The Art of Slow Nomad Living

She brings with her a wealth of insights on topics ranging from energy management and gentle goal setting to redefining purpose and self-advocacy in healthcare . Welcome , caitlin . Today we also have Anne B Byers with us . Hello , ladies .

I've worked mostly in waste management and recycling , which is a very trusted interception between like sustainability and like environmental health , so like the health of the environment .

What is environmental engineering for those people who don't know ?

I used it towards waste management . I'm really into waste diversion . I started out in recycling and working in like circular economy , trying to reduce waste . Have you ?

I want to feel like I'm contributing and I'm collaborating with others and we're working towards solutions that make the world maybe even a little bit better . There's some big problems that we can't necessarily solve overnight , but then we're working towards making some changes .

Some people wait till they retire to travel , but that's not guaranteed . I really wanted to have an opportunity to travel a little bit guaranteed . I really wanted to have an opportunity to travel a little bit . I say slow because I stay in places for months at a time , just because it is very exhausting to travel in general .

It is exhausting to travel if you have an illness . So , yeah , it's just in places for a few months at a time . I also just try to do so in a way that I'm connecting and learning local culture , that I'm trying to reduce my environmental impact when I travel . So it's just traveling in a way that feels a little more aligned to my values .

So do you speak ?

And now I jumble multiple languages into one sentence because I know a little bit of a lot of languages . So , yeah , this is such a cool conversation . I'm so excited . What are some unfiltered lessons you've learned about resilience and self-advocacy as someone with a chronic illness in the entrepreneurial space as a slow nomad ? That was a lot of stuff .

I just asked .

I got very , very sick because I was trying to keep up with everybody else and being in accelerator programs and seeing other founders pollinators or do things that I physically could not do . I got really down myself for a while that I'm not showing up the way that an entrepreneur should show up .

It took me to get very unwell before I realized that entrepreneurship is going to look very different . If you have chronic illness . That's okay and actually the culture isn't sustainable for anybody . Having a chronic illness actually means that you are respecting your limits a little earlier than maybe doing that for 20 years and getting really sick .

It was just raging , my weight was fluctuating , I couldn't sleep , my appetite was trash and I really was spiraling because I thought why can't I keep up Like ? This is my dream , this is what I want to do , and what I realized is I'm not supposed to be able to keep up with them and what they were doing wasn't sustainable or healthy .

I tried it and tried it , and I was in that cycle for a really long time and I was getting sicker and sicker as long as I stayed in the cycle . It took a health scare for me to be like wait a minute , if I just offload some of these or if I just did this a different way to conserve some spoons , maybe I wouldn't feel as bad . And then I didn't .

I didn't feel as badly and I'm like OK , it was the wrapping my mind around . This looks different because I am different and I had to be OK with it . But my difference also super cool and what I realized is that are different . Other people try to emulate because they realize that the hustle culture for real isn't sustainable for anyone .

I didn't realize how many people look at the entrepreneurs in the chronic illness space and go , wow , I wish I could do it like that .

And I guess today it's going to be the accelerated program that is further down on my list of priorities , but I'm in one now and it's exhausting because we're doing these meetups and to introduce yourself , and it's the constant . Hey , I know that you want me to be super active in this pod and I may not be able to , and here's why .

And then the fielding the questions , but also hearing the disappointment in the email communications like , oh , you missed another meeting or you left out early and I'm like , but you don't actually get why I'm so glad we're having this conversation . I'm just over here calling , Thank you .

And the other thing I think is just like not caring if other people make comments or don't understand what you're experiencing . I remember so many times sitting in meetings . I remember one time in particular I just had like a massive flare . I have fibromyalgia , so it was just like pain all over .

And I'm sitting in this meeting and someone looked at me and said you have to try a little harder with Spanish . I literally was having a hard time processing English at this point . I've done everything just to get myself out the door .

I was sitting there just waiting to clean it through the whole meeting and stuff , and after I just that's not mine , I don't need to , it doesn't matter what that person thinks , it does not matter , but it is hard . It is hard when you feel you're being judged or someone thinks you're living with chronic illness and you're showing up .

