It Takes a Village to Teach Personal Power
Artist: Willow Arlenea designsbywillow.com
Over the last couple of months, I’ve developed a new appreciation and deep love for humanity. I also discovered the hidden joys and unimaginable excitement layered deep within this human existence we call life. And I did it all by giving up what most people accept as necessary and embarking on a journey far outside my comfort zone, but…amazingly…deep within myself.
My husband and I travel full-time with our 3 year-old daughter. We recently adopted the terms “location independent” and “digital nomads.” We call ourselves The Traveling Faerie Tour (it’s amazing what you’ll do when you fall in love with a child). We packed up our necessary belongings and piled into our minivan endearingly named “Pixie Dust.”
As you can imagine, our decision to take our toddler on the road met with more than its fair share of condemnation and concern from family and friends. Oddly, though, the people in our entrepreneur family (CEO Space International) not only understood, but encouraged and listened in awe to our plans. I think on some level those reactions come down to risk aversion, but that’s a different case study.
We certainly don’t have all the answers and at times we only know where we’ll sleep for the next two days, but the adventure is exhilarating. The only way this works is to walk in complete trust and faith. Any time we find ourselves attempting to control outcomes or “tell God our plans” the universe simply laughs lovingly and calmly guides us to see the futility in attempting to operate from our minds/egos alone.
The mantra of The Traveling Faerie Tour is “Spreading light, love…and pixie dust!” Our mission is to make sure we share the loving energy that courses through us naturally when we stay centered and grounded. That’s all. We operate a couple different businesses, but they all come down to the same concept…stretch your soul. Our vision is to turn The Tour into a non-profit corporation that serves veterans and wounded warriors (our tribe).
But in the interim, we continue to feel humbled and grateful for the outpouring of offers as people open their homes to us. We get offers to housesit/pet-sit in exchange for accommodations so we can experience new parts of the world and get our fix of animal energy. We get offers to spend time with people in their sacred space of home and hearth. It’s amazing how intimately you get to know people by sharing meals and living space.
We meet strangers in restaurants, (okay, mostly in Starbucks), at conferences and events, and in ways we certainly couldn’t predict. I watch as our little Faerie Princess touches lives and opens hearts. I marvel at the way spirit moves through each of us to impact people in exactly the way they need. I often feel like an observer, watching from a distance as the universal flow guides us to be in just the right place at just the right time to make a difference. The intricacy of the universe overwhelms me if I think about it too long…so I try to simply be and allow.
But the most magical part of the entire journey is we get to teach our daughter that anything is possible and true stability is a sense of centeredness and faith, not walls – that the vast majority of people are generous, loving, and amazingly multi-faceted. We get to teach her how to find her own personal power in very non-traditional ways. This is the village we want to help raise our daughter…and it took walking away from a traditional community to find it.
