Facing an empty nest can feel like the end of an era. But what if it’s just the beginning? In this episode, I sit down with Jennifer Dale, founder of Honest Heart Journeys, to explore how travel, sisterhood, and intuition create the perfect storm for awakening your authentic self and transforming your life and business from the heart outward.
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Show Notes | Transcript“Travel gives us that kind of opportunity where we examine our own lives and examine our own selves. Hopefully take time to reflect while we’re doing it.” – Jennifer Dale
As a fellow advocate for women over 50, Jennifer shares her passion for creating transformative travel experiences that empower, foster personal growth, deep connections, and the courage to embrace new adventures at any stage of life.
In this episode, you’ll discover:
- How to harness the power of travel to gain fresh perspectives on your life and business
- The importance of intergenerational connections in fostering personal growth and healing
- Why sisterhood and authentic relationships are crucial for women in their 50s and beyond
- How to use themed journeys to facilitate deep personal transformation and spiritual growth
Key insights include:
- The healing potential of women-only travel experiences for those navigating life transitions
- How cultural immersion can challenge our perceptions and redefine our values
- The role of mindfulness and reflection in maximizing the benefits of travel
- Why now is the perfect time to experience the world and cultivate cross-cultural understanding
Jennifer also shares inspiring stories of transformation from her Honest Heart Journeys, including a powerful account of a woman who found her self-worth through the support of her travel companions.
Whether you’re seeking to reignite your passion for life, heal from past experiences, or gain fresh insights for your business, this conversation offers a compelling invitation to explore the world and yourself. Tune in to discover how embracing new experiences and authentic connections can lead to profound personal and professional growth!
Connect with Jennifer
Website: www.honestheartjourneys.com
Instagram: @honestheartjourneys
Facebook: Honest Heart Journeys
Resources:
My appearance on the Honest Heart Journeys Podcast: Episode 20 – Love Into Your Worth
Join the Soulful Women’s Network www.facebook.com/groups/soulfulwomensnetwork
Receive daily inspirational email messages: bit.ly/LoveLightNotes
Need support? Go to engagewithgloria.com to schedule a call.
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TRANSCRIPT – From Empty Nest to Empowered: Travel as a Catalyst
Episode featuring Jennifer Dale, founder of Honest Heart Journeys
Introduction: Welcome to Live Love Engage
Namaste. Imagine stepping away from life’s noise to discover your deepest wisdom alongside women who truly see you. Today’s guest is going to help us explore how travel, sisterhood, and intuition create the perfect storm for awakening your authentic self and transforming your business from the heart outward.
Welcome to Live Love Engage, especially if this is your first time joining us. I am Gloria Grace, founder of Align to Shine Academy, and I empower women over 50 to step into their highest potential with clarity and confidence.
Meet Jennifer Dale: Founder of Honest Heart Journeys
Jennifer Dale is the founder of Honest Heart Journeys, a transformative travel community for women over 50. She’s a blogger, speaker, and host of her own podcast called The Honest Heart. Jennifer is passionate about sisterhood, intergenerational understanding, and soulful adventures that foster personal growth, deep connections, and the courage to embrace new experiences at any age of life.
The Inspiration Behind Honest Heart Journeys: Serving Women Over 50
Gloria: What inspired you to create Honest Heart Journeys specifically for women over 50?
Navigating Life Transitions and Change
Jennifer: I think that demographic is just navigating so much transition and change in our lives. We’re empty nesters. Our marriage status may have changed. For me, I was at a point where I was leaving my career behind and really thinking about reconnecting with my life and considering my legacy.
A Personal Healing Journey During COVID
It really all began when I was on my own personal healing journey in 2020, just as COVID started. I left a job right at the beginning of COVID that had left me feeling pretty empty and frustrated. I had to reconnect with who I was.
I had been working with teen women, so it was a beautiful time to move away from what I’d been doing and reconnect with my husband. We settled in an entirely different city and I really needed to heal from that situation and redefine myself.
Redefining Womanhood and Sisterhood
I recognize that the women I’d been working with, coming out of my own experience, it was time to redefine womanhood and sisterhood and how we are in community with one another. There are so many stereotypes about women and how they treat one another. Worth is a big thing so many of us deal with.
I wanted to lift that sense that women can be there for one another. We don’t have to compare and criticize. I was ready to look forward and nurture community, which is something I’ve done in my career for years.
