Welcome back to my blog, girl! Today I will write about a topic that, well, often feels uncomfortable to talk about. I mean travel anxiety is more a load than a gift, right? Such fears that pop into your head when you are traveling and even before going on a journey are just not wanted. As we all know, every trip will be beautiful in the end, but before we hop on an aircraft, there is fear and anxiety and so many unanswered questions: How will it be? Will I like it? Will it be safe? How will it work out? Will I stay healthy? Will it be worth the trip? And so on an so forth!
Travel anxiety can happen to anyone of us women and is just a signal that we are about to step out of our comfort zones. So it’s something positive! This is what I celebrate the most when travel anxiety bug hops on my shoulder telling me about my fears. And then when we step out of the comfort zones, we will make endless memories, will grow personally, and become a brave travel ladies. This is when the small bug disappears without notice.
If you want to learn more about the many positives of traveling, check on them here.
In line with reducing travel anxiety that you’ll learn more about below, self-confidence is essential for any woman traveling solo! Being confident allows for happier travels. I’m happy to share my 10 greatest techniques with you to boost your confidence when traveling alone, girl!
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Travel anxiety can get handled!
The good thing, when we master a trip and deal with travel anxiety, we can enjoy the travel journey to the very fullest. Think less and feel more! However, and that’s unfortunately the bad news, when travel anxiety overwhelms us, and hinders us to step out of the comfort zones, we will not be as self-conscious as we should be, not mindful enough to experience and feel the travel entirely and with all of our senses. So to say, travel anxiety can literally block our mind and mental processes. I mean this little bug requires our full attention when landing on our shoulder, right? It’s like a fog that covers our senses and directs our focus to those negative thoughts and emotions.
And here’s the very good news, babe: You can beat travel anxiety and learn a technique that supports you in overcoming fears right away! You can practice it in every situation when travel anxiety might come over you, if it’s during a flight, while visiting a sight or in the evenings in your hotel room. The technique just requires you to follow a few steps, focus your mind, fill it with positive thoughts and you are good to go within the next 5 minutes.
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Introducing EFT.
The technique that will help you is called EFT – Emotional Freedom Technique. It helps you to free negative thoughts and emotions and fill it with positive ones. EFT is a tapping technique which means that you tap specific meridian points with your fingers, quite similar to acupuncture but without needles. Being influenced by Chinese medicine, EFT allows you to free energy blockages within your body and reduces stress. Sounds amazing? It truly is, babe!
I will let you know about the details and the different steps of the technique in the next section.
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Practicing EFT on travels.
EFT is an excellent way to handle travel anxiety! Tapping on specific meridian points helps to restore balance of disrupted energy flows in your body and can cure emotional issues. It’s very easy to practice EFT during your travels as you only need you and your mind.
There are 5 steps that you should follow to practice EFT on your travels:
01 // You have to think about the current state of your mind and emotions and identify the fear. E.g. “I feel helpless to travel solo to a new country”. If you have more than one fear, you should do the technique and follow the steps for each fear separately.
02 // After this, rate the intensity level of your identified fear, how strong is it? Use a scale from 0 to 10, whereby 10 is the worst fear you could imagine. It is the aim of the technique to reduce your intensity level.
03 // Before tapping you have to establish an affirmation about the fear you want to address. It is very common to say “Even though I have this [fear], I deeply and completely accept myself”.
04// The tapping sequence includes 9 actions meaning 9 meridian points to tap with your fingertips of both index and middle finger. You start from top to bottom of your body. And tap each meridian point with your fingertips for about 10 seconds with very short repetitions. You can tap with both hands on both parts of your body simultaneously (e.g. eyes, collarbone, side of body) when they are free, but one hand is also ok. While tapping each meridian point repeat your affirmation phrase 2-3 times. It’s up to you, if you say it out loud or just in your mind.
Those are the 9 meridian points in order of tapping them:
- karate chop (side of your hand)
- top of head
- above eyebrows
- side of eyes
- under eyes
- below nose
- under mouth
- below collarbone
- side of body (at the level of the ribs)
05// Then check on your final intensity of your fear by rating it again on the scale from 0 to 10. How strong is it after your first round of tapping?
You can then repeat the same sequence using the same fear and affirmation phrase for another 2 rounds. After that you should feel a reduced level of fear. Besides, you should repeat the tapping until you feel relieved from your fear or at least you feel it gets better than it was before. There is no problem, if you repeat it several times, each one of us is unique and depending on the intensity of your fear, several sequences might be needed for feeling relieved.
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Further tips for practicing EFT.
EFT works great when you have a little practice but definitely is an amazing technique for first-time practitioners. You will realize a decrease in your fear intensity quite fast from sequence to sequence. Personally, I prefer taking a seated position to practice EFT. First I started in a hotel room when I could barely sleep during my travels. It works also great doing it on an airplane when you experience travel anxiety. The Emotional Freedom Technique is also recommended for other kinds of fears, can boost your confidence, helps you with too many and too negative thoughts, problems with sleeping, and many many more emotional issues.
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// Disclaimer // I was not paid for my reviews and recommendations mentioned in this blog post. The views and opinions expressed in this blog post are purely my own and can be considered as honest evaluations.
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What is your personal story with travel anxiety? What is your recommended way to handle it? Please leave your comments and thoughts below or share them on social media @storiesoutofthesuitcase. Happy traveling ♥
