Staying Grounded as I Travel
My Favorite Nourishing Tips for Travel Days
Hi sweet friends, I’m writing this from my hotel room in Utah where I’m teaching two workshops at the Park City Song Summit. One of the workshops is with my amazing friend, Joy Oladokun. I’ll be teaching about shadow work, self-love, and embodiment and she’ll be playing her beautiful music to help us move emotions through our body as we dance! It’ll be so fun!
I’m so grateful to be here, but travel can be pretty hard on my body, especially when it comes to flying. I used to travel constantly, living out of a suitcase, and always feeling absolutely horrific. I thought that’s how I’d always feel, but at the time, I didn’t understand my body and nervous system’s deep need for grounding. The pandemic forced me to stop traveling and really opened my eyes. It was the longest I’d been home in 7 years. I began eating meals that I cooked on a regular schedule, I started going to the woods every day to walk and hike, I began going to bed around the same time every night and waking up at the same time, and my body began to feel more grounded and settled.
Soon after, I was invited to go to an Ayurveda retreat to learn about my Dosha, and it helped immensely.
From the Banyan Botanicals website:
"Ayurveda is a rich, ancient, and living science that allows for an awakening into greater harmony and balance. This online test will guide you through a process of self-discovery, inquiry, and honest reflection through the lens of Ayurveda. Your completed Ayurvedic Profile will equip you with customized resources for you to refer back to anytime, and personalized recommendations to support your health—body, mind, and spirit”
I swear I flew out of that retreat feeling so much better and I became a firm believer in Ayurvedic medicine. I drank the Kool-aid because it worked! I learned that my dosha is Vata, which represents air and space (each dosha embodies a particular element). Vatas can have a hard time grounding, they’re cold and dry, and when ungrounded, they can struggle with anxiety, sleep, and going to the bathroom. Looking back at when I lived in my bed for 7 years, I went to the bathroom about 3x’s a month and barely slept. It was horrific. I now see how accurately this depicts my dosha as a Vata, and how helpful it is to have this information now as I move forward.
After leaving that retreat I slept so well, I felt so grounded, and overall so much more clear-minded. I was shocked. I’ve been on a wellness journey for many, many years because I’ve felt so shitty since my wreck at 17. I’m truly grateful for the path it has sent me on because it’s opened me to so many beautiful healing modalities, such as this one.
What I love about this journey is it’s not one size fits all. It’s so catered to you and your body. So many diets and fads preach the notion that “this is the fix for everyone”, but we’re all so incredibly different, so of course what works for me won’t necessarily work for you! Before I learned about Ayurveda, I tried so many juice cleanses and raw food diets, and holy shit did I feel awful, because those things are terrible for my dosha!
On my life journey now, I incorporate the Ayurvedic principles as often as I can because I feel so much better when I do! It makes sense that travel can be really difficult on my body, not only because of the complications from my wreck but also because of my Vata qualities. Being all air, I need the opposite to ground me. So flying in the air for hours at a time only aggravates my body!
This is the first of four trips I have in the next five weeks. A lot of traveling, sleeping in different beds, different time zones, etc. It’s A LOT on my body, so I wanted to share some of the things I’m doing to take care of myself while I travel in hopes that this can be helpful for you too!
I stay on a schedule as much as possible when I travel. Our bodies and nervous systems love that structure and consistency. Even though I’m at a musical summit and there’s live music every night, my goal is to be in bed by 10 p.m. so I get a good night’s sleep. I stick with my morning routine of movement, warm water with lime, journaling, and eating around the same time - if possible, 3 times a day. I eat very grounding foods -think foods that grow under the earth, like root vegetables. I need warm and oily foods to balance my air (which is cold and dry). I try to get into nature every day. If I can go to the woods before and after I fly, that’s ideal! Mother Nature grounds us better than anything else!
I usually travel with an obnoxiously large bag and the funny thing is, a very small portion of it is actually clothes. Most are comfort items and food, ha! I’ll do whatever it takes to help my body feel grounded, safe, and comfortable when I travel so I can show up as my best self. I used to pretend I was SO LAID BACK because I grew up in a house full of boys and that was my impression of what guys like. In reality, I’m the opposite of low maintenance when it comes to travel. When you’re an off-the-charts highly sensitive person, it can take a lot to really care for yourself. So I feel zero shame about showing up with my big ass bag of comfort items and grounding foods!
I try to take a bath each night and then give myself a full body oil massage before bed (especially the bottoms of my feet, which is very supportive). I also incorporate regulating breathwork. My favorite to bring my nervous system into rest and repair is the 4, 4, 8, 4 belly breath in and out of my nose. You breathe in for 4, hold for 4, breathe out for 8, hold for 4, and repeat. Breathing less than 10 breaths a minute helps calm the nervous system because when we’re anxious we breathe many short breaths into our chest, which heightens our anxiety. Elongating the breaths helps to bring the body back into a more peaceful state.
I also don’t go anywhere without frankincense oil. At home, I burn it every day, but when I travel I bring a gel to use for pain and body oil. It’s anti-inflammatory, smells incredible, and clears spaces (think sage or palo santo, but I like it better, personally). It’s amazing for aging and your skin, and it’s also great for pain relief. I put it in my face lotion, my bath, and inhale it throughout the day.
I’m not a doctor, I don’t know what’s best for your body, but if any of this lands for you, I would invite you to learn about your dosha. It’s been a pretty life-changing thing for me! Taking care of your beautiful body is caring for the earth and the collective because we’re all connected. And at the end of the day, you deserve to feel pleasure and at peace within your being.
