Most of us think the hardest part of traveling more is figuring out the logistics. But for a lot of therapists, giving yourself permission to rest and travel is actually the bigger obstacle. We keep working through quiet Saturday mornings, tell ourselves the trip can wait, and before we know it, years have passed.
In this episode of The Traveling Therapist Podcast, I sit down with Allison Rimland, EFT therapist, group practice owner, and founder of Points of Connection Travel, to talk about what actually gets in the way. Allison shares how losing her father shortly after his bucket list trip to Normandy shifted everything for her, and how she turned that wake-up call into a whole new way of living and working.
In This Episode, We Explore…
Connect with Allison:
Group counseling practice specializing in relationship therapy, as well as EFT Supervision and Group Practice Coaching: https://thrivefamilyservices.com/
Therapy-Informed Travel Coaching and Advising business: https://pointsofconnectiontravel.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pointsofconnectiontravel/
Referral link for Home Exchange: https://www.homeexchange.com/?sponsorkey=allison-7215a
Connect with me:
Instagram: @thetravelingtherapist_kym
The Traveling Therapist Facebook Group: www.facebook.com/groups/onlineandtraveling/
Signup to learn more about life as a Traveling Therapist: https://www.portablepracticemethod.com/free-training
Revolutionize Your Private Practice with AI Course: www.kymtolson.kartra.com/page/ai
Bill Like A Boss Insurance Billing Community: www.kymtolson.kartra.com/page/blab
Subscribe to the Podcast:
Apple iTunes | Spotify | Google Podcast | Stitcher | Amazon | Castbox
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Transcript:
[00:00:00] _Kym: Hey everybody. Welcome back to another episode of The Traveling Therapist podcast. We have a very cool guest today. You guys. I'm excited. We're gonna talk about something that's really close to a lot of our hearts, I think, in this community, giving ourselves permission to rest and travel and live a full life now.
[00:00:17] Allison Rimland, thank you for being here today. I always start out the podcast and just say you like, how did you go from being a typical therapist to a traveling therapist?
[00:00:26] _Allison: Well, thank you so much for having me on your show, Kim. It's an honor. I'm a huge fan. I went from becoming a typical therapist to a group practice owner about 11 years ago. And so, very quickly learned how not passive group practice ownership income is. It's kind of a funny little joke once you become a group practice owner, you realize how that's so not true.
[00:00:52] _Kym: I hear that over and
[00:00:54] _Allison: yeah, it's a big, big job. And then three years ago my father actually fell ill very suddenly with cancer. And it just so happened to be, about two months after my parents returned from another bucket list trip to Normandy.
[00:01:12] my father in particular had really wanted to go to Normandy and experience that firsthand. And so they, you know, as always saved up for this trip and prioritized making it happen. I grew up with them modeling for me, even though they didn't have a ton of money, just really prioritizing taking that time.
[00:01:31] And once they hit retirement, really enjoying the good health that they had for as long as they did. And so, I find my parents very inspiring and the fact that he got to have this trip and none of us knew that he was as sick as he was. And then he came home and passed away just two months later.
[00:01:52] So, it was a shock to the system for all of us, but I think it as death does of loved ones, especially brings the world into sharp focus. What is important? What do I want to do with this one wild and precious life that I have and not working all the time is the first answer. Which being an entrepreneur you know, which.
[00:02:15] All therapists are, we're all entrepreneurs. We've all had to learn with great surprise how to be business people and run our businesses without necessarily the formal training to do so. And so I think it's, for me at least, it was very easy to get stuck in that growth mode and work all the time.
[00:02:38] You know, if it's a quiet Saturday morning and my family's asleep, I'm working that kind of thing. Just sort of tucking work in their left and right. And so, I think it taught me that therapists, not only do we have this identity of helping other people, you know, a lot of us were called into this profession because we have big hearts and we want to be there for other people.
