Inspiration

  1. The book Around the World in 80 Dates. I read this in 2005 at age 20 and it stuck with me. Jennifer Cox is a British Lonely Planet travel writer who creates a project to travel around the world looking for soul mates. She finds 2! The first one was on date #53. 2 out of 80 seems like good odds!

  2. The computer game The Last Express. I played this in 8th or 9th grade (it was released in 1997 which was the same year we first got a home computer). I fell in love with the whole enchanting vibe of this gorgeous adventure game! It’s the inspiration for my route. The protagonist in the game travels by train from Paris to Constantinople on the Orient Express in 1918.

  3. A podcast episode about searching for pirate ships. “A Life’s Obsession With No Way Out” on The Altucher Show in 2015. James Altucher says that we should think about what we loved when we were 10 and make space for that in our life. That always stuck with me! I loved The Last Express, maps, dreaming of travel, films and kids books that took place in other countries so it feels like I’m tending to my inner child and that feels exciting and nourishing.

  4. My own past intentional challenges:

    • 2012 - The Kindness Challenge - couldn’t say anything negative about anyone for 6 months

    • 2015 - tracking moments of irritability. Kept a rubber band around my wrist as a reminder

    • 2015-16 - a year without drinking alcohol

    • 2016 - A year without consuming added refined sugar (kept it going!). You can sign up to try 8-weeks of no sugar with me in a guided program here.

    • 2017-19 - researching, applying for and attending grad school

  5. Two conversations with new friends last fall.

    • My friend Geoffrey Szuszkiewicz’s intentional project to buy nothing for a year. I met Geoff last fall at my friend Ariane’s birthday party in Portugal. Learning about his project reminded me that I too had loved doing those and needed something next. His project was featured in Forbes and many other publications.

    • I met with a friend of a friend, Jomar, in Munich in November and learned about how he had relocated from the US to Munich and how much he was liking it. He gave me an astrology reading which is normally not my thing but it was so fun to see my Venus/love line go right through parts of Europe.

  6. Traveling in Europe last Summer and Fall (Sweden, Finland, England, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Germany, Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, and Italy) and realizing I wanted to go back and that I was enjoying dating there.

  7. Other things I loved as a kid:

  8. My field of work: trauma, stress, and resilience science. I know from #science that trains are soothing to the nervous system. The rocking motion helps us feel soothed. It’s been a stressful few years with the pandemic and political turmoil. I would like to feel soothed. I took a night train across Finland in August and rented a sleeper cabin. It was the best night of sleep of my life! I wish I could always sleep on a train.

  9. Dreaming and setting intentions with friends. Over New Year’s Eve and subsequent weeks, I spent a lot of time dreaming and setting intentions with two of my best friends, Emelia and Kyle. Loved getting their support and encouragement to follow the romance.

  10. The work of Tara Swart, MD. I was posting a video for my new business, Tend Collective, a few weeks ago, and a video on YouTube popped out at me. It was 2 hours long and I watched the whole thing with rapt attention. Then I bought her book, The Source: The Secrets of the Universe, the Science of the Brain. It’s woo-woo but she tries to explain the neuroscience of woo things like “the law of attraction”. It reminded me that setting intentions is important and that mindset shifts can create big life shifts.