It’s official. I’ve become one of those people who walks around saying “abroad has changed me.” I am a walking meme LOL. 😀

In all seriousness, though, I completely expected this. I have always been a very self-aware person who is constantly working on uncovering new layers of myself, and I knew abroad would give me an unprecedented chance to really tune in and do some soul-searching.

In a word, it’s been…life-changing. I will never stop feeling grateful for every single moment that I had abroad. The experience has taught me more about myself and the world than I even thought possible, and I think it has truly changed the course of my life.

Now I’m gonna level with you guys about something. Blogging and Instagram are a bit complicated for me right now. I’ll chat more about this on a post coming super soon, but I’ve been very much focused on living life in the moment and not on documenting it, and right now having a consistent blogging or Instagram schedule is just not what feels most aligned for me.

However, I miss this space, and I wanted to share these lessons not only for myself to look back on but because I often get very inspired by these kinds of Lessons Learned posts and maybe you will too. At the very least, it will hopefully be a fun catch-up sesh. 🙂

So cozy up with an iced coffee or tea (is it hot where you are right now?) and let’s dive in.

Lessons Learned in Study Abroad

 

Being present and surrendering to what is

(LOL the pure bliss on my face in this photo makes me laugh so hard. But also I was in legit Fairy land in the Scottish highlands so it was very justified 😉 )

This is perhaps my favorite lesson that I learned, and I just wish I’d learned it a bit earlier in life. I spent a lot of my first two years of college heavily reminiscing about high school. For some reason, I was forgetting all the negatives of those years and just yearning to be a teenager again. I kept feeling like I hadn’t “experienced my teen years to the fullest” and just felt like I wanted that time back.

Plus, it didn’t help that I felt perpetually 16. Turning 20 was one of the most surreal experiences because I felt like that age did not at all reflect where I was mentally or where I wanted to be physically.

Flash forward to abroad and to now. I am 21, and I feel 21 in every fiber of my being. I feel like I am exactly where I am supposed to be, and I wouldn’t rather be anywhere else. Though I can look back on past years with some fondness, I also feel very grounded in the now and the knowingness that I have full control over how I currently choose to live my life.

By being present in every moment abroad, I knew that I was experiencing it to the fullest. So though it was a little sad to leave a place that had become home and the friends I had made, I also felt like I was ready for that chapter to end when that time came. I just felt fully open to the next phase of my life.

Surrendering to what is always. I think that’s the secret to not looking back later and wishing for that time back.

 

Finding joy through gratitude

This is something we’ve all heard and we all know in the deepest parts of us. The secret to joy is as simple as being grateful.

I’ve found that people who don’t practice gratitude always have something going wrong in their life. It’s as though life is just constantly throwing problem after problem at them. These people become angry and resentful, lashing out on others and feeling envious towards others who they feel were dealt a better card.

Look I get that there are some people who are born more fortunate than others. It’s a sad but unshakeable reality. But what if one of those “less fortunate” people could find infinitely more joy than someone “more fortunate” just by appreciating all the amazing things in their life?

I have seen personally how a gratitude practice can completely change a person’s attitude toward life, which in turn causes them to change their actions, and ultimately, their life. It truly is that easy. So take a deep breath, right now, and take a moment to be truly grateful for everything awesome in your life right now.

 

Busyness does not equal worth

An incredibly simple lesson and one that I always intuitively knew but only got to 100% confirm when I was abroad. This was the first time in my life that I gave myself full permission to slow down. Which led to lots of discomfort at first and then so. much. joy. And ease. And wonderful, sweet delight. And magic.

I’ve talked about this one before in my slowing down post (as well as others if you just search busy!) but I think I never truly internalized it until abroad. Though I knew it was true intuitively I had a really hard time turning down the societal noise that is constantly telling you to be better, faster, more efficient, and working harder. I always knew this didn’t make sense with my view of life or the world, where pleasure is a birthright and hard work/traditional success is not what ultimately makes you who you are or what matters in the end.

I’m not sure when or how exactly the shift happened. All I know is one day sitting in a coffeeshop on a random Tuesday with nothing to do but people watch felt like a guilty waste of time, and the next it was the biggest joy.

