Do You Need to Hit the Road to Wake Up Your Mind?

Travel opens your mind as few other things do

Being a digital nomad can be fun and freeing because it is a lifestyle without much possession. One realizes how less we really need.
I think Gypsy initially started to travel to find a place to stay, but because of different traditions, thinking, and ways of life could not settle and had to continue the journey. Wanting to live and settle in a country is a bit different. There can be circumstances that make move one again. Often I traveled also for shorter visits, but I always tried to stay with the people of the country to learn about their way of life and tradition. Experiencing other cultures and tradition opens the mind and makes you curious for more.

Traveling to a place where one knows it is for a specific time feels like vacation and is fun and freeing. Learning the way of living from different cultures, meeting people, and exploring the world from different perspectives will widen your horizon.

But there are also people who are scared of this. On the way, I saw some people that only wanted the same food and even music as at home. Stayed in a closed resort and kept their closed mind. If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion, and avoid the people, you might better stay at home.– James Michener

In this guest post, our friend Ryan Biddulph shares experiences about his travels as a Digital Nomad and how travel will wake up your mind.

Thank you, Ryan

Image by wendy CORNIQUET from Pixabay quote by wow4u

Do you need to hit the road to wake up your mind?

Recently, Erika published a comment on my blog.

She noted how being a digital nomad is one of the ultimate ways to free yourself.

How much would your life improve if you engineered a lifestyle of freedom? How would you feel if you could travel anywhere you wanted to right now for any period of time without worrying about a job, mortgage, pets, and familial opinions of your decision?

She referred to herself as being a “gypsy” when she traveled thoroughly decades ago at a time when circling the globe was far more challenging than today.

My now passed on grandfather from Romania would definitely have called me a gypsy if he were alive when I began globe-trotting non-stop nearly 12 years ago.

Being a digital nomad forced me to wake up my mind. I had no other choice.

Letting go of a home base, almost all physical possessions, and living in a close proximity to my family triggered a series of fears in the mind.

Who was I without a home base? How could I live without being surrounded by stuff which appeared to offer me comfort, security, safety, and an identity? What support system would I have without friends and family living within a 20 to 30-minute drive from me?

Facing, feeling, and forgiving each fear occurred as the organic result of letting all ideas go and hitting the road.

Do You Need to Hit the Road?

Do you need to hit the road to wake up your mind?

Guaranteed, if you live in the Western world, you could likely use a road trip for a few weeks or months.

Even in European countries where new employees receive one month of vacation time, capitalism, busy work schedules, and commerce reign supreme.

How can your mind wake up if you put it to sleep by devoting large chunks of your life to living in survival mode?

The mind never wakes up even a little bit until you face fear and break free of a system clearly designed to keep you mentally asleep.

Mental sleep occurs within your comfort zone. Focusing on maintaining core survival needs like generating income, maintaining shelter, and putting food on the table for 40 years of life until retirement works beautifully for most employers but terribly for employees.

Employers feast on the fruits of your labor while most employees mindlessly follow rote tasks without deeply thinking, mindfully feeling, or closely observing why the individual minds seek comfort, conformity, and choosing to survive over freedom.

Inner awakening

Circling the globe immediately rockets you outside of mental sleep into a gradual inner awakening.

For example, my sleeping mind believed that life was getting a home, working a job, and paying bills. The collective US mentality put me to sleep with this blanket narrative.

After spending a few days in Bali at the beginning of my 12-year world tour, my mind slowly woke up one moment at a time. Balinese people clearly did not live to pay a mortgage, to work jobs, and to pay bills. Most deeply ingrained spiritual concepts into day-to-day life.

Hitting the road taught me that much of the world harbors inner peace of mind independent of circumstances like owning particular homes, working specific jobs, or netting a certain level of income. One lady I befriended in Bali made $120 USD per month; I know this because one of our responsibilities on the house sit was to pay her.. She was one of the genuinely happiest people I have ever known because her special temple ceremonies, chickens, cows, dog, and lovely little property in farm country made her beam with joy, but from the inside-out.

She possessed an awakening mind.

My mind woke up when I left the predominant sleeping mind of form, images, money, and worldly drivers in the USA to observe the Balinese ways of awakening on the Island of the Gods.

Travel Reveals Untruths You Believe In

Hitting the road reveals untruths you currently believe in to purge these illusions.

In the United States, I clung to this belief: time is money.

In various parts of the world, I learned of prosperous entrepreneurs who generated large sums of money by taking their time slowly and patiently to be truly helpful versus rushing forward to force results.

On an even deeper level, serene, peaceful folks in Fiji revealed to me that money doesn’t buy happiness but that peace of mind, a blanket decision to go with the flow, and taking it easy certainly does.

In the Western world, I was bombarded by images of wealthy people with the illusion of worldly power as role models to emulate.

But being away from the States for 12 years taught my mind that happiness, peace of mind, security, and serenity flow from within solely by mind training.

I’ve meditated with monks in Cambodia, sat in silence at an ashram in India, and have observed high priests in action in Bali. Mystics, sages, and advanced minds encountered on the road prove this one truth: your mind dictates your experience.

I had to travel to leave behind the sickness of materialism in order to wake up even a wee bit within.

Your Homeland Is a Sleep Zone

Unless you are particularly awakened, your homeland is a sleep zone.

By this, I mean that your home likely presents you with people who mostly look like you, think like you, feel like you, and culturally behave as you behave. “Melting pot” type nations still adhere to this basic domestic principle through the influence of culture.

The USA is the ultimate melting pot, but no citizen there can attend a Balinese ceremony in the morning, a call to prayer in Turkey at noon time, and Sunday mass in Costa Rica during the early evening.

You need to actually travel to these places to be culturally shocked a little bit as part of your mind awakening. Few minds harbor the mental discipline to do this remotely, although it is possible.

Travel Forces You to Feel and Forgive the Fear of Loss

The ego voice will tell you as you read these words:

“You cannot travel because you will lose your job, money, family, and stability.”

Each fear needs to be faced, felt, and forgiven to conquer the fear of loss as the first step of awakening your mind.

How can you awaken if you cling to a job, salary, family, and illusory stability that keeps you asleep?

Make no mistake about it; clinging to the world keeps your mind asleep because fear in the mind creates an inner slumber.

Circling the globe by hitting the road proves that the stability is not in the job, or income, or family but in your mind. Accept this awakening. Step into this invigorating truth.

Building a business on the road proves that your mind, not your employer, prospers you. Making friends on the road proves that your mind, not your family, establishes loving, supportive bonds with other minds.