[00:03:01] And so the idea of putting ourselves first. I've started to realize through this work and working on myself healer heal thyself, that it's not easy. It's not easy to get out of those mindsets of entrepreneur and being there for other people and starting to say, okay, what do, what do I want to do?
[00:03:22] What, what is really lighting me up from the inside? I had also, you know, come to think about the fact that I didn't necessarily need to overcome logistics. I needed to overcome my own permission to myself to take that time to travel. And I think that's something that. I was even thinking about the name of your podcast, Kim and, this community that you've built to help therapists travel.
[00:03:48] And I was reflecting, like even including myself, how many of us stay in that dream mode? For so long and don't act on it. Don't go for it. Don't take the first step. Don't, you know, make that change in our lives to go after what it is that would really feel wonderful to us. And so I think you're just such an inspiration
[00:04:10] _Kym: Oh my gosh.
[00:04:10] _Allison: with your ability to unplug yourself from places and, go explore the world as you do this life changing work that you're doing. So then I kind of also, so I'm an uh, emotionally focused therapist and supervisor.
[00:04:25] So that means that um, we say about ourselves in the EFT world, that we are process consultants. We're always looking at how does it go, what happens when how do you feel when this thing is going on. What are the emotions that are driving the way that you cope and respond with any given situation?
[00:04:42] And I think the same thing applies to getting curious about what gets in the way for therapists and really anyone to making those first steps. So that's kind of where I got my inspiration to think about. Okay. How does all this fit together? How, how do emotions, how do, how does the process that we all experience around money messages and our identity as therapists and the roles that we fill in all the, in all the domains of our life, how do those get in the way of us taking action and taking care of ourselves and taking the risks to make these changes in our lives?
[00:05:20] So, I was kind of thinking of also about attachment strategies. So attachment styles, you know, anxious travelers, maybe over plan and they get really wrapped up in kind of the details of travel and perhaps avoidant travelers.
[00:05:36] Hi, my name is Allison. I'm sort of an avoidant. You know, I can get into analysis paralysis and come up with 40 different options for myself. And I thank my husband a lot for helping me to just. He's like, you don't need to fall down that rabbit hole. Just pick three and then pick one and then do it. Let's go.
[00:05:56] _Kym: I love that. We all need somebody like that in our
[00:05:59] _Allison: I know I followed down the rabbit hole and I didn't even realize it.
[00:06:03] _Kym: It is so amazing. So yeah, the intersection of all of this stuff and then how it really keeps you stuck. I mean, it stick keeps you stuck and you know, the group practice owner who's got all these people depending on them, and then before you look, it's like 15 years later and you haven't done anything except for just work all the time.
[00:06:19] You know? So I, I just love hearing you say that and then bringing the EFT into it. I wanna talk about that some because, right now we're in Cocoa Beach, right. And I always like to find like free, like not free, but just like exercise classes. I love finding yoga locally, wherever we are. And I found this yoga class and there's an EFT practitioner in there and she was talking about it and I was talking about being like a coach for entrepreneurs and that sort of thing.
[00:06:42] And she's like, and I was like talking about that. I hate public speaking, right? I just hate it. And she was like, let's barter with each other. Like, I literally met her at the library and she's like an EFT practitioner. So I've been doing EFT to like get over my public speaking and been helping her, like with her coach, like coaching, how to get her EFT business off the ground.
[00:07:00] And it all just has happened organically while I'm traveling in this random place. You know, it's just like the, the intersection of hearing you talk about that, that's what came up for me. It's like, oh my gosh, yes. This is like all of it. Being willing to like explore and go and just like go with the flow. It's just, I love it.
[00:07:16] _Allison: I love that too. I love that you're just happening upon like the serendipity of finding this person that you could then support each other, that that's a gift of travel. Right. Getting out of our, kind of our routines and our ruts and going out and meeting people in different cultures and with different world perspectives and gifts to, to share like.
[00:07:36] It's so exciting to me to we are empty nesters now, or as some of my friends like to say, we are free birds now, so we have two kids in college. And so that's definitely an adjustment there too, with, you know, this simultaneous like, here's this gift of all this free time and I wanna take advantage of it.
