Episode 77: Authentic Living: Why It's Okay to Show Your Struggles

In this heartfelt and candid episode of the One Girl Travel Podcast, host Alessia Tenebruso veers off script to share some personal struggles and insights she's recently experienced. Alessia opens up about the pressures of social media, the challenge of maintaining authenticity, and the reality of dealing with self-image and life changes as she approaches 40.

Alessia reveals the difficulties she's faced since transitioning from a steady corporate job to becoming a full-time entrepreneur. She candidly discusses how she's learning to navigate her changing body, the pressures of growing a new business, and adapting to life in a new relationship. These changes have sparked self-doubt, leading to moments of feeling unmotivated and out of alignment with her usually optimistic nature.
A key takeaway from this episode is the importance of being kind to oneself while still holding oneself accountable. Alessia talks about strategies she discussed with her therapist and how she's implementing them to be more disciplined and committed to her personal goals. She emphasizes the value of scheduling, planning, and being intentional about self-care activities that are often neglected.

Through relatable anecdotes and actionable advice, Alessia encourages listeners to make themselves a priority. She urges her audience to reflect on their personal goals, commit to them, and take steps to achieve them, no matter how small they may seem. She also hints at exciting upcoming announcements and travel opportunities, including a trip to Germany's Christmas markets.

This episode is a refreshing reminder that life isn't always picture-perfect, and it's okay to struggle and share these struggles. Alessia's raw and honest approach inspires her community to embrace their journeys authentically and unapologetically.
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*Don't forget to join Alessia for more travel adventures and life coaching tips by following her on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. You can also find more details about her upcoming trips and announcements on her website, onegirltravel.com.*

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Chapters

• 0:00 Committing to Self-Care & Personal Growth
• 8:59 Prioritizing Self-Care and Personal Goals

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the One Girl Travel Podcast, episode number 77.

Speaker 2: 0:05

Welcome to the One Girl Travel Podcast, your passport to the world of solo travel with certified life and travel coach, alessia Tenebruso. Join Alessia as she shares her own journey of self-discovery through solo travel, while also focusing on topics such as life coaching insights and travel tips along the way. Now here's your host, alessia Tenebruso.

Speaker 1: 0:32

Welcome my friends to episode number 77 of the One Girl Travel Podcast. I am going totally off script for this podcast episode. It's just something that has come to me and I've really been honestly struggling with recently that I want to share with all of you, because if I'm struggling with it, most likely somebody out there is and it's so easy for us to scroll through social media and reviewing basically the highlight reel of somebody else's life. We're seeing all of their celebrations and their joy, their vacations, their you know, befores and afters, like all the good stuff, and we don't really get to see the not so good stuff, the hard stuff, the dirty stuff, the struggle. Nobody really shares that and when they do share it it's really not that common.

Speaker 1: 1:33

And I realized that it feels unauthentic to only focus on the good stuff all the time. And I'm a very positive person, I like to be as optimistic as I possibly can, I like to share inspiration and motivation with my community. But sometimes when I personally am not feeling that motivated or that good, it's hard to share anything because then it just feels like I'm not being honest and I feel out of alignment with who I am and what I'm feeling at that time and then I realized I don't need to avoid posting. I don't need to avoid showing up when I'm not feeling my best. I could just share what's actually happening and talk through it and talk to all of you about it Because, again, if I'm feeling this way, most likely someone else out there is, and I want to be relatable and I don't want to be so curated. I want to be a and I don't want to be so curated and want to be a little bit more raw with you and yeah, so that's what we're doing today. So, if you follow me on TikTok which you should follow me on TikTok, because I am not it's a different, it's a different world over there. You know Instagram's more of the business. It's more, you know, pretty and curated.

Speaker 1: 3:07

Tiktok is like the raw, dirty version, it's like unedited, it's whatever, and over in TikTok today, I well, today, a few days, and I looked in the mirror and I didn't recognize the person that was looking back at me. I feel like my face changed. There's new lines by my eyes, there's an additional weight that came on, there's pain in certain areas of my joints. All these things are happening, and not only are they happening because I'm getting older I'll be 40 this year, but it's also this year has been like a new life. I'm now a full-time entrepreneur, after being in the corporate world for 14 years. I'm on my own with this business and I've never been an entrepreneur before Not technically, but I'm learning. And now I'm learning about my body as it's changing. I'm, you know, in a relationship after not being in one for many, many years. So it's all of these new things that are happening this year, and some of them are great.