That is taking Herculean strengths . That is like you know , that's like tenacity to another level .

for the people like me out there that have no idea what you're talking about . What is an accelerator program ?

They cram it at you in a small amount of time and several of those have decided I couldn't do that anymore , I couldn't pitch for competition . It is a lot .

It'd be interesting there's accelerators for chronic illness , though I think it would be interesting if they had more accelerators that were geared towards entrepreneurs that had like neurodiversity or who needed a different approach to how they're doing their business , because how typical accelerators are is very hustle .

I didn't want to look at my stuff or do any marketing or communicate or people . I just need to get this done so I can be done with this program . And at that point I just need to be done with the program . Maybe I'll feel a little bit better . So I took that breather , I disappeared off the social media , I went on what I call a mental vacation .

I am a mental nomad . I disappear for an unknown amount of time and then I pop back up just so that I could find the balance and disconnect from what I knew was about to make me sick , disconnect from what I knew was about to make me sick .

I had gotten back in the rabbit hole of hustle culture for the sake of being able to do this thing and to not look different than this group , for the sake of them to shut up talking to me or talking around me about me not being there , understanding that my body needed different things , and to include my mind .

My mind needed me to care for it way more than I was while I was trying to spiral in this hustle culture . So , while you're out and about , what is your support network like ? Because you travel a lot and you've done some accelerators and those are a lot and you have a chronic illness , how's ?

I mean , none of us are meant to do this alone , and that is also a very aggressive , masculine type of way of looking at business in the world and also , through colonization , the idea that people need to be individuals and you should not be shown up in communities . So community is important .

I've been reframing how I look for it , and so that includes being really intentional about connections with folks Anywhere I travel . It doesn't have to be permanent for it to be meaningful and impactful .

Being intentional about keeping in touch with people like my friends that live in different countries , professional networks , having been also wherever I go , making sure that I know where are their doctors or hospitals , where are people , therapists , people who I can get support from .

I think really just trying to build a network that is fluid and flexible wherever I go so I feel I'm not alone , because that is my default survival response is to be like I got this and then you kind of like uh , hydronate , which is not good .

So I started working with a energy healer , hypnotherapist , who really focused a lot on nervous system work , and that's when I realized how much I've been disconnecting from my body , because obviously , when you're in chronic pain or you're not feeling well , you don't want to think about your body very often .

But it was so key to being able to actually recognize that I was overdoing my limits and help myself to regulate . The window of regulation , also known as a window of tolerance , was developed by Dr Dan Siegel and it's basically the concept that there is a kind of a sweet spot for where we can manage stress and emotional arousal .

It's normal for us to not be calm , because if someone makes you angry , you're going to be angry . If you're sad , you're going to be sad , but the key is to be able to get yourself back into that area where you're then able to be more regulated , make better decisions , be able to take care of yourself .

If you're dealing with a lot of chronic stress and you're not able to regulate yourself . You end up living like dysregulated , either in fight or flight or in freeze collapse for long periods that are not good , not healthy for you .

It took me about two years to get a diagnosis because I was I honestly had to like really advocate a

lot to get that , and it's now been eight years . So fibromyalgia is a basic condition of , like the nervous system , the body is overly sensitive to stimuli . Basically , the main kind of characteristics are like chronic pain all over , difficulty with cognitive processing , extreme fatigue and also difficulty with sleep disturbances .

But the pain I think for me anyways is a huge one . I have just all different types of pain all over .

As you're talking about this regulation , what's popping in my head is people like me , where sometimes I feel I can't even regulate my body temperature , and so is that something that you've struggled with and , if so , what would your advice be to listeners ?

Whatever tools and resources you use are going to depend on your nervous system state , and they're also going to depend on what you like and where you're at . Meditation doesn't work for everybody , for example . What's really helpful is figuring out when I am hyper aroused , when you were in fight or flight , what does my body feel like ?