[00:07:56] And at the same time. You know, that kind of anxious energy that I have that says, okay, now I have all this free time. I need to fill it. And what do I fill it with? I fill it with work
[00:08:08] _Kym: Yeah, exactly. It's like, hmm, I have nothing else to do. I'll just go work and
[00:08:12] _Allison: Uhhuh. It's like my nervous system needs maybe I could get in touch with your friend that you met at the yoga class. Like my nervous system almost needs a reset around the spaciousness in my life that I've been gifted with launching two kids into college so.
[00:08:27] I love the idea of thinking about so points of connection, travel, my, my new additional business. My new passion project. I love the idea of coaching people around. How does it go between your partner and you? If someone's partnered or if they're solo traveling how does it go? What's the process of engaging with the idea of travel or unplugging from a one location working remotely from somewhere else?
[00:08:54] What comes up for you? And if you're partnered, what comes up for your partner and how do you talk about that together? Like how does that process go between the two of you? Because inevitably we're gonna have different attachment styles and different ways that we can kind of get a little stuck.
[00:09:09] So I'm the analysis paralysis person, and my husband definitely can get a little, you know, he loves his comfort zones and he, he loves to just relax and feel cozy. And so sometimes my energy around the travel can get a bit overwhelming for him. So, you know, relationship comes first. So I'm always pausing myself, slowing down.
[00:09:33] We're checking in. How's this feeling? How much travel planning can he handle in a particular weekend. You know, I can go, go, go, go, go 'cause I'm the energizer bunny and he, you know, his pacing is a little bit different. So getting curious about how I can support people to navigate those different moments where their different attachment styles and their different energy levels and their nervous system responses can kind of come out.
[00:09:58] _Kym: Okay, so points of connection is, it's a clinical, like you see, you're seeing clients that are wanting to do this for, in my mind, for some reason I thought it was like travel agent.
[00:10:06] _Allison: It is both. It's both. It's both.
[00:10:10] _Kym: I'm like, wait, did I read it wrong? Okay. Okay. Wait, tell us everything because I didn't even, we didn't really say in addition to supervisor, EFT group practice owner, empty nester. You also have this whole other business and now I wanna just like note, like understand it, like maybe just tell me exactly what
[00:10:26] _Allison: Sure. Yeah. So I actually start, here's another little story here. So due to my inspiration from my parents about being world travelers and really, you know, soaking up the goodness that this world has to offer, I and my husband actually, we began to do home exchanging. Probably about nine years ago
[00:10:47] _Kym: Oh.
[00:10:48] _Allison: And so we have completed dozens of exchanges all over the world where we host people in our home. And they have come from all over the world. And then we go to visit in many, most of the cases their homes. And so I was already doing a lot of travel like that. And then I stumbled into the universe of credit card points and miles.
[00:11:12] _Kym: Yeah.
[00:11:13] _Allison: To accelerate travel. And so I have kind of become amongst my friend group, the defacto like, what credit card should I open up next, Allison, you know, with the big sign up bonus. And you know, how do I book this business class life flat seat with my credit card points? Will you show me how?
[00:11:33] And so I started doing some coaching around those two topics. So when people first hear about home exchanging, they think it's a bananas idea. They just can't, I mean, they can't even wrap their minds around it. But then once they kind of have tried at once and they realize the power of this, like, it makes travel all over the world very, very affordable because you can stay in amazing places for free by opening up your own home. I know. I know.
[00:12:02] _Kym: Oh my gosh. I need all the details. Hold on, hold on. Are they coming to your house when you're there and then you go to their house or like y'all exchange at the same time? or is it just whatever you wanna do kind
[00:12:13] _Allison: Yeah, kind of whatever you want. All the above. Whatever you wanna do. Yeah. So we have our personal home, not listed on home exchange, but we have a second home that we have listed and so we have a ton of flexibility in our situation, but I have friends who list their primary home and that's the home.
