Ep #76: No Matter Where You Go, There You Are

You are listening to the overthinkers guide to joy episode 76. This is the one
where I'm going to talk all about Moving to paradise. Let's dive in This is a
podcast for over thinkers over doers and over achievers who are tired of feeling
over anxious and just want to feel better I'm your host certified life coach Jackie de Crinis.

Hey there and welcome back So this week, I wanted to talk about the concept of
moving to paradise and really moving to paradise is just a metaphor for a whole
host of things. But this concept came up the other day because I had a client ask
me how I ended up moving to Maui after living in Los Angeles for 40 plus years.
And I told her the whole story, some of which I've told on this podcast before.
But She said, "Was it amazing? I mean, do you love it there? And was it just like
a total change in life?" And living on a small island versus a big city is
definitely a change of life, just like moving from a big city to the country or to
a more rural area. But I said to her, "Actually, because I've moved here twice, I
moved here 15 years ago and then I went back to Los Angeles to take another job
in television. And then I came back again about seven years ago. So I've been here
for a total of 15 years, but it was broken up over these two different stints. And
so I had said to her, "It wasn't all it was cracked up to be." And that has
nothing to do with Maui. Maui is an incredible place and I now love living here,
but I admittedly did not love it my first go -around. And part of that was the
concept of moving to paradise. And so that's what I wanted to talk about today.
So for me, moving here was a little bit of an escape. As I've said,
probably ad nauseam, the television industry was sort of eating me alive. And as
much as I loved my friends and colleagues and as much as I loved the shows that I
worked on and great opportunities that I had in my career, you live and eat and
breathe it. And it's kind of relentless and there's no way to sort of get away
from it. So your life becomes all about your work and then the life you try and
create outside your work sort of like gets filled in as opposed to the other way
around like having a life and then your work supports that life. So I was clearly
very, very, very out of balance in those days, and it was my husband's idea to
eventually segue or move somewhere out of Los Angeles. Although we didn't expect to
do it way back in 2009, I think he thought of it as kind of a pre -retirement
plan, and then pre -retirement didn't happen. And so we were continuing to work but
we decided to telecommute before that was something people did, long before the
pandemic, long before Zoom, all the things. But it was an experiment and it was a
risky one because we both had big careers in Los Angeles and the question was could
we do them on the phone and via computer and the answer was yes we could even in
the absence of Zoom. But when we moved I was still very much tied in every
possible way to this career in Los Angeles, which meant I had a staff of people
that worked in Los Angeles, my assistant was in Los Angeles, my boss was in Los
Angeles. Obviously my producers were all there or all over the country. And so I
was kind of physically in Maui, but I was always in LA and I was always thinking
about work. And so Maui didn't solve anything for me because I wasn't living this
life of paradise. I was living somewhere beautiful, but I was kind of in this
locked in a bedroom all day long on the phone or on a computer and life was sort
of happening outside. And part of it was that my mindset was that moving to another
place would fix everything. It would Slow down my tempo it would teach me to take
better care of my body and my mind And I had not done the work to do that.
So by bringing me to it I brought my negative energy to it or my overwhelmed
energy I should say my overthinking energy So it always reminds me of the quote I
think it was an old quote, but it was made famous in the Buckaroo Bonsai movie,
which is "No Matter Where You Go, There You Are." And I re -coined that phrase to
say, "I moved to paradise, but I came with me." So I always caution people when
they say, "Oh, if I just lived there, all my problems would be solved." Now,
whether that's Maui or Paris or New York or the South or another country, Italy,
France, There is this sort of wistful, hopeful thought that if you could just move
your location, all things would be fine. Now, in dire circumstances,
certainly that's true, right? If you're in a country that's war -torn, or God forbid,
or something extraordinary like that. But if your life is just your life,
that is, you have a job, you have a family, or you have friends, or you have a
career, moving somewhere else doesn't resolve whatever it is that is haunting you.
And so if you have a very workaholic mentality, which I did, or you suffer from
overthinking or anxiety, then changing your location might help temporarily,
but it's not going to fix the issue. So I was talking with my client who was
like, "Oh, if only I moved to Maui, everything would be great." And as I told her
this story, and look, by no means do I want to undervalue how privileged it is to
have the choice to have lived here and to have been able to tell a commute and to
have been able to start a second career here. It's phenomenal. But again, it was
the mindset that was wrong when I arrived, and so things were just very much the
same internally, even though my external circumstances had changed quite drastically.