Speaker 1: 4:36

But then there's other things where it's like I don't feel like myself, I don't like how I feel. It doesn't feel good. So what am I going to do about it? Of course, the first reaction for me was to go down a spiral of there's something wrong with me, I'm defective. Why don't things work for me and it works for other people? It was this whole like pity party depression thing where I didn't feel good. I didn't feel good enough and I felt like there was something wrong with me. Then I realized there's nothing wrong with me. I realized there's nothing wrong with me. This is who I am, and if I want to make a change, I'm capable of making a change, but it's not going to be comfortable. Comfort it always comes back to comfort. If I want to make a change, if I want to do things that I've never done before, which is lose a significant amount of weight, which is grow a business from scratch and make it successful, which has many, many things In order to do that, I have to do things that are uncomfortable. I have to put myself out there. I have to do things even when I don't feel like doing them, because I know they're going to benefit me.

Speaker 1: 6:14

I was speaking to my therapist recently and we had a discussion about how I have to be nicer to myself. Lately I haven't been that nice to myself. Then I told him I feel like I am too nice to myself because I'll allow myself not to do things that I don't want to do. He said there's a difference between being nice to yourself and making excuses. Being nice to yourself is saying okay, I want to do A, b and C, but I was only able to do A and B today, and that's okay. Making an excuse for yourself is I want to do A, b and C today, but I don't feel like it, so I'm just not going to do any of it. Or I only did A, so I'm not even going to bother with B and C because I didn't get around to it. So there's a difference of being kind, speaking kindly to yourself and making excuses and not following through on the commitments that you have made for yourself.

Speaker 1: 7:22

So if you're somebody that is able to commit to other people, where if they ask you to do something for them or you're invited somewhere and you commit to it, you're on time hell, you're early, you will not miss it. It's in your calendar, you will not miss it, no matter what. But then you make a list of things that you want to do for yourself and that list keeps getting pushed back and pushed back and sometimes you never get around to it. That's the thing that I personally struggle with and that's the thing that I want to share with all of you that you're worth committing to yourself. You're worth that time and energy for yourself.

Speaker 1: 8:14

If you wouldn't break a commitment with somebody else, why do you break the commitment to yourself? Do you feel like it's selfish putting that time away for yourself or focusing on your own needs? You have to evaluate why you're not committing to yourself. Why are you not doing the things you say you're going to do, and now this could be for anything. Maybe you told yourself you want to start solo traveling, but you keep putting it off. Or maybe you told yourself I want to go to the farmer's market this summer and you haven't gone yet. Whatever it is, it this summer and you haven't gone yet.

Speaker 1: 8:59

Whatever it is, why aren't you doing it? I really want you to take a moment to think about it. Why aren't you doing the things that you say that you really want to do, that feel important to you? Because if they're that important to you, you should be doing them. You should be honoring yourself to do the things that you say you're going to do. So I want to do this together with you. I am just accountable, as you are. We should all be doing the things that are important to us to us, not to everybody else to the things that are going to make you feel good, because when you take care of yourself, you can take care of everybody else. That's how it works.

Speaker 1: 9:41

You can't just keep giving and giving and not filling your own cup. You have to do the things that are going to make you feel good, or else you're going to be drained, you're going to be resentful, you're going to be irritated, you're not going to be your best version. So take the time to do the things that you want to do. Put them in your calendar, make an appointment with yourself to do whatever it is, even if it's a shower. I know some of you, especially the parents or the caregivers, so I know some of you, especially the parents or the caregivers, need to make time for yourself to shower or to take a walk or to drink your water. It could be the most simple things, but if you're not doing it, then something's got to change, and the way you can start is to plan it out, to schedule things. And I don't know about you.

Speaker 1: 10:39

I like reward systems. I like some sort of reward for doing what I need to do, and that's not always beneficial, because it can be discouraging when you don't do it and then you don't get the reward, or it could feel like you're doing it for the wrong reasons, because you're only doing it to get a reward. So I want you to reframe the thought of a reward to your health, your happiness, your health, your happiness, that's all the reward, the best version of you. What's a better reward than that To show up as just this amazing version of you, who's happy and healthy and doing the things that she desires. So I truly want to encourage you If there's something that you want to do, especially this summer.

Speaker 1: 11:40

A new season is the best time to start something new, and especially with summertime, if you're in the United States. There's so much to do. There's so much you can start doing. We have more daylight. You can go and do a walk later in the day. You can fit more things in. You can try new things. There is so much available to you. So what is it that you want to do? Recognize what it is you want to do. Write it down, write a list. Recognize what it is you want to do, write it down, write a list.

Speaker 1: 12:20

I recently wrote a list of all the things I would do in my ideal day, because I have to tell you, when I was working corporate life, I dreamt of the time that I would be able to have my own schedule and I was like I'm going to be drinking green juice, I'm going to be exercising, I'm going to take baths, I'm going to take vitamins. I'm going to do all these things. I'm not doing any of those things. I find myself sitting here working all morning until the evening not doing those things. Why am I not doing those things? Because I'm not scheduling my time properly. Maybe you can relate to that. So a way that I am changing this and I'm sharing this journey with all of you through my TikTok so you can follow me there. It's one girl.