[00:12:34] And even you can list your home if you are a renter, you don't necessarily have to, as long as it's okay with your landlord. You can list a, house that you rent and swap it with other people again to go visit places all around the world.
[00:12:49] So we've stayed in Barcelona, we've stayed at in London. We're about to do Granada soon, and then my husband and I are trying our very first foray into working for prolonged periods from home elsewhere. So we have a long, long-term home exchange coming up in Palm Springs.
[00:13:10] _Kym: Nice. Oh my gosh, that's so nice. Well, where is your home? Because I bet listeners are like, yeah, they probably have some fancy home and it is yours in a really like exclusive part that people
[00:13:22] _Allison: no. Yeah. So we are, our home is in the mountains in Colorado. That's where I live.
[00:13:27] _Kym: Oh, well that's pretty nice. Yeah.
[00:13:29] _Allison: But people can list any kind of home. And you know like I have for example, looked for homes in the town where my mom lives, which is not necessarily a fancy destination, but when we've just had overflow bodies.
[00:13:44] Like for my dad's memorial service, you know, we had all kinds of family in town and we needed a second home. So I looked to home exchange rather than having to pay out of pocket to find somewhere to stay. And, you know, people are, in home exchange. Unlike a rental like an Airbnb or a Vrbo, you are making a connection.
[00:14:03] You are making a friendship with someone. So I exchanged with some college girlfriends. We had like a reunion for our 50th birthdays not too long ago, and we stayed on the beach along the Florida Gulf Coast in this amazing house. Each one had its own. Bedroom and bathroom, like it was the perfect arrangement for a girl's trip.
[00:14:24] And the homeowner and her young adult children came to stay and they skied in our house, and so we became kind of friendly with this person and well a hundred percent be exchanging with her again. It was a fantastic experience.
[00:14:39] _Kym: That is so cool. So what is it home exchange.com? Is it literally just home
[00:14:43] _Allison: That's right.
[00:14:44] _Kym: Wow, that's so cool. You need to drop like an affiliate
[00:14:47] _Allison: Okay. I will, I will be happy. I'll send that to you. Yeah. And so I started doing all this and then my kids go off to college and I, and I heard about this idea of becoming a travel advisor, so I was like, I might as well expand even more, do another business and go beyond the coaching and actually help people book that travel.
[00:15:11] You know, get off the fence, get off of the rabbit hole that we can get ourselves into, I can, you know, it's easier to dispense that advice and act on it than it is for me to take my own medicine with that.
[00:15:24] _Kym: Sure. I get it right. We're therapists right.
[00:15:26] _Allison: Right, right, right. Exactly. But yeah, so helping people kind of craft trips and using, getting creative with, using all these different mechanisms so that it becomes something that's within your budget.
[00:15:38] You know, if you need to cut the housing cost out of there, let's explore the idea of home exchanging. And I've walked that walk so I can talk you through it and talk you off the edge if you're afraid of the idea. 'cause I assure you it's a really wonderful experience. Or you know, actually booking things like hotels and whatnot for people.
[00:15:57] _Kym: Oh wow. So you can go as far as to let me book it like, like a travel agent would. You can like do that part of it too. And part of what you talked about, like in your bio and stuff is intentional travel. So, you know, I think we're kind of. Talking about that, but maybe we can name it that intentional travel.
[00:16:12] So you, I mean, it sounds like you're doing the whole process, right? Like you're working too hard. Let's put some intention behind, the rest of your life. Like, how do you wanna live the rest of your life, is what it sounds like to me. Am I on the right track
[00:16:24] _Allison: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it, you know, from the coaching perspective, really helping people get out of those ruts of working all the time and getting intentional about just even initiating the travel or initiating something, like, I wanna go live somewhere for a month and do what Kim does.
[00:16:44] You know, and experience the world that way. Sometimes people have a lot of emotions and blocks that can come up for them, that hold them in place and hold them back from actually going for it and making that happen. And then I, you know, i'm just endlessly curious about the process with these kinds of things as an EFT therapist.
