The Biggest Lesson I Learned From My Great Southwest Road Trip

Kellee 0:00
I think, to me, that was probably the biggest aha of this trip, if I could boil it all down to one thing after everything we've been through man in the last decades, but in the last two years, especially with a pandemic, and, and now facing new global crisis is all the time, especially with the war in Ukraine. And we feel that as humans, the empathy for suffering, the empathy for our loved ones that are close to us, and far from us, and the tragedy of it all and the heartache of it all, and then we have to stop and think how vast how vast is that Grand Canyon? How far out are those stars in the sky? How long have humans been living here? How tiny is that cell within the cell within the cell of the grain of sand that's been eroded away by the river running through the Grand Canyon, and you think you can think that it's worth nothing or you can suddenly realize that the most important thing you can do is to love.

Kellee 1:17
You're listening to Unfold with Kellee Wynne this is an unpolished, imperfect, and totally honest podcast, and I'm talking to all the artists, creatives, visionaries, and changemakers, who want to live a life by design and not by default. If you're ready to have thought provoking eye opening and heart centered conversations, that explore the stories that made us who we are, and break through the boundaries of expectations, then you are in the right place.

Kellee 1:51
Well, hello, hello. Oh, my goodness, I have to tell you, it feels like it's been forever since I've been with you. But that's because I've been on the road for the last three weeks checking out of all my normal day to day habits so that I can have a really big reset, and I'm coming to you right now, on my very last day, sitting in Santa Fe and hotel, you can probably hear the hum of the fridge behind me and maybe even the doors slam in the hallway. But I thought it would be fun to just kind of show up right here in the moment in the present. Because that's my favorite place to be right here right now, as you may well know, I try to encourage this all the time, but it is so much harder to do, then, you know, when we say it sounds so easy, but being in the present, well, sometimes what you have to do is actually leave home and and do something different. And that's what I've done for the last three weeks because I needed a hard reset. If you've listened to the episodes, where I was talking about burnout, and exceeding your surge capacity, I highly recommend that you go back to those and listen now. Because, you know, just pause, go listen to them, then come back. Because I'm going to tell you, it's going to give you a real good frame of reference, especially because so many artists, so many women that I know that I've talked to so many of you have said that that really touched on something, something deep, you know, this real struggle that we have of go go go and never taking a break. If you've ever had that moment in your life where you said, Man, I wish something would happen to me. So I could end up in the hospital and someone would take care of me for a while and I just wouldn't have to think or do anything, then you know what you are on the verge of burnout, my friend, you are way past that point. I've been there before.

Kellee 3:47
I actually wish that I remember in 2017. And I briefly got my wish I didn't really end up in the hospital for anything serious. But I had one afternoon in the emergency room and I'm like, Oh, this isn't worth it. This isn't how we solve the problem. But if you ever have that moment where you feel like that's going to be your only escape, then it's time for a massive reset in what you're doing. And maybe not all of you have the luxury of getting away on a three week road trip. But maybe you can put down that big huge pile of to do calling for help calling for friend calling for your family, your spouse, or even ask your kids to pick up the slack just a little bit and give yourself a break. A couple days away. Maybe it's just a whole afternoon, sitting in your car listening to music so you can just get away. I highly encourage it. However, I want to tell you I feel extraordinarily lucky fortunate at this moment that I've had a chance to get away on a really great road trip with my mother. We planned it for a little while here only a couple of months but I known that I needed a break. I have you know been stuck at home like Every one of us through the pandemic, not really going anywhere, not taking our usual outings, not going on vacations the way we used to. And of course, as the pandemic is, quote, unquote, wrapping up, I know that's still risk. But it was time to get out and do something. And I really enjoyed the time I've had at home with my family and actually bonding a lot closer. haven't given myself a lot of fresh air and freedom.

Kellee 5:27
So here I am. I'm in Santa Fe right now. I'm in a really cute little resort hotel called, oh, whoa, Santa Fe. And I'm going to tell you about my very last day, which is today before I fly out tomorrow, I got a tattoo. My mom and I designed a compass tattoo for travel. And that arrow that points north is really important, because it's more than just travel, it's finding your way in this world. So yeah, we booked that this week, and sat down in the chair for the first time under that needle. And I'm not gonna say it was painless, but it was definitely not as bad as giving birth to three big babies. But it was definitely a hurdle I had to get over mentally of knowing that I'm making this choice to put a symbol on my body. And maybe that's not the right thing for you. But if you listened to my big goals, prologue episode, you'll know that one of the things that I really wanted to do before I turned 50, which isn't until next year, was to get a tattoo. So check that box, I'm quite happy with the results. I'm sure you'll see pictures of it. On the internet, go to the Instagram, find me, you know, Kelly, when studios, and you'll see pictures of my tattoo, I'm sure. I'm really, really happy about finishing the trip with the one big thing because it's been a journey of more than just travel and sightseeing and having fun. It's been really a lesson in love on so many different levels, and spending the time with my mom to reconnect in ways that we hadn't before. Where family and friction and challenges of life have gotten in the way of us being able to deeply bond the way you know, a mother and daughter always want to be able to bond. We were able to do that this time and just a such a beautiful way.