My heart rate goes really fast , or maybe I'm really hot , or whatever . Kind of figure out what it is for you when you are in fight or flight . What is it like when you are in freeze , what does it feel like when your body is regulated ? And that way , when you start to figure out those clues , those triggers , those behaviors , then you're better able to .

I'm hyperactive right now . This is the tools that work for me . When that happens , it takes a bit of trial and error , but it requires you to look at yourself , because we all have completely different nervous systems . Works for one person is not going to work for the other person .

Sandy can send over a YouTube clip of something I need to listen to to slow me down and to help me get back to where I need to be , Because yesterday I had a massive panic attack , have no idea why . No rhyme or reason , no stress .

The only thing I could look at was I was traveling over the weekend and it was a seven hour drive to get to where I was . I was only there for three nights . Then it was a seven hour drive back , and so a lot of trying to put the pieces together and I feel in the chronic illness world that's a lot of what we do .

We're always trying to put the puzzle pieces together and run through our toolkit and sometimes our brains just can't slow down to work out our toolkit , which that always sucks when that happens .

It really can be as simple as like getting a hug from somebody or having a conversation or like . It can really be that simple .

It's not working , yeah , but you have to give it a minute .

But stressing yourself out because it's taking a little longer is not , isn't going to really yeah , isn't going to help . I think that's . I think self-compassion has been more than like the best things I've learned from nervous system . Regulation work is just .

Whenever you have these symptoms , whatever it may be , if , if you're experiencing a panic attack , if you're experiencing a lot of anger , it's your body trying to protect you . I think that's been really interesting to reframe versus it's really easy with chronic illness to be like my body's failing me .

It also comes with being creative and having a little more strategy and a little more . I think how I travel now is also better than how I traveled in my 20s , pre-protic illness . I think that's also taught me to be grateful for where I'm at , not be looking back , just recognize that every iteration is totally okay .

I think sometimes we get stuck on like , oh , things are different now and different isn't necessarily bad .

Do you have a favorite food , a favorite travel location where you just had the best snacks ? I ?

What strategies have you developed that made communicating your needs a little bit easier for you to people that don't necessarily always get it ?

A boundary is what you are going to do for yourself and to keep yourself safe , recognizing that energy is finite and that if I'm setting a boundary , it's the best thing , not just for me but for , like , my work , for my relationships , for anything that I want to actually accomplish in the future .

I think it's helpful , too , for people who struggle with setting boundaries to actually be around folks who are really good at it , because seeing I have a few friends that are so good at setting boundaries and so compassionately the way that they do it A few couple of times I'd see them do it how this amazing , and we know that when someone's good at setting

boundaries , they're also generally really good at receiving boundaries and respecting other people's boundaries . And then you know that there's not going to be self-sacrificing or that resentment . I've actually emulated other people and that was how I was able to , because we can't always control how other people are going to react , of course .

So my favorite word became no , no , I can't , I don't have the capacity , I don't want to . No is a complete sentence , all the things , but I have always been one that respected other people's boundaries . I just never felt strong enough to enforce my own .

I was also the kid that was bullied , the teenager that was bullied , the young adult that was bullied , that was in an all-male career field that nobody wanted to listen to or talk to , but spent a lot of time talking down at .

As I empowered myself more in just how I loved me , how I looked at me , how I talked to me when I walked into rooms that were late . You're not going to talk to me that way today , because I didn't even talk to me that way . Today , I realized that I had started to believe all the things that they had implied about me and my worth .

I started to believe that and I wouldn't look myself in the mirror when I got to a point where I could look at me and not want to pick me apart . How I walk in rooms look different now you can't break me . At one point in time you almost fractured me .

You can't break me because you're not going to say anything to me that I'm going to absorb because of what I said to myself this morning and I can't change how you feel about me . But I know how I woke up feeling about me and I know exactly how I'm going to go to bed feeling about myself .

There's nothing that you can say to me that's going to make me feel any differently than what I just said to myself this morning . And I start with me every single morning . Whatever it is I'm going to say to

me , whatever I was moved to say to me , is always something empowering that will lead me closer to what my ultimate goal is , and that's balance , peace , happy , healthy , thriving for me and everybody around me or everybody that comes in contact with me . But it wasn't always that easy for me .