[00:17:04] So just even studying our, we, so my husband and I took our first inaugural Empty Nest free bird trip in October to Portugal. we were there for a little over two weeks I think there is such a frequent tendency, especially with European travel, to feel like you have to see all the things.
[00:17:25] And so I was very intentional about, you know, and I even used AI tools of course, to help me plan in my days. Like I want to make sure that I'm prioritizing things like taking a walk on the beach and you know, sitting in a cafe and navel gazing with my husband and watching people go by and just really not allowing the anxiety or the scarcity thinking to come into that enjoyment of the travel.
[00:17:55] Because let's face it, if you're go, go, go, go, go. for some people's nervous systems that's very enlivening and they love it and they, that's the best vacation. And for other people it's like, and now I need a vacation for my vacation. 'cause I'm exhausted. Right. I ran myself ragged.
[00:18:12] _Kym: nothing but see every site that kind of sucked anyway. I don't know half the times you get to these places it's like, really? This is it?
[00:18:19] _Allison: Yes. You stood in the line, you bought the ticket, and now you get there and you're like, wha, wha wha.
[00:18:24] _Kym: yeah, exactly.
[00:18:26] _Allison: Yeah, so I just, I wanted to promise myself that I was not gonna look at this, like my one and only trip to Portugal ever. Right? I was gonna stay in places longer. We did a home exchange there too. Um, So, you know, got to stay in a home environment and eat some of our meals at, at in a home and that kind of thing.
[00:18:46] And just really not put that pressure on ourselves to jam pack this trip and just really enjoy and let our nervous systems get some rest and in a really cool place.
[00:18:56] _Kym: I love that. I love that. And the EFT piece, I mean, before we hit record, we were kind of talking about that a little bit. like has EFT influenced the way that you're doing this intentional thing? Or you know, is there an intersection between these two things for you?
[00:19:09] _Allison: Yeah. So, I think the EFT therapist outlook would be to looking, be looking at the relational dynamics that come up with either yourself. And or your partner around the whole idea of travel. Like is there a place where I get stuck or where my, partner gets stuck? You know, I have several friends who I've coached through the credit card points and miles hobby, and there's almost always what they call in the hobby of there's the player one.
[00:19:40] Who's the one who's like, this is the best thing ever. I'm so excited about it. And then there's the P two who sometimes is enthusiastic and sometimes is overwhelmed and is terrified by the idea. So getting curious as an EFT therapist, like what are the emotions that are coming up for someone around these topics?
[00:20:00] And most importantly, you know, EFT is all about co-regulation and you know, using attachment science to understand when we're in moments of distress, are we turning to our important other person for contact, closeness and comfort, or are we not? And what's getting in the way if we're not.
[00:20:17] So really kind of watching, you know, my husband's ability to, you know, what is his enjoyment level or, or not, like, is he getting overwhelmed by something that I'm dragging us into? Or, is he excited about it or have I reached kind of his max point and do I need to slow myself down and maybe go off and do
[00:20:37] _Kym: I'm you.
[00:20:37] _Allison: some travel hacking on my own?
[00:20:39] _Kym: I do that too. Oh my gosh. Yeah. I mean, if you ever heard the, like, what's the saying? Like if you can like take a trip with your partner you're, and not get a divorce or whatever, then you've made it, you've truly made it. I don't know.
[00:20:51] We've been traveling for four and a half years nonstop, so I'm like, okay. I think, you know, we've got a lot of differences, but at least we can, like you're saying, like co-regulate and figure out how to like make it work, you know.
[00:21:00] _Allison: It is so true. Travel can bring up, and I think that's another thing for people like travel can bring up surprising emotions. Like you don't necessarily go on vacation or work from a different place in the in the world and find yourself suddenly all of your problems are solved, right? Your, your attachment history, your attachment strategies are gonna show up in those places just like your partners are.