This ties completely to the previous lesson, but I don’t think I am ever going back to that old mentality again. Honestly it’s just not worth it to me because I’ve seen what it’s like on the other side, you know? And guess what? It’s a MUCH BETTER TIME. 🙂

The Europeans are really really good at something we’re truly terrible at, and that’s the art of savoring. I think I’ll talk more about this in future posts, but I’ve seen this apply to everything from food to a cup of coffee to a lazy afternoon. There is no guilt when it comes to true pleasure, no “waste of time” when it’s something that brings you joy. They truly know how to ENJOY, how to accept life’s gifts with gratitude instead of an “oh no I couldn’t” because they know they deserve those gifts for no other reason than they are enough as they are.

Plus the Europeans know how to SLOW DOWN. You work to live there; you don’t live to work. I think that’s something many of us Americans could stand to learn.

Though I know abroad was a very special time that can’t be replicated exactly (i.e. I don’t see myself having THAT LITTLE RESPONSIBILITY anytime soon again), I think continuing to keep this lesson close in my heart is a matter of priority, not circumstance.

 

No spiritual/personal development book will teach you something you don’t already inherently know.

This may sound like one of those cliche quotes you see on a postcard, but it’s also one of the most major lessons I’ve learned over the past few months.

You have all the answers inside you.

Just let that sink in. Because if you, like me, are someone who is a total personal development junkie and loves to read read read and study study study other people’s wisdom in the hope of coming across some Answer or Solution, I’ve got news for ya. You’re playing a losing game.

Now I’m not at all saying all those books or those wise people don’t have value- of COURSE they do! But what I am saying is, if you read something at a time that you are not ready to fully internalize it, it won’t create any changes in you whatsoever. But if you read a certain book or come across a certain quote precisely as that lesson is naturally surfacing inside you, THAT’S when you’ll have that magical aha moment. Your entire body will resonate with it and you’ll feel like this person or author or one event completely changed your life, but in reality, you already knew whatever they taught you. You just had to wait for the right timing for that part of you to awaken.

All that being said, I am not stopping listening or reading spiritual content, but I’m taking it all with a huge grain of salt and some distance now. I am no longer trying to apply every teaching to my life or idolizing anyone’s words. Rather, I take what resonates from these books (because it’s a lesson I am ready and able to receive) and leave the rest.

Most importantly, I am creating my own lessons and living my life the way feels good and right for ME, and not the way any one book recommends me to.

I used to do all these “wellness rituals” daily because I’d read in various sources that they’re what lead to being your best self and living your best life. All those rituals really ended up doing was leave me more and more annoyed at having to do them until I finally dropped them all, feeling like I’d somehow “failed” at the whole wellness thing.

In reality, those particular tools just weren’t right for me, and I should have instead used them as inspiration for creating my own tools.

Letting go of people pleasing and letting my inner freak flag fly

If I’m honest, one of my biggest fears for most of my life was being unliked. I HATED when I would find out that someone didn’t like me, and I would do absolutely anything to change their mind about me. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t, but no matter what, I never could learn that it was never about me.

Until abroad, that is.

I’m not sure what exactly shifted. I guess it was the general more relaxed vibe I instantly adopted upon landing there, or the fact that I was around all new people. But I stopped thinking about being some extra-put-together perfect version of myself and instead decided to just…be me. A huge part of that was my desire to actually focus inward and spend more time with just me, so I felt like it was fine if I didn’t make any friends because my priority was to really get tuned in to myself.

But one of the most surprising and wonderful outcomes of being the completely relaxed, not-always-put-together, and more “F it” version of me was I quickly made some truly amazing friends who were exactly what I needed. And guess what? 99% of the time I did something weird or said something weird about something I like or whatever that was very true to me but I had no idea how it would be perceived, people loved it and I ended up making a much deeper connection than had I just been saying things to appeal to them.

That other 1%? I never talked to those people again because our paths just didn’t cross. Not everyone is meant to be your friend. Not everyone is going to like you. The truth is, it really really doesn’t matter, as long as YOU like you. Boom, mic drop.

 

 

Thank you for reading, my loves, and thank you for bearing with me as I navigate this new flowier, more spontaneous version of me and of this space. Have the most delightful week <3