Kellee 7:23
Let me tell you how it started. Now that you know how it ended way back three weeks ago, which seems like forever for me now, I flew into San Jose, and saw my mom came and stayed in her beautiful little modular home community. She keeps saying I live in a trailer park. I'm like no, these don't even know. They're homes that are closely built together with little plots of land. And it is so cute. So so beautiful. The way everyone in the whole community has found a way for affordable living right there in San Jose and I finally got a chance to see her charming little home. And it's not even that little it's like 1400 square feet of creation of gardening of all of her travels of everything that that she's done over the last two decades. And yeah, she's lived there for over 10 years. And it's the first time I went to go see her. And the reason is, is because going back home to California that actually kind of been a challenge in and of itself besides life getting in the way. There's always emotions that come up when you go back home. And that was really what I was avoiding, you know, and yet, when I went I felt at home immediately in her space and seeing all the adventures that we've been on over the last few years together, maybe, oh, see, we started travelling together and around maybe 2006 or seven. And it's been nonstop since then. Having a chance to spend time in Europe and across the United States together. So coming home to her house meant seeing all the places that we've been and the treasures she's collected the photos that she has, and you know, just was a really nice beginning to the trip. But here's the thing. Our goal was to get down to Los Angeles and this is the city that I grew up in until I was a teenager I lived in LA and my mom grew up in LA too. She she lived in West LA in the Brentwood area. Her father was a used car salesman probably made a lot of money through the 60s and, and whatnots and she 50s 60s 70s That's, that's my mom's years of growing up. And she lived a really beautiful life and I got to see that even though I had lived there as a child I had not spent time in her neighborhood. And there we were amongst the palm trees in the hills and the pretty houses and the fresh air. We got there just in the perfect time where every day was 70 degrees and sunny and had ourselves a beautiful stroll down memory lane for my mom to be able to recall her happy childhood and her first jobs that she went to. And, you know, there's just something about that to be able to connect with her on that level and see that joy come back into her life, you know, and for her to recall the things that were really important to her and share that with me. So I enjoyed that.

Kellee 10:27
It was really strange though to go over the hill into the valley. If anyone knows Los Angeles, it's a huge mammoth mammoth city broken up into lots of different boroughs. And I lived in Van Nuys, which is San Fernando Valley, I was a valley girl like, you know, haha, just I'm, I'm kidding. But I think every now and then people can hear that valley girl come out me. And my neighborhood was definitely not how we left it. But I did get a chance to stop into the 50s ice cream. It's a it's a drugstore and they had ice cream in there for, you know, since the beginning of time. And when I was a kid, it was like 15 cents or a quarter and I was pleasantly surprised. It's only $2 per scoop of butter because at the local thrifty ice cream shop, I definitely indulged in that. Anyhow, I want to say we did make a stop at Disneyland and I've decided that's not my favorite kind of activity. However, if I'm going to spend my money I want to go to nature or art, and those are my favorite things. And we got a lot of that out of this trip. We ended up heading out east hit the road and, and it was kind of a strange little meandering that ended up finding us in this little town called Selectmen, Selectmen, Arizona, and that's where route 66 picks up. I mean, it goes, it comes and goes across the entire United States, but to find the original classic route 66 Road, where they base the story of the Pixar movie cars off of. So all these little like magical serendipity moments happened along the way. Yes, we made it to select men, we went on through into Sedona and did not stay there long enough. I'm going to tell you right now, and you can come and ask me about it and prod and pry and tell me you really should do this. But I would love to host a beautiful retreat in Sedona, Arizona for artists and those who want to build their creative business. That would be like a dream location. I mean, if you haven't been there, at least go Google it. Sedona, Arizona, Well, anyhow, the energy there is just unbelievable in the red rocks. So I soaked that all up and took a lot of Sunset pictures. And then we went and we went and made our way up to Grand Canyon, because in all my time of loving out west, I had never made it to the Grand Canyon. And wow, it almost looks like you're still just looking at a big picture. It's so hard to fathom and believe how vast that isn't that for 1000s. Yay. I think it's like millions of years, the river, Colorado River has been just carving that rock and carving it away and carving it away until this best Canyon. And you really honestly can't even fathom it when you're standing right in front of it. But there we were many, many feet high up into I think it's like 8000 feet high above sea levels. So yeah, we've been drinking a lot of water and learning how to use our lungs really well. And hiking along the way through Sedona through Grand Canyon and even arriving here in Santa Fe. And we pass through some snow storms and the first morning we woke up in Santa Fe but ground was covered in snow which was really amazing. And that just a little sprinkle was like four inches of snow. When was that? That was about a week ago from now and right now it's March 27. So I'm telling you, middle of March and we had ourselves four inches of snow waking up and in Santa Fe and that was not something I was expecting. But we're surrounded by mountains and we're very high up still like 7000 above sea level. So yeah, it gets cold here and then boom just like that. The sun comes out. It's 6070 degrees in the afternoon and all the snow melts away. Whoa, it was just something else. We've enjoyed Santa Fe it's definitely different from where I live in Maryland. Maryland's like a big marshy jungle through the entire spring through falls like