[00:21:21] And so kind of learning how to tune into that and to nurture and take care of that relationship first and foremost slowing down when it's necessary, that kind of thing, I think is really important. So I would like to think that I, yeah, I'd like to think that I'm taking, you know, I'm slowing down and I'm watching my husband like, okay, how many things can he handle right now with me putting on our calendar when he is like, ah, too much. I can't plan another trip.
[00:21:50] _Kym: Yeah. Yeah. Or me, like when we get to an Airbnb and the, the WiFi's out and I'm like freaking out. My boyfriend's like, just reschedule stuff. I'm like, oh my God, that's not how it
[00:22:01] _Allison: No, you can see the domino effect in your mind. You're like, and then this falls, and this falls and this falls yeah. The other thing that comes to mind with EFT and attachment is thinking about our money mindset and particularly as it applies to travel and taking care of ourselves and our relationship with work.
[00:22:21] I mean, so much of that is infused with our attachment history. So, I was lucky in that even though my parents didn't have a lot of money, I witnessed them. That was what was modeled to me was them taking care of their marriage, them, you know, spending that time. I recently came across a Denzel Washington quote that I absolutely love. Like you never see a U-Haul behind a hearse or something like
[00:22:46] _Kym: Oh,
[00:22:47] _Allison: you know?
[00:22:47] _Kym: oh, yeah.
[00:22:48] _Allison: cannot take it with you. You can build these really successful businesses and it doesn't mean that you know it's gonna change anything once you've died, right? Like, um, so make those memories, cherish the time with the loved ones that you have.
[00:23:04] Make it a priority and if you're noticing stuff coming up that's blocking you and getting in the way, you know, with kindness and compassion as we therapists can readily do, like be curious about that and go, where's this coming from and what's getting in the way? And how can I walk with myself so that I can, slow it down and maybe take baby steps instead of a flying leap into doing something, like making a change.
[00:23:32] And, yeah.
[00:23:33] _Kym: Love that. So how do people work with you? Like if somebody's listening and they're like, okay, I need the husband regulation. I need to be more intentional. I need to plan a trip. I need to get on this home. What's it called? Home
[00:23:45] _Allison: exchange.
[00:23:46] _Kym: Home exchange.com. I need to do all of this. So how do people like find you and do all that with you?
[00:23:51] _Allison: Sure. Well, okay, let's, I'll start from the top. So my counseling practice is Thrive Couple and Family Counseling. We're located in Colorado. Happy to work with any couples that might be located in Colorado or individuals wanting to work on these things. And then I do supervision for EFT, and that can happen around the world.
[00:24:09] And then I do some business coaching as well for other group practice owners. And then lastly, with my points of connection travel you can find me at points of connection travel.com or on Instagram under the same name. And you can schedule a discovery call with me there.
[00:24:27] _Kym: Love that. Very exciting. Oh my gosh. I gotta make sure I'm following you on Instagram.
[00:24:32] _Allison: Yes. I, I, I hope I'm following you already. I'm pretty sure I am.
[00:24:35] _Kym: Yeah. That's okay. Well, if we're not, we will after this. Yeah. Oh, I love it. Well, thank you so much for taking the time today. I think this is super inspirational and just that message echoes over and over and over again that like, stop waiting. Like What are you waiting
[00:24:48] _Allison: What are you waiting
[00:24:49] _Kym: know, like, your dad passed away. We're all gonna pass away. You know, it's like, gosh, there's bucket list trips. Like, do figure out a way if you can't afford it. Do home exchange or trusted house sitters or something like that. You know, figure out a way to make it.
[00:25:02] And somebody like you can help because you, you're creative around it. Like you already know how to like, be creative and help people figure it out, so I love that. Thank you
[00:25:11] _Allison: Thank you for having me, Kim. This was wonderful. I really enjoyed talking to you about all of my things that give me passion and bring me joy
[00:25:19] _Kym: I love it. Thank you so
[00:25:20] _Allison: All right. Take care.