Love,
X Ruthie
This week’s resources:
My Favorite Frankincense Resin - I get my resin to burn from a company called Awaken to the One. They source their Frankincense ethically and they’re beautiful souls. The link is here:
Keep reading for:
Sacred Rebel: Sisterhood Circle
Mind and Body Workshop with Jedidiah Jenkins
1:1 Love Reflections Sessions - 1 Spot Opening!
Sacred Rebels: Sisterhood Circle
A 2-Month Container, Starting September 27th
I believe we all come here free. Knowing we are divine love, whole, worthy, and free to express ourselves fully. But from the time we’re born, we’re plagued with conditioning. We were raised by humans doing the best they could, but they were also conditioned to believe that we need to fold ourselves into tiny pieces, cut ourselves off, deny our emotions and feelings, swallow and override our intuitions and deep knowings, all in the name of belonging - which we are hardwired for! We will do whatever we need to do to belong, to receive approval.
I believe the healing journey is one of UNLEARNING AND REMEMBERING, that is why I have created the Sacred Rebel Sister Circle. I want to bring together a small group of women to help mirror liberation through expression, using your voice, reclaiming your worth, honoring your sacred temple (your body), remembering what is so right with you and throwing away the notion that anything is wrong with you. We get to break out of the tiny boxes the patriarchal system put us and God in and be our freest, weirdest, most expressive, sensual, and liberated selves. That is your birthright and through practice, embodiment, and community we can begin that beautiful journey together.
This container will have experts in Sacred Sexuality, Money Consciousness, and Embodiment, and each person will be assigned an accountability partner to meet with once a week for check-ins. There's also an optional in-person retreat in Nashville at the end of the 2 months. I would be so honored to go on this journey with you! You can learn more about the 2 month container at the link below:
MIND AND BODY
Writing and Embodiment Workshop with Jedidiah Jenkins and Ruthie Lindsey
Friday, October 13th-15th
Jed and Ruthie team up with a weekend workshop to tackle our futures, our direction, and what our bodies are telling us.
What are your plans for the next two years? Write a book? Start a company? Figure out what you’re good at?
Distraction is direction, and if you don’t stop once-in-a-while and take inventory of yourself, your desires, and how you spend your time, it can be impossible to feel any sense of intention over your life.
We also know that "knowledge is a rumor until it lives in the muscle". Every experience we have ever had happened in our bodies but most of us do not know how to be in our bodies. We live mostly in our heads. We fear the future and regret the past and rarely do we feel and embrace the moment. Without understanding how to bring our experiences into the body, our subconscious, wounded parts will take the driver’s seat of our lives without our knowledge.
Jed will lead us in writing exercises, future articulation, and hikes (obviously).
Ruthie will teach us tools in self love, body kindness, story integration, and more.
Over the weekend of October 13-15th, we’ll gather in Los Angeles, CA and write together, laugh together, hike together, talk together, and try to figure out what the heck we’re doing with our one-and-only lives.
Pricing: $444
Click here to register and learn more
Love Reflection 1:1 Sessions - 1 Spot Opening!
One Spot will be opening for this 6-month container in the next few weeks. Read below to learn a bit more about this offering and if it’s right for you!
Learning how to bring radical self compassion and care to myself, to the places of deep shame and self loathing has been instrumental in my healing journey, as has learning to embody myself, to be in this present moment. It has made all the difference, and I’m so excited to share that with you in this offering.
I like to think that this container is a place of deep remembrance and unlearning. Unlearning of all the the stories of what is so “wrong” with us and remembering our worth and divinity simply because we exist. This is our birthright, joy and pleasure and feeling all of your feelings, is your birthright!
I would be so deeply honored to go on this remembering journey with you, precious soul. It would be a true privilege to mirror to you how loved you are, how you are love! If you are interested or curious about this container, below is a link for a free explore call.
Click here to learn more and to book your Free Discovery Call.
Write Your Story with Allison Fallon
A special event for Love's Invitation Paid Subscribers tomorrow, September 13th, 1-2 pm CT
I am SO excited to share with ya'll that tomorrow my dear friend, Allison Fallon, will be leading us through a writer’s workshop to help write your story. This is for everyone, not just those wanting to write a book. Her work is so incredibly powerful! I had the honor of doing a one-on-one intensive with her before I started writing my book and WOW, was it profoundly helpful and expansive.
Writing our stories is one of the most transformative ways we can begin to understand our lives and what our particular journey is trying to teach us here in earth school. It's incredibly therapeutic, and also serves as inspiration for others so they know they’re not alone.
I am thrilled to share my profound friend with you! She really is a treasure.
Read below from Allison!
"I’ve been working in publishing and with authors for nearly 15 years and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: it’s human instinct to tell our stories. The authors and aspiring authors I’ve worked with do it for all kinds of “other” reasons. They write their story because a publisher asks them to, as a strategy to grow their business, a way to position themselves as an expert, or because they can’t seem to help but write. But whether you have any plans to publish or not, I believe the impulse to write your story is about far more than selling copies or hitting a bestsellers list. The impulse to write your story is about understanding what your life is trying to teach you. Writing about your life can fun, fulfilling, and it can be like really cheap therapy (as a side note, it’s always an amazing way to inspire others). So come along as we mine your life story for all the wisdom it has to offer and discover how interesting your story has been all along."
Allison Fallon is an award winning author, sought after public speaker, and nationally recognized writing coach. She has coached hundreds of thousands of writers - from NYT Bestselling authors to total beginners to help them finally get their books written and on shelves. Her most recent project — called Write Your Story — helps everyday people turn their life experiences into stories that heal and inspire. She lives in Nashville, TN with her husband and two young kids.
This is an offering for paid subscribers to Love’s Invitation. If you’re not already subscribed, you can do so before the event to join us!
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