Let your wild heart be your guide to the best adventures of your lifetime … all over the world!
Wanderlust. It may be one of my favorite words in the English language. Webster’s Dictionary defines it as “a strong desire to travel.” But you and I, the ones born with this thing called wanderlust, we simply know that it’s far stronger than desire. It’s a craving that starts in one’s bones and seeps out into the bloodstream and pumps into the brain and the heart, filling them with an overwhelming need for unknown adventures.
If you’re nodding at this moment, if a smile is finding its way across your face, something is shared between you and me … an unspeakable humming in our wild hearts that moves us to explore, to seek, to adventure, to uncover, to find it and to let it be lost again. An addiction perhaps, but our way of being. To cut wanderlust from us is to amputate our spirits, so how do we feed it every single day?
How do we cast our wild hearts out into the world? Follow me. Let’s adventure on together.
The Five Principles of The Wild Hearted:
1. Know There is Mystery Waiting Around Any Corner
Yes. We, Wild Hearts, are driven by curiosity. The streets and paths that we’ve wandered over and over for years can still hold new intrigues. Grab your journal, a pen, pack a lunch, and set yourself on a different path around your neighborhood. Explore like you’re a tourist in your own town. Open your eyes to new possibilities.
2. Say YES to Spontaneous Adventure
Sometimes when we push outside of our own comfort zones the best things happen! My entire world opened the night I agreed to see a play put on by some friends of a friend. The play was great, but what happened after really changed my world. The cast members were heading off to see another show, and they invited me. It was cold. I hadn’t planned on being out late. I didn’t really know anyone, but I took a chance. That was how I discovered The Slipper Room. Inside, I saw my first burlesque show and my heart was captured by the art form. Three years later, I was performing on that stage and then traveling all over the world doing what I love … and it all started with saying Yes to a small adventure!
3. Surround Yourself with Beauty from Across The World
As I write this, I’m listening to Cafe de Paris on RadioTunes while sitting near my Brooklyn fire escape garden. If you can’t go out to the wild world adventuring every day, bring the world to you!
My workspace is decorated with postcards from friends I’ve met and corresponded with from around the world on Facebook and Twitter. I made a Wanderlust Vision Board in 2007 with a picture of me in the middle, surrounded by international images that I cut out from travel magazines … the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben, the Sydney Opera House, Stonehenge. Seeing myself among these worldly places made the idea of travel in my mind seem possible. Within seven months of creating my Wanderlust Vision Board, I got the opportunity to tour with musician Emilie Autumn and finally got to see many of those places in person.
4. When You Visit a Place You Love Plant A Seed To Bring You Back
This is a little spell from my Grandma Helen, who was born to Anna, who was born to a nomadic tribe in Czechoslovakia. My Grandma Helen always told me to leave part of myself behind in places I wanted to return to. In Australia, I left a pair of my beloved shoes in a hotel room with a note for my feet to someday be drawn back to them again. A year later, I found my way back to that exact hotel room on the other side of the world. I’ve left pieces of my hair in a tree in New Orleans and I’ve been called to return there three times. Trust me, it works.
5. Get Lost on Purpose
As my adventure friend Josh says, “Team Adventure never admits defeat!” We keep wandering until we discover something that takes our breath away, or makes us smile, or makes us feel really inspired by this life.
It’s out there, and you won’t discover it with your nose in a guidebook or your phone. The best adventures of my life so far have been when there was absolutely no cell service, and I was on my own out in a country where I didn’t speak the language. In the quaint town of Strasbourg, on the edge of France, near the border of Germany, I silently walked for hours. I let my sense of adventure and the sounds, smells, and colors of the country lead me on a journey of a lifetime. I let myself be lost in the beauty of the place. Absolutely everything was foreign and new to me, and every corner revealed a new adventure. Near the end of the day, I walked into a shop and came face to face with a woman who resembled my grandmother. I signed to her what I wanted and smiled. I was surprised at how much we could communicate with nods and smiles. She came around the counter and hugged me as I left. She knew I was on a solo adventure and it was a hug of encouragement. I wandered to a stream and sat in the grass to witness the sun set and the sparkling city lights turn on. The whole world seemed more alive to me than ever before—because I was absolutely present in the place I was in. I wasn’t a stand-by participant in my own life anymore … I was living IN it. And I found my self through getting lost.
Article taken from Issue #30 || Spring 2015
Print || Digital
Absolutely composed content material, Really enjoyed looking at.