Kellee 14:34
actually I think it is kind of Yeah, Mid Atlantic jungle, so much green and growing in humidity and here it is dry and fast and open spaces and you can see forever miles and miles away and it's really gorgeous. It's just a completely different feeling. Something fun that my mom and I have been doing this whole time is we wanted to keep the supplies very limited but I have been making our on this trip. I brought along a little, just a tiny little five by seven, paper notebook. And I got an old magazine and some glue and scissors. And I've been collage journaling, I mean, who would have ever thought but I wanted to keep the supplies like to the bare minimum. And it's been loads of fun because you spend the days out soaking up wherever you are from LA to Arizona to New Mexico, soaking up the activities and then coming home and pouring all the creativity out on a little notebook, talking about the day sharing the pictures, sharing the pictures with each other who got the best picture for the day reviewing why it is so hard to find good meals on the road, planning the next day trying to figure out what is a must see and what must not be rushed at all, because I am not wanting to get going and hustling when I'm on vacation. I do take it slow. And a lot of our days involved mostly nature, or art. And you can find a lot of that here in Santa Fe one day, we made it up to Bandelier National Monument, about an hour away from Santa Fe. And we were able to see where some of the native indigenous people of America lived long before we arrived here in the Pueblos. I mean, for 1000s of years, they've been roaming this land and finding perfect little valleys between the rocks, where the water runs and, and life can be a bit habitable. Yeah, me and my language here, late on the evening. Yeah, but it's a wake up call to how long humans have been on this planet, to how long people have been here, making their way and going through hard times, and, and loving the people around them so that they can survive to the end. And I think that, to me, that was probably the biggest aha of this trip, if I could boil it all down to one thing after everything we've been through, man, and in the last decades, but in the last two years, especially with a pandemic, and, and now facing new global crisis is all the time, especially with the war in Ukraine. And we feel that as humans, the empathy for suffering, the empathy for our loved ones that are close to us, and far from us, and the tragedy of it all, and the heartache of it all, and then we have to stop and think, how vast how vast is that Grand Canyon? How far out are those stars in the sky? How long have humans been living here? How tiny is that cell within the cell within the cell of the grain of sand that's been eroded away by the river running through the Grand Canyon, and you think you can think that it's worth nothing, or you can suddenly realise that the most important thing you can do is to love.

Kellee 18:01
And it's not that I didn't believe in love before, I have a husband that I love very much on three children and M parents and siblings that I have a challenging relationship with at times, and friends that come and go. But to understand the meaning of love, I think that's what this trip really taught me was how to love unconditionally. And I am talking talking to you about this today, because there's people that I really wish this message could reach to, it may never reach to but I'm pulling back. That whole idea of no more toxic energy around me, I'm not going to let anyone in my sacred space. And I understand that there's a need between abuse. And then those people that we just don't agree with separating out abuse, abuse we should never put up with but those that we just have struggles with that we don't agree with that we're being a bit selfish with our own judgmental opinions that we push them away. Whether it's strangers that you meet, or friends or family or all the things that are dividing us in and whether it's political, religious, vaccinations, all those things are hitting hard and dividing us harder and harder and harder. And these aren't things that are abusing you personally. These are things you disagree with morally maybe but then can we look past that to love more love each other more? Love our own family members more? Instead of putting up these barriers of wanting your space to always be perfect and bump free? And I say this because I know so so many times I see these memes on the internet i i hear people talking about this idea of you know, if I'm not comfortable, if I'm not feeling good in the space, then I don't have to be around this person and yes, you're right. If you're being abused, you definitely shouldn't but are you being judgmental? Is that the reason you don't want to be around the person?