No , I honestly had to die unexpectedly for me to pick me instead of saying , hey , I pick me , I needed to pick me , instead of saying , hey guys , pick me , I needed to pick me . And for I won't even say unfortunately , fortunately , I had to die and get life part two , the chance at life part two , before the person that picked me was me what's .

But so much of when you sit and recognize I would rather be rejected by other people than myself , I would rather be well , yeah , exactly . Look myself in the mirror and say I like myself , I like how I move to the world , I like the integrity that I have . It really just like all the other noise around just reduces .

And then you do find that people who respect I respect people . When someone tells me no , I respect that because my brain's a little bit like I know it's more analytical . So if someone says no , I'm like , hey , no . When someone's a bit more , maybe , that I'm like do they want to be here ?

Are they just doing it because they feel bad , like I appreciate when somebody , and when you're around somebody who's like a hell yes or hell no , then you know that they actually want to be there or they actually want to do the thing , and so that feels good as well to be on the receiving end or to be the person in relationship with that other person .

cognitively , my brain , like mental fatigue , is gone , and so if I do too much then I might take from other areas of my life , like my ability to call a friend and talk to them .

But I kind of look at everything's always shifting and fluctuating and every day is an opportunity to really check in and be like maybe normally I can sit for an hour without moving , but maybe today it's like a half hour because I'm feeling stiff , and so I think that it just requires a lot of like affecting with your body , but recognizing that different things

take different amounts of energy and also different . You might be able to go for a walk after working , but it may be unable to have a conversation . So there's different forms of energy and stuff , but interesting to kind of navigate .

Energy can be really draining for me . So I think being aware of our energy it's not just internal , it's also what's going on around us . So being aware of how our different environments can impact our energy for sure is really important , which is why I'm really really careful about scheduling .

I'm careful about always putting in rest days as if it's like a meeting , and being careful about looking ahead and time blocking for things . Because of my brain a little neurodiversity I will write to-do lists that are like 50 items long .

I'll just keep adding things and so having to be like what is the one or two things I need to get done today , I get that done . Now what Do I have energy for more ? If I do , what is it so really going step by step versus trying to make a really massive plan , when your plan should be bite-sized and then they should also adopt ?

But I think that there's a lot of stigma around obviously mental health , and I think particularly it's gotten a little bit better , maybe not necessarily in how treatment options , but just in how society is viewing mental health now .

But I think like 15 years ago it was not the case , and so when I was diagnosed , I was diagnosed with bipolar , which I since now I'm going through a process of not that may not be the right diagnosis , I don't think it was I was on so much medication .

I think that was a time that still is a time where doctors want there's an emphasis on like diagnosing and labeling , but not necessarily on improving quality of life . And so there's so many years about six years of my quality of life was really really poor . I was not getting better .

I was on so much medication , like seven medications and just feeling lost who I was , and there's so much stigma around too , particularly with mood disorders . So I think that then when I was going through fibromyalgia , I just recognized this is another invisible illness with a stigma .

There's where I don't want to try much of medications and labeled and not actually . I don't want to try much of medications and labeled and not actually . I don't want my quality of life to again suffer . So it did change how I approached treatment . I didn't realize how much it impacted .

When I really started doing nervous system work I realized I would feel so anxious talking to doctors because of those experiences of feeling like not heard or going in and be like I have all these side effects and be like , no , that's not a side effect of the medication and it's like why am I losing all my hair effects ?

And be like , no , that's not a side effect of the medication and it's like why am I losing all my hair ? Yeah , I think just feeling really less with you for a while and it can feel really disempowering you said something that made me think .

I think that I was just really dysregulated . I also think it was ADHD , but whatever it is , I know people can have both . The reality was the medications were not working and it was every time going to the doctor and getting another one put on . I just remember going to a psychiatrist and be like what is our end game here ?

What is the dose that we're getting to ? And he just said I have patients who are half your size on much higher doses . I have patients that are double your size on lower doses . We just try things . I just was like I don't want to play Russian roulette with my life .