So as I started to tell her this story, she said to me, "Oh, that makes a lot of
sense." She said, "When I first moved to a different state with my husband and then
small children, she has three kids as well." She said we had a big beautiful home
and a brand new puppy and my husband was gainfully employed and I was starting my
career and my kids were healthy and happy and She said but I felt like I was kind
of dying inside and as she started to explain it She said I had everything I
wanted Everything I had ever dreamt of to have a home to have a partner to have
children to have a dog, to have money, at least the beginning of an income, she
said, "It made it worse that I wasn't happy. And it made it worse because I felt
so guilty. I felt guilty that I kind of had everything.
I had had this unconscious laundry list of things, and I checked all my boxes.
And here I am in this big beautiful house and I felt like I didn't deserve it."
She said, "And then that made me feel worse." So I was both unhappy on the inside,
but I was also terribly embarrassed that I wasn't happy with all of the trappings
of this beautiful life. And that felt so relatable to me. And so I thought, "I've
got to do a podcast about this because this is what I felt like when I had my
television job. I had a home and I had a husband and I had a dog or two and
children and friends and family and an income. And I felt very grateful to have all
those things and yet very, very overwhelmed by this life that I had created. And
that is a common denominator I hear amongst so many of my clients. I have
everything I want and I'm not quite satisfied. And it's not about a bigger house or
a different husband or different children or a different dog, but it's also not
about living in a different city or having a different career. It's really about
doing the work on the inside that led us to being overthinkers,
overachievers, highly driven, sometimes type A people that got that laundry list and
all those boxes checked and then what do we do with the feelings when we've been
constantly in what we refer to as action mode, meaning I will do this to get this,
I will do this to get this, I will do this to get this, and we accomplish,
accomplish, accomplish, and then actually the more we accomplish the worse we feel
because we're running out of boxes to check, if you will. And again, it has to do
with not doing the work inside. So that's kind of the subject of the podcast today.
And ironically, I mean, as I got up this morning and I was thinking about, this
was the episode I was gonna record today, on my Facebook feed or my Instagram feed,
I can't even remember. An old Adam Sandler skit came up from Saturday Night Live,
which I'm not even sure I ever saw. It sort of looked familiar. But anyway, he's
sitting in this cheesy suit and he's sort of got this cheesy little mustache and in
the skit, he's selling, he calls it Roman vacations, Italian vacations. And he's
talking about all the beautiful sights that you'll see, historical sights, you'll eat
great food, you'll drink great wine, you'll meet interesting people. And he's like,
it's a wonderful vacation. We that it will be a beautiful vacation.
We guarantee that you will see everything you ever wanted to see in Italy." And he
says, "But what we can't guarantee is happiness because that's up to you." And I'm
paraphrasing, but it's basically this vacation guarantees a certain level of vacation
and we promise to give that to you. But it's not a cure for sadness. If you're a
sad person and you come on this trip, you will just be a sad person someplace
else. And it just made me laugh. And by the way, not always true because sometimes
taking a vacation can really change your mindset and just being in a new location
can be a great shift. So I highly recommend going on a road trip, taking a hike,
getting out in nature, planning a trip. If you need a break in the monotony of
your life. But the metaphor of this skit was no matter where you go,
there you are. And I just loved it. And I thought, that's weird. Like the algorithm
of Instagram or Facebook, wherever it was that brought this clip up, is reading my
mind because somehow it knew that I was gonna talk about this today in the podcast.
So the question is, while you're in action mode, or if you've already been in
action mode all your life, and you might be at that sort of midlife, what often
people refer to as a midlife crisis, which, and I've talked about that, midlife
crisis is not a particular age. People used to say, well, it happens when you're
40. Maybe yes, maybe no, midlife crises can happen at any time. In fact, I have
several clients, and I've talked about this as well, that have had quarter life
crisis. They reached 25 years old, and they break up with their long -term partner,
or they take a new job because they realized the job that they had planned out of
college was not the job they wanted or the career that they wanted. They might move
out of their apartment. They might have to move home. They kind of start over and
they feel really at sea because they've been in action mode their whole life. I'll
graduate from high school. I'll go to college. I'll get a diploma. I'll start my
career. I'll get promoted. I'll have a boyfriend or a girlfriend depending on what
they want, I'll get an apartment, maybe I'll get a dog or a cat. And they do all
the things. I mean, it's like a whole life. And then sometimes a 25 years old
quarter life, it doesn't work out. And that can feel like a, again, midlife or
quarter life crisis. But I have seen midlife crises at 35, 40, 45,
50. There's no number on it. But this desire for reset or desire to start over or
another chapter comes from all the box checking, right? I did this,
I did this, I did this, I did this, and I'm not satisfied. Oftentimes when we have
been in action mode for our entire lives, we are not doing the internal work of
good daily habits. And this goes back to, you know, having a routine and taking
care of ourselves because we're so outwardly focused of being validated by our
professors, our principals, our bosses, our partners, our parents that we're not
thinking about how are we inwardly focused. And again, I'm always careful when I use
that word of inwardly focused. I'm not talking about narcissism and I'm narcissism,
and I'm not caring about other people. I'm talking about self -care.