Building Community: Attracting Women Seeking Authentic Connection
Gloria: Are you attracting women who are already friends, or people looking to form new friendships through these experiences?
Breaking Down Barriers and Dropping Masks
Jennifer: It’s really both. There definitely are women in our demographic who are dropping a lot of labels and cultural expectations. Many come feeling trepidatious, saying “Are you kidding me? Spending all this time with a bunch of women? I’m not so sure I’m up for that.”
But they find that really honest, genuine connection with other people. Many have come home and said, “I don’t know what just happened. I was there with you for 10 days, and I feel like all the women I met know me better than friends at home who’ve known me for years.”
Intergenerational Connections and Healing
We also have intergenerational experiences where a mother brings a daughter, and you see healing in their relationship happening before you. Sisters celebrate milestones together, creating memories they’ll always remember.
The Power of Intergenerational Wisdom
Gloria: I love how you foster intergenerational connections. As we get older, we have wisdom to pass along, but younger generations can teach us too.
Learning from Each Other Across Generations
Jennifer: I think we’re at a stage where there’s less hierarchy. Technology has changed so much in our lifetime that we’re listening more to younger generations. They have access to information and can teach us.
My hope is that the wisdom we’ve gained – caring less about what others think and living into our lessons learned – is respected more. In our trips, we explore other cultures where there’s more appreciation for elders, and I see younger women appreciating us more and having more patience.
Overcoming Fears About Women-Only Travel
Gloria: What fears do you see before women commit to these journeys, and how do you help them through that?
Understanding Sisterhood as a Verb
Jennifer: The word “sisterhood” itself has mixed connotations. People might think of sorority experiences or surface-level interactions. I love thinking of sistering as a verb – to sister someone, to really walk beside them.
Creating Deep Connections Through Shared Experiences
What happens on these trips is women begin to recognize we connect around things we have in common – situations, lessons, challenges, questions we’re asking. I’ve seen two women who both lost husbands in deep conversation, one sharing how she coped because the other had just experienced loss.
Using Books and Workshops for Common Ground
We always have a book that we read before we go, giving us common language and experience to connect around. The conversation goes deep because of that book. We do workshops before traveling so we’re familiar with what we’re doing.
Example: The Camino de Santiago and Byron Katie’s Work
Every year we take a Camino trip on the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in Spain. We do the work of Byron Katie, learning how to question the beliefs in our lives that cause us suffering. We do it together and companion each other through the process.
Finding Your Tribe: The Importance of Community After 50
Jennifer: Those support systems are built in for us early on – standing next to another mother at the soccer field, collaborating at the water cooler. But as we leave the office and our kids fly the nest, we ask: “What’s my purpose now? Who are my people? What’s my tribe?”
Ready for Growth and Spiritual Development
We need that so much now, and frankly, we’re more ready for it than ever because we’re curious. We want to grow spiritually, continue to be free. We’ve shed a lot of stuff and responsibilities that kept us busy for so many years. I love the idea that the best is yet to come, not behind me.
The Travel and Personal Development Revolution
Gloria: Each decade for me has gotten better than the last. I’m anticipating living a long time and want each decade to continue improving.
The Fastest Growing Travel Segment
Jennifer: When I started this during COVID, I realized the number one fastest growing segment of travel is women traveling. Women are going everywhere with a sense of courage and wanting to continue being active.
Fusing Two Growing Industries
Personal and spiritual development was also coming into play. We’re fusing those two industries – travel and personal development – into one experience. I’m a believer that experiential learning in community is by far the best way to grow.
The Need for Community in Growth
One thing I learned on our first trip: we need to go inward for our own growth, but we really need each other. We need companionship to compare notes, celebrate us, or keep us accountable.
Practical Application: How Travel Transforms Personal and Business Perspectives
Gloria: How can women entrepreneurs use travel experiences to help clarify their vision or offerings?
The Power of Unplugging
Jennifer: There’s nothing like travel to unplug you from your daily mindset, responsibilities, relationships, and distractions. The unplugging itself gives you a fresh start because you show up differently and don’t know what’s going to happen.
Cultural Immersion for Perspective
Travel itself gives you a fresh start. Along with themed trips, there might be a culture that makes you think about your own life or question your values. We’re going to Kenya in 2027, and having time with the Maasai is powerful.
Redefining Values Through Experience
I used to take students to Peru where they saw incredible kids without shoes or floors in their homes, but with huge smiles and generous hearts. It made these kids who had everything back in the States redefine wealth and think about what wealth really means.
