Sri Lanka surpassed every expectation I had. I’ve moved on to my next destination now, but I’m still talking about it, which I think tells you something. I arrived braced. I had lived in India and visited Egypt, and I knew what it felt like to stay on guard in a place that asked something of you. I expected Sri Lanka to be a version of that. What I found instead was ease, and then I had to figure out what to do with it.
The biggest surprise wasn’t the country. It was me.
In this episode:
- Arriving prepared for the wrong place
- The taxi driver who turned on the meter
- Six waterfalls and tiny fish nibbling at my feet
- What ease actually means (it’s not that nothing went wrong)
- FOMO came along for the trip too
- What I’m carrying forward
“I was surprised how quickly I adapted. I relaxed more easily than I expected, and I chose curiosity more often than caution.” — Damianne
What happened when nothing went wrong?
I arrived to Sri Lanka expecting a familiar kind of intensity. I know the countries are different, the cultures, the histories, the majority religions. I understood that intellectually, but I still expected something that would ask me to stay alert, to dust off the part of me that could navigate life in a place like India.
Almost immediately, that expectation didn’t match what was in front of me. At the airport, it was calm. No one was pulling at me. Driving into the city, I wasn’t seeing what I had braced myself to see. The honking was lighter. There was a certain ease in how the place moved, and I noticed myself staying on guard anyway, waiting for the hard part to show up.
What does ease actually mean?
Ease doesn’t mean everything went smoothly. It means that when things went wrong, I felt comfortable navigating them. The tuk-tuk drivers would quote prices far above what the pick-me-up app showed, so most of the time I just used the app. Simple, practical. But I remember one moment, flagging a taxi from the street. I was already preparing for negotiation, already tightening up over it. The driver asked where I was going and turned on the meter. That was it.
And I remember realising in that moment that I didn’t have to approach every interaction as a potential conflict. As that happened, I could feel myself relaxing. I smiled more. I talked more. I asked questions because I was curious, not because I needed information. I didn’t decide to become a different person. It just felt easier to be a friendlier version of myself.
How do you let ease in when you’re trained for difficulty?
The FOMO came along for the trip anyway. There were days when I caught myself trying to add one more stop, one more plan, one more experience. And I kept practicing the same reminder: I don’t have to see everything. I can let a day or half a day be enough as it is.
When I look back now, what surprised me most wasn’t any particular place. It was how quickly I adapted. I relaxed more easily than I expected. I chose curiosity more often than caution. And I went to Sri Lanka intending to travel differently. What surprised me was how simple it felt to do that once I actually decided to.
A small invitation
Think about a situation coming up where you might arrive already braced for difficulty. What are you expecting to need to manage or push through? And what would it mean to give yourself permission to let that expectation go before you arrive?
Join the community
I’m sharing updates from the road between episodes in the Skool community, including the quieter moments that don’t make it into the show. Come find us there if you want to follow along more closely.