It goes back to that same common theme I talk about over and over and over again,
which is, are you taking care of your body and are you taking care of your mind?
And that comes from those good daily habits. So when we start looking for other
things to solve our madness or our malaise or our boredom. When we're looking for
that next shopping trip or vacation or house or location,
yes, those can temporarily lift our spirits for sure. And I highly recommend doing
something that if it shifts the energy by all means do it. But running from one
thing to the next or thinking that the place you go to or the job you go to or
the next relationship you go to is going to solve the inner wound, that's simply
not true. So that's something you can control today. That's something you can start
with today, which is you can check in with yourself and say, "How can I control my
well -being? How can I control my mind and my body?" And it goes with those good
daily habits, which is the homework model that I have created, which is hydration
every day, observe your levels, knowing whether you're fatigued, needing rest,
or whether or not you are eating regularly and healthfully, meditating, and exercise.
And those four principles as part of your daily guide is the beginning of good
healthy habits. And then, I mean, we can get really in the weeds, although that's
for another podcast of what does it mean to eat healthfully? And that's a whole
science and a lot of experimentation. But it's those principles where you take back
control of your life, where you start focusing on what your needs are,
rather than externally focusing or of medicating with so many other things,
right? And we talk about that all the time, caffeine, sugar, alcohol, spending,
gambling, et cetera. And so bringing the focus back in, calming the mind and body,
and then figuring out what makes me happy. Where do I find joy?
And is that in nature, is that in sports, is that with friends, is that helping
other people? Is that doing creative projects? Is that being a lifetime learner,
taking courses, reading books? And honing those skills and figuring out what are my
healthy go -to habits that I wanna have in my life every day and how do I
prioritize those? That's what makes a well -balanced being. so that whether you live
in a big city or whether you live in the country or whether you live in paradise,
like a small island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. So for me, this
conversation was a great reminder. It was a reminder of where I had been,
which is I had been the person who checked all the boxes. I had been a person who
had seemingly it all from the outside, but felt like I was dying inside.
I was dying from overwhelm. I was dying from fatigue. And I was very,
very guilty that I had so much and wasn't happy. And it becomes this negative loop
that the more guilty you feel because you have so much, the worse you feel about
feeling badly. And so for all of you out there, All of you listeners who have
experienced any of this in your life, whether you've checked your boxes or not,
whether you've been moving from place to place or job to job or relationship to
relationship. And it never quite feels like you've arrived to where you feel at home
or fulfilled or having purpose. I would say, Turn the lens inward.
Try and work on yourself, on your inside and see first if by changing your daily
habits, you don't develop a different self -concept and then the external pieces.
And look, I'm not saying you don't have to change your job or your relationship if
it's unhealthy for you, but start with the work inside. And this is exactly what I
do with my clients we start with these baby steps we start with these good daily
habits and we start talking through where is the emotional wound coming from that
you maybe don't feel you deserve this wonderful life you've created or somehow for
many of my clients it's they haven't achieved what they've wanted because they are
creating roadblocks thinking they don't deserve the things they dream of. So it can
work in both directions. You can arrive at the destination that you had always
dreamt of and not feel satisfied, or you can always be hoping that something will
be different, but you can't seem to get there because you're probably blocking
yourself in those achievements. You're probably creating roadblocks because of a
thought process of "I don't really deserve this." But either way, that self -care
piece is a great way to unlock what is going on with the internal sadness or
anxiety or guilt that you might be feeling. So remember this,
no matter where you go, there you are and you can change you at any time you're
ready. All you have to do is being willing to look inwards instead of out for the
next great thing. All right, friends, thank you for taking the time to listen to
this today. I look forward to talking to you soon. Have a great one. Thank you for
listening to this episode of The Overthinker's Guide to Joy. If you're enjoying these
episodes, please subscribe or follow this podcast so you can always be in the know
when the next episode drops. If you would like to learn more about working with me
as a coach, you can connect with me through my website at jackiedecrinis.com. That's
J -A -C -K -I -E -D -E -C -R -I -N -I -S .com.