Speaker 1: 13:08

Travel on TikTok is to recognize all the things that I want to do, that I would be doing in my ideal day If I was the best version of myself. What would I want to be doing every day? And I wrote a list out and I mean it has everything from like flossing to face mask, to walking, to using my sauna blanket, like all these things, and I personally, I used a Trello board to write it all down and then so I'll give you my whole thing, use Trello board. I did all the tasks and then I did Monday through Sunday and I'm moving each task to the days I want to do them and then if I don't do it, if I don't do all of them, it's okay, I can just simply move it to the next day, but it's still there, it's still in my face. That reminder is there.

Speaker 1: 14:05

Hey, you said you wanted to do this, so make time to do this, and I'm finding that it's helping because I know exactly what I want to do that day. You plan, you prepare, you make it a priority the three Ps of getting shit done. So if that helps you, I will be very, very happy because, again, I want to share these struggles with you so you're aware of how you can change things in your life to make it better. So if you can relate to any of this, if this is something that you're recently struggling with or struggled with in the past maybe you overcame it I'd love to hear how you overcame it. But if you're struggling with this, with making the things that you want to do a priority, with making yourself a priority, I want you to put in the work. Do it beside me, share it with me. I'll cheer you on along the way.

Speaker 1: 15:06

I'd love to do that, but it's not always going to be pretty. It's not always going to be easy, that's for sure. You're not going to know what you're doing sometimes or can feel really, really uncomfortable, but you do it anyway. You do it anyway because you're worth it, because what you desire is worth it. If you want to take the trip, get out there, book yourself a hotel room and go take the trip. Don't let anything stop you. Set it in the calendar. Make it a priority Plan around it.

Speaker 1: 15:45

If you want to go to the farmer's market this summer, schedule it into your calendar. Put the times down that from 9 to 11, you're going to the farmer's market and that's what you're going to do. Make the things that are important to your priority and stick to it. Hold yourself accountable to yourself. It's easy to be accountable when there's other people involved, like I said, but when you have to be accountable to yourself, that's a whole nother level of discipline and it's possible and it's going to make a big difference. So that's the message I want to leave with you today. That's what's just on top of my heart right now.

Speaker 1: 16:28

I also want to mention that you probably haven't seen many emails from me lately. That's another thing I've been struggling with. You know, as a full-time entrepreneur, now there's a lot of moving pieces with this and I'm figuring it out and I'm changing things. You know, as a full-time entrepreneur, now there's a lot of moving pieces with this and I'm figuring it out and I'm changing things. I have a big announcement coming the beginning of July, so stay tuned for that. So, yeah, you're going to see more of me. It might not be so curated and it might not be so pretty, but it's going to be there because I want to be authentic with you.

Speaker 1: 17:08

I want to share all of all of this, all of this journey, because I never want anyone to compare themselves to social media, where they just see the happy things and the good things, because that's not real life, and I'm guilty of doing it too. I'll see other people like, oh my gosh, look at them. They look amazing. They're so happy, like they lost all this weight, they're making all this money. I'm sure they're dealing with shit too. So let's be real with each other. Let's just let's just focus on our goals and let's focus on making this life the best life for us. That way, we can overflow that to everybody else in our lives, and that's going to just change the world. That's going to make this life the most incredible life that you can have, and you're capable of it. I'm capable of it, we all are. So let's get started.

Speaker 1: 18:12

Before I leave you today, I also want to mention that the Germany Christmas market trip is still open. There are still a few spots available where you can receive $100 off of your price. So go, take advantage of that. Go to onegirltravelcom and then up in the menu bar you'll see travel with me. Click on that or you can look at the show notes. I'll put a link to the trip.

Speaker 1: 18:35

I would love for you to join me in Germany. This trip is more of an active trip. We're switching hotels every night. This is not going to be relaxing, but it is going to be full of experiences, full of so many incredible moments, and I am so excited to go on this trip with you. So if you're interested, if it's speaking to you, if that's something that you have on your bucket list but have been putting off, now's the time. Now's the time to join me. Let's go and do it. It's going to be amazing and there's gonna be more trips to come, so start planning for that also. All right, my friends, I hope you have an amazing day. I hope that this episode helped to just spark something inside of you, or gave you the reassurance that you're not alone on this journey. Nothing is perfect. We're all figuring it out, but we can figure it out and you've got this. Make yourself a priority, make those dreams a priority and I'll see you next week. Bye.

Speaker 2: 19:44

Thanks so much for tuning in to this episode of the One Girl Travel Podcast. If you're enjoying the show, please feel free to rate, subscribe and leave a review wherever you listen to your podcasts. You can find out more about your host on our website, onegirltravelcom, or follow her on Instagram, facebook, pinterest and TikTok. Thanks again for tuning in and we'll catch you in the next episode.