Specific Destinations and Their Transformative Themes
Vietnam: The Theme of Forgiveness
Jennifer: Next January, we’re going to Vietnam with the theme of forgiveness. Everyone says you go to Vietnam and feel forgiveness in its people – part of it is their Buddhist practices, part of it is their history. We’ll read a book by Jack Kornfield on mindfulness and have a mindfulness facilitator with us.
Slovenia: Discovering Resilience
I did a trip to Slovenia, formerly part of Yugoslavia under communism. I felt such a sense of resilience in the topography that had been war-torn and in its people. There’s a purity, so resilience was our focus.
The Camino de Santiago: Finding Answers Through Walking
The Camino is an old pilgrimage that people have been doing for centuries throughout Spain. Most people come with a question or in transition, listening for an answer. The Camino gives you what you need – whether walking one week or up to five weeks for the whole thing.
We do about two weeks worth in three segments over three years. We transport luggage and you listen for your yes and no, where you want to go, how fast, and with whom. You find guidance, sometimes surprising answers.
The Urgency of Travel: Why Now Matters
Traveling While You Can
Jennifer: A lot of women say they want to go now while they feel they’re still up to it. Sometimes you feel like you better go now because we don’t know how these countries will change – many are being westernized so quickly.
Experiencing Authentic Cultures
That feeling in Kenya – it’s time to go now. Vietnam is becoming more popular. Different places are hot for a while, then it’s not the same. There’s a lot of change happening, so now is the time to experience our world and be in cultures where we openly listen to one another.
Real-Life Transformations: Success Stories from the Road
A Woman’s Journey to Self-Worth
Jennifer: There was a woman in her 40s on our Camino last year who wasn’t in a good marriage. He wanted out, she kept holding tight. She came and had incredible sisterhood with women spanning decades and recognized, “I’m worth more than how I’m being treated by my husband.”
She walked into an inn one night, locked eyes with someone there, and now they’re in a sweet relationship. She told me, “Jen, no matter where this relationship goes, I now know what I’m worth.” That was the transformation.
The Power of Sisterhood Support
Gloria: I relate to that. I was at a mastermind with all women who knew what I was going through in my marriage. One day they asked, “Gloria, why are you wearing your wedding ring?” I said because I’m still married, but they said I didn’t have to wear it. I took it off that weekend and haven’t put it back on.
Finding Honest Heart Journeys: How to Connect
Website and Social Media
Gloria: If someone wants to learn more about what you’re doing and take one of these trips, where can they go?
Jennifer: Go to our website: www.honestheartjourneys.com. We’re also on Instagram and Facebook. I need to get better about LinkedIn, but all information is there. I always welcome calls to field specific questions.
Upcoming Online Community
Next month we’re launching an online community through the website to keep people connected between trips.
The Bigger Mission: Feminine Wisdom for World Healing
Living Love Starts Within
Jennifer: I’d go back to the call right now in our world to live love, recognizing it starts with our relationship with ourselves – really knowing ourselves and being aware. Our relationship with our divine, whatever that infinite being is – getting those right so we can go out in community and bring our strongest.
The Need for Feminine Qualities
The feminine wisdom, grace, strength, intuition, collaboration – all of those things are so needed right now. We can help each other get there. It’s not just about me as a woman or you as a woman or us as sisters – it’s about the entire world feeling the grace that’s going to heal us and bring us together.
Conclusion: Building Connections for a Better World
Gloria: Any way you can find to build connections with other women is so valuable. We can lift each other up. I have a group called the Soulful Women’s Network with a Facebook group designed to uplift each other.
The Importance of Diverse Perspectives
It’s good to be with like-minded people, but also with non-like-minded people so you can learn from them and they can learn from you. We need to be having conversations where we want to understand where each other is coming from.
Mothering Our World
Jennifer: We may not all be mothers, but we kind of need to mother our world as sisters. Like in “The Red Tent” by Anita Diamant – that sense of women living in community, having sacred time together, passing down wisdom.
Gloria: It starts with mothering yourself. A good way to mother yourself is to give yourself the gift of travel and the connections that stay on from that travel.
Thank you for watching and listening today. Make sure you’re subscribed so you won’t miss new episodes – they come out on YouTube on Fridays and on podcast platforms on Tuesdays. Until next time, go out and live fully, love deeply, and engage authentically.