Last week I arrived home after three amazing weeks in beautiful Estepona. I absolutely love Spain! I love the people, the weather, siesta time and the laid back lifestyle. It was a fantastic adventure and I simply have to share some of it with you.
OK, the first thing you should know is that I can be bit of a scaredy cat. Life has thrown me many curve balls over the years and it kinda made me a little nervous and fearful of living life fully. In the last twelve months especially I have definitely stayed within my comfort zone but now it was time to challenge my inner scaredy cat.
This holiday was 100% planned on my gut feeling. I know that sounds a bit nutty but I honestly believe that making decisions from my gut rather than my head is really the only way to go. My friend and mentor Moira has this fantastic phrase “your gut is right only 100% of the time”, and I couldn’t agree with her more.
It was time to drop the fear, fly by the seat of my pants and trust that everything would work out perfectly. I had decided that I wanted take this trip on my own, this is something I wouldn’t normally do because it would cause me to feel unsafe (a feeling I really don’t like). But I was sick of feeling this way and I was ready to kick fear’s ass, plus I really wanted to spend three weeks suiting myself. I wanted to go where ever took my fancy, eat when and where I wanted and go to sleep and get up at whatever time suited me. Basically the whole holiday was all about ME, ME, ME!
When I told people that I was going away on my own, they had one of two reactions.
- They thought I was feckin bonkers!
- They thought I was very brave.
To plan my trip I googled large coastal towns in Spain, Estepona popped up, it’s situated between Marbella and Gibraltar on the Costa Del Sol. It’s a typical Spanish town, and very quickly I decided (gut feeling) that this town would be perfect for me. Then I looked up Airbnb’s in the area, and I found a room in this lovely house in the heart of Estepona. Again I knew instantly that this accommodation was exactly right for me. It felt so refreshing not to be agonising over the “what if’s”.
As the time drew closer I was getting more and more excited about my trip and at no point did I feel fearful, something had shifted for me. I just knew that it was going to be awesome, and it was.
During my hols I decided to challenge another big fear, driving on the opposite side of the road. Now I have to say I was absolutely bricking it, I’d driven in Lanzarote once but it was quite easy because it’s such a quiet island. I rented a car and I made sure to get full insurance, I was being courageous but I wasn’t feckin mad, and then off I went. The Sat Nav, which I nicknamed “The Gowl” was an absolute nightmare. She kept sending me up one way streets THE WRONG WAY”! I spent my time roaring obscenities at her, but if you know me you’ll know that’s not out of character for me. After the first day of driving I’d gotten the hang of it, I was still a bit nervous but I was doing it, and I was so damn proud of myself.
The funnest thing happened to me on one of my day trips. I wanted to visit a wolf sanctuary, it was a two hour drive from Estepona way up in the mountains. I had to take the motorway, and at one stage there were five lanes of traffic, “The Gowl” was not a reliable co-driver so the sweat was pouring out of me. Anyway I got to a town which was 10km from the sanctuary, but the Sat Nav didn’t have details on how to get to my destination. I saw two cops directing traffic and I asked them for directions, they said it was a complicated route so they actually escorted me 10km to the gates of the sanctuary. I kid you not!! I couldn’t believe this was actually happening and I kept thinking “no-one will believe me, I have to take a photo”. And I did! I could barely drive on the opposite side of the road but I had the balls to take a pic while driving behind a squad car. Honestly you couldn’t make it up!!
There are so many funny stories from my trip but if I told them all the blog would go on for ever. The trip was amazing from start to finish, but the icing on the cake was kicking the absolute shite out of the fears that have been holding me back. I feel like Super Woman, I feel empowered, I feel brave and I feel like life will never be the same again. I know to some this may seem like nothing, and they wouldn’t think twice about heading off on their own or driving in another country, but for me it was a massive leap forward.
PS. my gorgeous friend Vig did my detox last month and lost over 8lbs, but more importantly she had a huge “aha” moment when she realised that she was self-medicating with comfort food. Have a read of her experience here xxx
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