Healing Overseas Without Realizing It

Wow. What a beautiful, wonderful, healing gift of a month in August. I didn’t know I needed it because I thought I was better. In upholding the commitment to myself that I write more from the heart and on the human side of travel, this is a more vulnerable post than usual. Here we go.

I’ve spent a lot of the last year holding and healing a sad heart.

Three main things contributed to the heaviness:

• health issues of someone I care deeply about,
• a rough 2024 business year that made me question everything, and
• a mistaken romantic connection with a friend that shook my internal compass.

I stopped moving, for both travel and health. I narrowed my focus and simplified life. I ate poorly and gained weight, evident by ill-fitting clothes. My self-confidence decreased.

I knew I had the tools to wander out of my funk but I wasn’t in a rush to use them. I was in hibernation and protection mode, trying to make sense of everything.

A Change in Momentum, A Shift in Energy

As happens with the change of seasons, the energy shifted this spring. Work skyrocketed with several new and unexpected opportunities simultaneously arriving on my doorstep – a dream for the self-employed. I produced and acted in a commercial, became a liaison for an international business and fellow content creators, had more speaking engagements, and wrote for a new partner in Ireland. All of these work opportunities provided a much needed mental (and financial) boost. The health scare has seemingly ironed out and we remain positive, alert, and attentive. And I’ve spent the last several months spending more time with friends and family, reading, returning to moving my body, nesting, and learning.

Come the summer, I thought I was all better. I definitely felt better. Apparently there was more healing to go.

Deciding Not to Travel in 2026

Last year when I returned to Ireland’s beautiful County Donegal for the TBEX Conference I visited Oideas Gael, an Irish language immersion school. The Hibernophile and linguistics nerd in me was thrilled. Over the next several months, Rónán, the course manager, and I kept in touch and agreed to work together in 2026.

And then, at the end of 2025, I decided not to leave Canada the following year.

This uncharacteristic decision was solid. I needed grounding and calm. I needed to catch up and better understand. I wanted to be close to family and spend time in my home. Not travelling makes all of this possible. I made the easy decision not to travel abroad in 2026 for work or pleasure.

However, the Universe Made Other Plans

The Irish school remained faintly in the back of my mind, but it truly wasn’t until June when I booked flights on a whim that I reversed the no-travel decision. In fact, the flights were the tipping point – which is ironic on multiple levels I’ll get into in a moment.

For the first time in a decade, I paid full-price for a cross-Atlantic flight. If you’ve been here a while, you may already know that I spent less than $800 in 2025 on 11 flights around the world. Buying flights at full price is not my style – and yet this cash flight is ultimately the reason why I left.

Unfortunately, there was a problem with the flights.

Alaska Airlines Sucks

To set the flight debacle scene, a colleague of mine posted on Instagram that return flights to Dublin from Toronto were on sale for under $350 CAD. That is a ridiculously excellent price for summer flights to Ireland and the perfect example of when paying cash is smarter than using points (something I teach in my Pay Yourself to Travel course).

How could I resist?

I hummed and hawed a little and then bit the bullet for tickets listed at $422, still a great price…or so I thought. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter I received my credit card statement and was shocked to find out that the listed price was in USD and I actually paid $602 CAD instead.

It turns out that Alaska Airlines, who the deal was with even though the flight was with Aer Lingus, is dodgy. They don’t list the currency in which you pay…unlike pretty much every other airline. I got into it on the phone with a manager who insisted that “we’re an American company so we don’t need to advertise that our prices are in USD”. Hold me back. I demonstrated their lack of transparency by screenshotting several other international airlines’ websites that clearly state the currency throughout the booking process. Other airlines also automatically set the currency to CAD based on a computer’s IP.

Also, while there is a tiny world button in the top right corner of the screen on Alaska Airlines to choose the language and currency, Canada is absent from the list while Australia, New Zealand, and Great Britain are present. I didn’t see the icon until I was on the phone with her, but hoooow is CAD not an option?! Needless to say, the $20 Alaska Airlines voucher the manager offered me didn’t quell my frustration and I won’t be flying with them in the future.

When Stars Line Up

Back to the main story… This is how this most recent return to Ireland came to fruition. It’s fitting, really, because linguistics and language learning are my roots. Ireland, as many of you have heard me say time and again, is a special place. Solidifying the agreement with the school, I knew I wouldn’t stay in Ireland for just 1 week.

Somehow, stars started aligning.

I was asked to speak at a conference in Ireland taking place the week after the language school. Two Irish companies I’d previously worked with reached out in the same week to discuss more work. In-person meetings were arranged. I contacted the wonderful folks in County Kildare from the FAM trip last year and they put together a fantastic itinerary I can’t wait to share with you. And I lined up collaborations with new partners in Dublin.

It was gearing up to be a very different, yet exciting, work trip to Ireland.

Returning to Roots, Overseas

I hit the ground running, with a meeting in Dublin hours off the plane. The sun was shining. My chest started to feel lighter and more expansive. Over the course of the next 3 weeks, despite being sick for most of the trip and apart from family during devastating news back home, the final energy shift happened without me even realizing it. 

I was absolutely buzzing during my time at Oideas Gael, amongst interesting people much nerdier than me at a school that neighboured both the ocean and a majestic mountain. While in Kildare, the hospitality was incredible and the warmth from the individuals I worked with was genuine, plus the activities and accommodation were outstanding. In County Dublin I reset and reconnected with friends, enjoyed the capital city with a fellow language enthusiast, and started to recover my health. I tried a spice bag for the first time (I know, I can’t believe it took me this long either) and oddly missed the tradition of revisiting my former apartment. My skin bronzed at lunch times, I took photos for fun, and to ease the fevery aches and chills a bath was poured each night, something I rarely do at home.

It wasn’t until a few days after I returned to Canada, while chatting with friends, that it clicked.

Perhaps I needed this time in Ireland.

It surprised me to return home feeling lighter, energized. My clothes fit different now and I haven’t been the only one who noticed. My mind has cleared. And my heart has released the last bit of heartache it’s been cloaked in. My routines have been shaken up in the best way to move forward.

The change of scenery, the sense of purpose and opportunity, the moments of learning and excitement, the fresh air, the change-up in daily schedule, the reconnecting with longtime friends (even if it was brief), the walks, the light, and the sea all contributed to the mending, the healing. Similar in some ways, now that I reflect, to the year that I moved to Ireland.

Things are different in Ireland.

I’m different. The energy is different. The light is different. The way things line up and work out is different. The men are different in Ireland. The sounds are different. The air is different. There’s something about being there that restores my hope and makes me excited. I learn more about myself and the world. My confidence changes, how I walk transforms, and my inspiration lights up. Energy shifts in ways I’m usually aware of and anticipate. This time its movement subtly revealed itself.

Rounding Off These Thoughts

As I wrote in a recent Instagram reel, I think I needed this trip to Ireland, even as a work trip. It lifted me up and restored a sense of calm grounding and levity of spirit. I didn’t plan this trip to Ireland to heal something in myself. This was not an Eat, Pray, Love situation. I went there to work. And yet, transformation happened and I’m grateful for the release.

At the beginning of 2026 I decided I wouldn’t travel or work internationally. By changing my mind and going with the flow when opportunity knocked, the door to a new chapter has opened and I’m waving from the other side.