if there's one thing you take away from listening or watching today's podcast it's in times of fear
sometimes the question to ask yourself is what's the worst thing that could happen
to me in this situation but sometimes the other way to think about it is what
am i potentially going to miss out on if i don't do this thing
welcome to another episode of everyday badassery i'm your host christine lozada
and if you're wondering is christine currently sitting in the bathroom right now as a matter
of fact yes yes i am filming this in the bathroom in case you are watching this
i i actually have really bad food poisoning right now and that's part of the reason why i'm filming
today's podcast episode it's because the story i'm going to share with you today all started
with food poisoning and i want to be in the bathroom right now because i might need to
you know i might need to to throw up a little bit and pop i'll pause the video don't worry
i'll pause it before i go take care of business but i've been very sick for the last 30 hours
while traveling and just made it back to meatball's house so right now i'm traveling
in south florida i'm on a three and a half week road trip with my parents included it's been a
phenomenal time but this story is one that i think is really important but if you're new here again
welcome make sure you check the show notes i have a free journal i would love for you to
put what you're listening to in action and journal along with me and make sure you just check that
out in the description below all right let's dive in alright so this story actually starts
in 2011. in 2011 i was making two really huge changes in my life one was i was quitting my life
my job my everything in san francisco and i was moving to new york city but the second thing i
was doing was i was going to travel the world in between that and i was going to travel the world
for an indefinite period of time and i made this decision very very quickly i will record another
podcast episode about that so check the show notes below to check that one out but when i
made this decision it was kind of with like a three-ish week turnaround time in other words
the time in which i'm quitting my job moving out and giving away everything i own in my apartment
to travel in the world and so i was thinking where in the world could i possibly go where
i can just show up and it kind of made sense for me to go to the philippines i have family
that lives there my godfather was living there at the time my parents were born in the philippines
in case you didn't know that so my parents are immigrants i'm first generation and so i remember
going to the philippines and just showing up with a book one of the travel books that told you
about what's going on in the philippines and what there is to do so i was just planning on reading
this book and kind of settling in and figuring out my plan to travel through the philippines
and then southeast asia that was the general plan and i was just gonna do this until i was over it
and then i was gonna move to new york actually let me kick this off with a really embarrassing
story this is really embarrassing if you've ever felt seasick in your life then you know exactly
what i mean like imagine your worst bout of seasickness but imagine having that feeling
as a result of taking too many malaria pills and what i mean by that is there have been tons of
trips i've done in my life um in which i've had to take malaria pills uh because i was hiking through
the jungle or adventuring through the jungle but every time i've taken them it's always been the
same kind and the same dose in which you take one pill a day and there you go that's how it works
and this was the first time that this was not the same kind of malaria pill and i because i was
going abroad removed everything from the original containers and just put them in plastic bags
so i was taking malaria medicine one time a day when you were supposed to take it one time a week
so i overdosed on malaria pills and it basically makes you feel like you're seasick and or
you have had 20 shots of tequila and then you went on a trampoline and then you did spinneys
for a really long time anyway that's what it felt like so as i settled into the philippines that was
the kickoff to my amazing trip and eventually when i stopped feeling sick from my malaria
pills i went snorkeling i went to a part of the philippines uh batongas actually and in this area
there's not that many tourists there if you're like uh yeah i've heard of a lot of places in
the philippines but i i've never heard of the tongas that's because you shouldn't have heard
of batangas and also because the word bacangas also sounds like something totally inappropriate
but i was i was in this area and the snorkeling there was amazing because there's no tourists
and not that many people when you jump into the water the fish are very curious about you
and they all come over and there's like swarms of them in a way where you kind of need to push them
out of your way so that you can see all of the fish uh in your surroundings in general and so
i was snorkeling here and it made me realize that and in case you didn't know this and in case you
didn't watch the other episode one of my biggest fears in life was the ocean not is the ocean was
the ocean and i was afraid of the ocean for the majority of my life at this point in time
i was still afraid of the ocean this was 2011 and i was really afraid to be in the water with
all of these fish who were so beautiful but there were so many and they were just all around and i
realized i needed to overcome this fear because i'm in one of the most beautiful places in the
world to not only be in the ocean but to scuba dive and i was like it's time it's time to get
over this fear i'm just going to plan a trip somewhere in southeast asia to get my scuba
license my scuba certification and so i decided i was gonna go to koh tao thailand
and so on my way to coattail thailand i stopped obviously a lot of other places i was in cambodia
i did a bike ride from cambodia to thailand that was amazing and eventually made my way to
koh samui and beautiful beautiful island and while i was there i got the worst food poisoning i've
ever gotten ever i am notorious i am notorious for getting food poisoning everywhere i travel to
i don't know if i have a weak stomach or or what but i just if there's someone who's gonna get bug
bitten and if there's someone who's going to get food poisoning that someone is me it's just kind
of guaranteed and so i got food poisoning while i was there and it just so happened that where
i was at in kosomway i was at a five-star resort that was something like a hundred dollars a night
when i say five-star resort i mean the kind that has the biggest pool you've ever seen and islands
on the pool set up with massage therapists who massage you all day so i basically rotated between
swimming to the swim up bar putting an ice pack on my head drinking orange juice or
whatever fresh juice they had swimming back to the massage table getting us getting a short
massage and then getting golf carted back to my room where i would like sip tea and water all day
it was like the best place in the world to be to have food poisoning and i extended my stay there
but my class was coming up i needed to be in koh tao to get my diving license and i was like am i
really going to get my diving license while i have food poisoning and i'm afraid of the ocean at this
point in my life and the answer was yes absolutely because let's start with the first question
what's the worst thing that could happen the worst thing that could happen in this situation is and