I would spend hours and times and not even know the hours would buy , like I would just sit be at a computer and I would be like didn't even know that what had happened , things that were really awful .

And then you start feeling really bad about yourself , because then you think that people think that you're incompetent or that you can't articulate your thoughts , or that you , you know it's a huge . It's a huge weight , I think , a huge loss of confidence .

And then there's medication C that's added on because medication A and B are causing something else . And it goes on and on and on , and before you know it , you're on 13 medications and feeling like you're walking through fog , but you still don't feel like a real person and we need to talk about that .

The problem is , too , we have a negative connotation towards mental illness or any sort of illness , but that's just a part of being human , a negative connotation towards mental illness or any sort of illness , but that's just a part of being human . The problem for me was not the label . The problem was I was not getting better . I want to be better .

I don't care what the label is , I want to feel better . I was getting much worse , yeah .

your own . And if you're in a really vulnerable state and you're alone at the doctor's office and they're like , take this , you're like , okay , I guess you're desperate , right ?

So I think having that support system even bringing someone with you to a doctor's appointment , writing questions down in advance and having things ready to go your medical record is your medical record , so you should always ask for it . You should always keep all of your blood work and everything . I have a massive folder . I keep all of it .

Yeah , you're the manager of your health and also to do that too , I think like not to diminish . Doctors have only 15 minutes with patients . It's a very short amount of time . So what can you do to also help them , to help you ? When I got diagnosed with fibromyalgia , I actually brought in the diagnostic criteria because we were kind of like doing around it .

I don't do every single like scope , scan , blood work . You can imagine . I brought the diagnostic criteria to my doctor , she went through with me and that's when I finally got a diagnosis and then got to see a rheumatologist .

Sometimes you do there's things you need to do to kind of like help your doctor , because they are so overloaded with patients that don't have a lot of time . I agree .

I spent a lot of time on like message boards and like looking in different like support groups that I was just so anxious that I was gonna get worse and worse and worse , and the only option was to get worse and worse and worse . And the only option was to get worse and worse and worse or be completely healed , and there was no in between .

And I think that , like when we focus on like what , what should be , we we kind of lose sight of what could be . And so there's so many beautiful things that come into my life because of like experiencing chronic illness and , uh , change is inevitable everyone . If you live long enough , you will have health problems .

You will experience personal and professional setbacks . It is how you navigate them . I think I just saw what I was experiencing . This is like the end . You are never going to be fun again . No one will want to be around you .

You're just going to get sicker and sicker and really it's like this is an obstacle and maybe it's going to result in things being different forever , in things being different forever , but maybe that different isn't necessarily completely bad . Maybe there's other opportunities in beauty that I can find Love that .

And I would be so frustrated with myself because it wasn't the miracle , because it didn't work , because I still had all the things and I still felt like . I felt . I realized that when I was kinder to me and I started celebrating the things that my body could still do and even though they looked differently , I was doing the things .

When I started to just love on Andy , in that way , I was able to do more things and , although it looked different , I was able to do them . So what's next for your journey as a slow traveling nomad and a super advocate ?

But in terms of chronic illness , I'm super passionate if it hasn't come out in this conversation yet about nervous system regulation and want to share this . Education can help with our regulation and want to share this knowledge with everybody . So I really see doing more of that .

Hopefully , if other people I think just more stories you hear of other people navigating chronic illness and doing it the wrong way . You see there's lots of different ways to do it . There's no right or wrong way and if other people feel empowered to be like I can live my life in an interesting way . This isn't over for me .

I think that that would be really . I'd love for other people just to feel . I followed somebody who , back on Instagram , was like not even videos , yet I followed somebody who was like posting their photos of doing yoga with chronic fibromyalgia and every day and every week how they improved .

I still think about it eight years later how much that helped me to see somebody trying and making improvements , no matter how long it took . I think that's really valuable for people to see .

I've learned a lot and I just I just feel calm with you . So if nobody tells you that today or ever , just know that you have a very calming presence and I am very grateful that I got to spend an hour in that calming presence .