Healing in Motion: How Traveling Intentionally Rebuilds Trust in Life After Loss

Written by - Lu Johnson, Founder & Curator at Mending Miles Co.

Picture this. I’m at Pisa centrale, tote bag on my shoulder, heart full of unfinished prayers after a train ride that felt longer than advertised. There’s espresso on my lips, gospel in my earbuds, and that quiet kind of peace that only comes after you’ve lived through a category-five storm and somehow remembered to pack your hope. Then it dawns on me; healing is movement. Not the rushed, frantic kind, but the slow sway of someone finally learning to walk with her ‘self’ instead of running from her past.

For me, travel stopped being an escape a long time ago. It became a mirror. A teacher. A playlist of everything God has been whispering to me while patiently and lovingly waiting on my surrender.

When Home Didn’t Feel Like Safe Anymore

I married at twenty-one with great hopes to be loved the way I loved. I know now that subconsciously there was a girl hoping all the ickiness of her upbringing would be healed. When it did not happen just magically, I hoped that if I gave enough, prayed enough, or stayed quiet enough, peace would eventually find its way home to me. Marriage became a master class in self-abandonment. Love showed up with brass knuckles instead of flowers.

It took walking through an abusive marriage and facing a loss by suicide to realize that I was looking for healing in all the wrong spaces. The years that followed were a collage of building and losing, trying again, and finally saying no more and asking, “God, what is the life You want for me?” It took me the better part of a decade to recognize that life will keep giving you the same exam until you stop tailoring your answers to please other people and start believing what God says about you.

And in between the grief and the growing, I learned to laugh again, to love in a healthier way, and to find the power in solace. Not the polite chuckle of someone surviving, the acceptance of bare minimum, or the isolation from shame. No, the belly laugh, the embrace, and the space of a woman who finally got the inside joke of her own story.

“But the gag is” your life has value!

The Pause Before Motion

After loss, everyone tells you to rest. To breathe. To heal. But they don’t tell you that rest can start to feel like purgatory when you’re used to showing up for everybody but yourself. I remember sitting on my little sister’s bedroom floor, listening to the echo of voices of people who had come to pay their respects but did not know that I could hear their opinions through the thin walls of my parents’ apartment. I could not rest. I wanted to run as far as possible to stop hearing it.

That’s when travel started, first as a hiding place, an opportunity to be unavailable. Eventually it became clear that hiding was not sustainable, that I would take those voices with me and drown them in IPAs and chilled Irish whiskey shots.

God moment - the jolt that runs through you when you step away for a bathroom break in the middle of a party and see that distorted version of yourself in the mirror staring back at you, and the first thought that comes to mind is: What are you doing here? Traveling and being present in the moment were not the issues; trying to escape an internal discomfort with external temporary remedies was the issue. So travel stayed, but my mindset started a radical shift. It was not the luxury version of traveling with cocktails and hashtags, but the kind where you pack faith in your suitcase and let the road teach you. I stopped joining ‘why not’ escapes and started curating moments that asked me to show up, flaws and all.

I was traveling with intention.

Intentional travel, I learned, isn’t about where you go. It’s about what you’re willing to learn once you get there.

Greece.

My first intentional escape to myself.

I had just quit a job that drained every ounce of light I had left, walking out each day feeling smaller than I came in. Sometimes, that’s God too, the redirection wrapped in discomfort.

Greece was eight days of being alone without being lonely.

I made friends with the hotel staff, the restaurant owner down the street who shared homemade ouzo with me. I collected blessings and bracelets from strangers who shared their stories like scripture. I met a woman who left pharmacy to become a sommelier, fearless in her own reinvention, a tour operator who, like me, carried post-traumatic stories stitched with hope. We walked behind the Acropolis toward Monastiraki Square, two strangers connected by resilience.

Greece taught me that solitude isn’t isolation when you fill it with intention.

Tuscany.

A job opportunity that came right after life flipped itself upside down without my permission. The kind of loss that makes you look at God like, “Again?” But I’d already learned from travel that language barriers and uncertainty are smoke and mirrors.

My competence, curiosity, and spirit translate everywhere. Tuscany was proof of that. I arrived unafraid, ready to learn from locals, and I was met with nothing but grace. They taught me, guided me, welcomed me, not because I was trying to blend in but because I showed up as a student, a guest, and a contributor. I didn’t just take from their world, I participated in it.

Tuscany was a time of reciprocal healing; Receiving as much as you’re willing to give.

Lessons from the Road

Healing Doesn’t Need Wi-Fi

Somewhere in Gabon, I went four days without service and accidentally met myself. Turns out, the strongest signal comes when you disconnect. Healing through travel isn’t about escaping your life; it’s about seeing it from a distance that gives it context.

Boundaries Look Good in Every Time Zone

Whether it’s telling a motivated tour guide calling you over to see his excursions “no, thank you”, choosing to post your trip a month after going, or turning off notifications while you are away, boundaries travel well. They translate into every language.

Grace Travels Light

I used to overpack everything, outfits, expectations, guilt. Now I pack peace, humor, and a good playlist. Grace doesn’t charge for extra baggage.

Faith Over Fear, Always

I’ve learned that fear and faith often share the same seat on the plane. One just orders more snacks. Choose faith anyway.

Joy Is the Ultimate Souvenir

Forget the keychains and refrigerator magnets. The real takeaway is joy, the kind you curate intentionally, the kind you gift to yourself without apology.

Faith, Flight, and Follow-Through

Travel has a funny way of showing you where your faith really lives. You can’t hide behind routines when you’re in a new country. There’s no autopilot when you’re navigating narrow streets or new languages. You have to listen to yourself, to God, to the hum of possibility.

Every destination became a conversation with my Lord and Savior. “Are you still with me?” I’d ask, and then I would look up at a sunset or feel a boat rock me slowly back to shore and get my answer.

Through travel, I’ve learned that God doesn’t just meet you in church pews. He meets you in passport lines, in market stalls, in quiet hotel rooms when the world feels too loud. Healing through travel isn’t about forgetting where you’ve been. It’s about letting movement remind you that you were never stuck to begin with.

Choosing Life, Again and Again

When I left my marriage, I didn’t leave because I suddenly loved myself. I left because I finally got scared enough that I might die there, unhappy and unaccomplished. When my spouse took their own life, my own mortality and will to live were challenged.

Every trip since has been a declaration: I choose life. I choose joy. I choose curiosity. Traveling intentionally rebuilt my faith not just in God but in humanity. Strangers became teachers. Meals became sermons. Flights became altar calls.

And the best part? I’m still that same silly, hopeful, tiny-silent-musical Black woman who laughs too loud and orders four-course meals, and that is the true definition my life has given to “domestic violence surviving widow.”

Returning Different

The Invitation

If you’ve ever felt like your life needs a passport stamp of faith, consider this your boarding call. Healing isn’t a place you arrive at; it’s a route you take with intention. Whether your next trip is across the ocean or just across town, move with purpose. Let curiosity be your compass and gratitude your carry-on.

At Mending Miles Collective, we curate journeys for women who want more than rest, they want renewal. We believe in travel that nourishes, conversations that heal, and communities that remind you you’re not alone in your becoming.

So here’s to motion. To booking the ticket before you talk yourself out of it. To laughter echoing in new languages. To grace, growth, and the glorious mess of becoming.

Because healing doesn’t wait for perfect timing.

It waits for your yes.