Kellee 19:57
Because if so, you are missing seeing an opportunity to love deeper than you've ever loved before, because when we put out way judgement, and we learn patience, and we learn understanding, and we learn compassion, especially for the person right next to us, whether it be our spouse, or our children, or our parents are ageing parents that are getting harder and harder for them. And yet, our choice is to protect our own space, and kind of a selfish way, I really think, or to learn how to communicate better, and to love deeper and to accept more. And I say this, because I don't always get along with my family members, I haven't always gotten along with friends, it's no secret that that's been a challenge for me, this very strong headed, redheaded, bossy parents girl, my whole life, I've found friction, even with the people that I love. And yet, the AHA that I've had over the last three weeks travelling with my mother, and going into deep conversations, and light conversations, and hopes and dreams, and all the things that have happened over the last 48 years of my life, and I might get a little emotional here, but I realise that she's my mom. And I love her very much. And any friction that any one of my siblings has had with her or that I've had with her, can be dispelled by stopping to love deeper, and to let go of our own selfish ideals. And I say this, because what I've discovered is that I have joy with this relationship. And I have deeper and greater joy with my husband, after two years of a pandemic, it could have been a disaster, but to be softer with each other and to love deeper and to be more patient and to be more understanding. And when we give each other that grace, and when we're patient with our children. And when we understand what our neighbours going through, even when we don't agree with them, you are missing an opportunity if you don't do that.

Kellee 22:08
So learn how to serve and to love deeper, you're missing an opportunity for a growing relationship that only adds value to your life. So if the reason why you're putting up barriers and trying to protect yourself is for reasons because you simply don't agree or don't understand the other person, I'm going to challenge you right now, let down your guard, let down your walls, let down your protection and communicate your needs, share your love, and have a moment where you can just reach out and get to know. And in my case, my mother in a beautiful, most amazing way, seeing her through her eyes of her childhood, and through her love of nature, and our dreams and hopes for the years that she has left on this earth. And it's been really quite magical. And it's left me with a deeper sense of purpose as a mother to my children. And as a wife, and as a leader for you while I grow my business and learn how to communicate more lovingly with you hold my ground to be myself. But that doesn't mean I ever have to put up barriers for those who disagree, or who aren't in my circle. I'm here for all of you. And when I mean this is this three weeks has been the biggest gift of my life to learn how to open up my heart and love in a deeper way that I didn't understand before. So I think I could probably carry on with this message for ages and ages.

Kellee 23:42
But I hope that what you're understanding is that sometimes the most unexpected results are going to come from taking a break. That didn't spend any time thinking about work. I mean, I missed work. Let me be honest with you, I miss it. I enjoy the process of making art, sharing art, teaching art, teaching the business of art, creating the next thing and communicating with you on a regular basis. But I drew back from my time on Instagram and I spent time being in the present. And I really didn't spend any time making plans for the future. And it's really been an amazing time to be able to just call my nerves back down, take my energy level back down to a little more Zen area. I don't know that it's ever going to be perfect, but definitely that anxiety is disappearing, and to see parts of the world that I've not seen before and then be able to connect with people who live very differently for me. opening your eyes that way expands your heart. And so here I am really quite grateful that I had this three weeks. I know that I'm fortunate. I know that the business that I worked really hard to create helped me afford to take this Road Trip adventure. And I wish that for every single one of you, which is why I'm continuing to build my business in a way that I can help you realise your dreams as well. Because it's with these little moments bit by bit that our hearts expand, we love more, we have deeper relationships, there's more satisfaction and joy in life.

Kellee 25:23
So I wholeheartedly encourage you to dive deep into your creativity, so that you can also expand the future of your possibilities. And maybe one day, you'll find yourself in a situation where the only thing that you're going to notice are those vast, wide open spaces and long, long, long history of time and distance of outer space that is in comprehensible. And then you will know that this little blip in time that we have this little moment, right here. And now in 2022. It's just such a little teeny.on the entire spectrum of things. That doesn't mean it's insignificant, it just means that the only thing that's really important, at the end of it all is to learn how to love. So I'm just figuring that out here right now at the midway point of my life. So how about that it's never too late. My friends, I hope that this message means something to you as I sit here in my little room in Santa Fe at the end of a three week journey, I'm ready to come back to you and talk to you about all those things that we have bubbling up to the surface over the last couple of months ready to create and explore a spring is coming to life where if you're down in the southern half of this world as the beautiful autumn leaves are about to come out.

Kellee 26:47
I just want to tell you that you can go for it. We can do this thing together, we can keep moving forward even when the world feels like a big heavy place. So please go make some more art. share this podcast with your friends, family loved ones, your you know maybe siblings that are astray. In my case, maybe maybe your friends share it on Instagram and tag me Kellee Wynne Studios that's ke ll e wy nn e studios and I'd be happy to share in my stories. what your thoughts are about this episode, especially when coupling it up with a couple of the other episodes in the series about burnout and exceeding your surge capacity. These messages are kind of building to go somewhere but we really just have to see how it will unfold. Thank you so much and I will talk to you next time.

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