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Spring is here and travel plans are in full swing. Where are you headed in the months ahead? Before you finalize your packing list, our returning guest Francine Toder, recommends a few things that can make your travel experience richer. Listen in for why you’ll want to bring along curiosity, a beginners mind and mindfulness to your next adventure. She discusses her interesting book Inward Traveler: 51 Ways to Explore the World Mindfully, practical tips to make your upcoming travel meaningful – and how to use it to try out new behaviors – and even a new you…

Did you miss Francine’s first visit with us to discuss The Vintage Years? Listen here

Francine Toder joins us again from the San Francisco Bay Area.

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Francine Toder, Ph.D. retired from the faculty at California State University, Sacramento and then recently retired from private practice as a clinical psychologist. Her newest book is: “Inward Traveler: 51 Ways to Explore the World Mindfully,” Whether you travel across an ocean or just across a street, “Inward Traveler” provides ways to sense the world deeply and in the present moment. Prompts in the 51 chapters guide your explorations.

Her previous book, “The Vintage Years: Finding Your Inner Artist (Writer, Musician, Visual Artist) After Sixty,” began to take shape after she thought about retirement and meaningful ways to spend her new-found time, and positive aging in general. She rented a cello, found a teacher and began learning to play this life-size instrument, which she now practices daily – proof that it’s never too late to learn, but more importantly that the fine arts may be the best way to stimulate brain growth and enhance health past sixty, according to recent neuroscience research. The book is not a memoir but based on neuroscience research and interviews with late-blooming artists of all kinds.

Toder is also the author of “When Your Child Is Gone: Learning to Live Again” and “Your Kids Are Grown: Moving On With and Without Them.” Her extensive writing on diverse topics has appeared in magazines, professional journals, and edited-book chapters. She resides with her husband in the San Francisco Bay Area where she continues to write and play music on her cello.

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For More on Francine Toder, Ph.D.

Inward Traveler: 51 Ways to Explore the World Mindfully

Website

Guided Autobiography program

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Podcast Episodes You May Like

Living for Pleasure – Emily Austin, PhD

Live Life in Crescendo – Cynthia Covey Haller

Happier Hour – Cassie Holmes, PhD

An Artful Life – John P. Weiss

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Wise Quotes

On Your Alter Ego On The Road

“It gives us permission to try on an alter ego or to be a different person. We can try on new behaviors and get away from old, ineffective or detrimental patterns. Repeating the same thoughts and behaviors in the same context always produces the same results, but a journey of any kind can kind of shake up the context and allow you to create new links to new outcomes. Also, nature is therapeutic. It’s soothing and plentiful, even in big cities. Remember, parks are everywhere. In fact, I was in Berlin last October and I was amazed at the green space in that very populated city. So you can always find a place to rejuvenate yourself or try on new behavior…You have nothing to lose when you try on new behaviors with strangers who you’ll never see again. If you know you talk too much, you could try being what I call an involved listener, just being much more of a listener than a talker. If you generally are shy, you can try initiating conversation.”

On Mindful Staycations

“If you can’t travel, then that is an option that’s available to you. And I think sometimes people feel resentful. Either they don’t have the time for travel or the money for travel or their body won’t cooperate because they don’t have the mobility. So the first thing when you plan a staycation or a three day weekend might be to put aside any resentment or disappointment that it can’t be more or can’t be bigger. Make the time to make the time and the place grand. For example, would an overnight camping trip along the river and a trail ride on a horseback satisfy your craving for a longer ranch stay? That’s if you actually have the mobility and you can get away. But locally, would a weekend with long baths and yoga classes on YouTube and healthy meals give you the feeling of a spa? Well, it’s not a spa, but it might. It could feel like one. Or what about a big city day trip with visits to a museum that you haven’t been to before or botanical gardens? By the way, I never saw the Statue of Liberty until I was in my mid-twenties living far away and came back to New York, which is where I’m from. Obviously if you are listening, you can tell that. And my husband, who was a Midwesterner, took me to the Statue of Liberty. Now why? Well, it just was like background noise. And that’s a terrible thing to say, but I think that is the way people deal with their own locale. So, take a bus tour, take a trip to someplace that you haven’t really thought about in your local community and just remember your searches for good substitutes during the covid lockdown. People were really creative of them because everyone was going stir crazy and you had some things that you were able to do. Remember what those are.”

On Being Present While Traveling

“Stay open to your experience. Watch how kids approach anything new with wonder and curiosity. Get close to experiences…Enter the experience fully with all of your senses. Be there in real time. Remember real time is the only time you have.”

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About Retirement Wisdom

Are you clear on what’s next for you?  Don’t put it off. Get started on designing  your future.

Schedule a call to discuss how my one-on-one Designing Your New Life in Retirement, Tiny Habits and Mental Fitness coaching programs can help you defeat uncertainty, gain clarity and direction.

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About Your Podcast Host

Joe Casey is an executive coach who also helps people design their next life after their primary career. He created his own next chapter after a twenty-six-year career at Merrill Lynch, where he was Senior Vice President and Head of HR for Global Markets & Investment Banking.