe I'll come up with an answer tomorrow on my drive.
But I'm here to say that if you do not have it all figured out, and you're sitting in a period like I am sitting in right now, we will get there. This is more me talking to myself. We're gonna get there. The only way is through, but also don't forget to, to smell the roses on the way through. I don't know if I can get any more cliche.
All right. Thanks for listening, and I will talk to you guys all next episode