and you can kind of jump ahead right because i didn't really know what getting your scuba
certification involved at this point you might assume like oh i can't i can't go now because
you're gonna get straight into the water no this is what i talked about in my other episode about
becoming closer to your fears and so i educated myself about what exactly was i in for with this
scuba certification what i learned was you don't get in the water right away not only did i need
to settle into kotal for one day but the first two or three days again this was 2011 is different now
the first few days you just need to sit in the classroom and listen to videos which
also is like not the best way to spend your vacation so if you're ever considering getting
your scuba cert do it online then go to your destination but again this was 2011. that wasn't
exactly the option at that time and so i basically had two-ish days three-ish days to buy myself
of being sick before i needed to get in the water it was a fantastic time
sitting around in a non-air-conditioned hot room feeling sick all day watching videos and
reading scuba books and having great access to a bathroom that i could barf my brains out in every
couple hours so that was that now fast forward the next part of the certification you don't even go
into the ocean yet so my biggest fear the ocean i'm not even going there for like several days
you're in the pool you're in the pool and you have to do things like treading water exercises and
putting your mask on and off and putting on your gear setting up your gear they're not even letting
you go into the ocean yet and so not only do i have this classroom time to get better but i have
this pool time and by now i'm kind of starting to feel better you know and now let's ask myself the
question what's the worst thing that could happen the worst thing that could happen is that i am
10 feet under water in the pool in a wetsuit and i suddenly either need to throw up or go poo like
that's pretty embarrassing but it's true and that's the worst thing that could happen so
now let's focus on the other side of things which is what am i potentially missing out on
if i do not do this if i continue to be scared of the ocean for the rest of my life if i decide no
no no it's too hard i'm sick it's too far it takes weight it does take away too much time
it it can be very costly to get your scoop of certification basically just a million
excuses i could have given myself a million excuses there will always be one more really
great excuse all the time i'm very creative you are very creative if you're listening to this
we will come up with good excuses to not do [ __ ] in life and you know what you want to
know what i've missed out on oh my god i would miss out on a lifetime of being able to explore
not just the world by land not just the world by the sky with my drones but now i would
potentially miss out on exploring the whole freaking world from the ocean in the ocean and
i'm sure you're aware of this because you've seen a globe before there's a lot of freaking
ocean out there and so it was this opening of the door to explore a brand new entirely new
and different world that i could potentially miss out on let me tell you about my first scuba dive
i had the ugliest the ugliest cry of my entire life you know what i mean like the type of crying
like it's so ugly like you're kind of gagging and like you just look awful and and it's not even
like oh you're so cute when you cry it's like wow you should you should come out on halloween and do
this you would scare every single parent and child to be honest and so i had one of the most amazing
if you could have an amazing ugly cry of my life on the first scuba dive that i finally did so
again if you're not aware of what it means to get a certification you have time in the classroom you
have time in the pool and then you eventually get into the ocean for very very easy dives
with your dive master and you're basically doing like super short dives mainly around
technique and things like that but you get to die for a little bit and on my very first dive i was
rounding the corner i have goosebumps right now i was rounding the corner of this amazing amazing
coral reef and it was every single color you could possibly imagine it was it i had never seen
coral that looked like this before it was stunning and as i rounded the corner
it came up around the side there were thousands of tiny fish everywhere and the sun was coming in
just right and the whole thing was like a scene at a little mermaid and sebastian the crab came
out and started singing the under the sea song like it was magical i started ugly crying in this
moment because it was the most beautiful thing i had ever seen in my life up until this point
still goosebumps telling this story i also cannot believe that i have not thrown up
yet and i haven't paused this podcast so let's keep it going keep it going full speed
that is what i could have missed out on that opportunity to see the ocean in that way
and you know what it's only gotten better it's only gotten better being able to see the world
underwater and all the places i've been to i now have over 100 scuba dives under my belt
and i can't even count how many countries i guess i should look at my dive blog but i love scuba
diving and so bringing it back to what i shared in the beginning sometimes the question is to
ask yourself what's the worst thing that could happen and if something worse than pulling in
your wetsuit while underwater yeah that's kind of awful but on the other side of things what
are you potentially missing out on so i want you to take that to heart and think about that even
even in small moments in your life i mean this was a really huge moment in my life but actually
just now is a perfect example i'm on this road trip with my parents
i'm feeling really unwell i slept 11 hours the other day and when i got up yesterday
my parents were they were just gonna we're just gonna have an easy day at the house and i can kind
of tell when my mom's like antsy and stuff you know she kind of wants to get out and i was like
you know i could just stay in and work with my laptop on my lap i got a lot of work to do
or i could say hey let's take a break and let's just go to the tea shop together for a little bit
and have have a couple you know have a couple cups of tea and we did it was really really
nice it seems really silly like there's nothing of fear in that moment well i guess my fear would be
barfing my brains out at the tea shop that was a very valid concern of mine um but the thing i
could have potentially missed out on was just a really fun opportunity to hang out with my
mom we had a really nice time at the tea shop so bring it into your small every day because
when you make those small decisions it helps you in the times you gotta make the big ones
because it it doesn't come without practice so many people tell me ah you're such a badass
you know what if i practice if i stopped practicing being a badass tomorrow the next day
gone gone not a badass anymore you gotta practice that [ __ ] every day my nails are so scary
right now if you're watching this video by the way but you know it happens happens the best
of us anyway i hope you got some value out of this podcast if you did make sure you leave a review or
a comment below it really does help to distribute this to others around the world and make sure
you download that free badassery journal i'd love for you to take what you listen to in action this
podcast is made with love for all y'all go forth be badass and i'll see you in the next one ciao