Marisa took Alex to Italy for ten days and it was his first time in Europe. Rome, Florence, the Amalfi Coast, and almost none of it planned, which she says is the whole reason she actually got to be there. What she keeps coming back to isn't the sites. It's that Alex got to see where her grandparents learned to make pasta and where her mom lived, and after a lifetime of her bringing pieces of that culture into their home in little ways, he finally understood her at a deeper level. Their love went deeper because he saw her in a new light. Then they came home to Iowa and she didn't pick her old pace back up. She stopped prepping six days out at the practice, stopped posting to teach anybody lessons, and started letting a priority be a priority when it's actually a priority, herself included.

🔥 In This Episode:

• What opens up when you stop trying to accomplish something on a trip and let yourself actually be there
• The difference between capturing a moment on your phone and letting it land in your own eyes, and what you give up when you choose the screen
• Why being seen by your partner in the place you come from does something no story about it ever could
• Why Marisa stopped preparing six days out in her practice, and what she means when she says a priority is a priority, and so is she
• How to carry your family's culture forward without it becoming something you shoulder alone

We look to travel for rest or adventure, and then we come home and talk about the views. What actually stays is what your heart got informed in while you were there. For Marisa and Alex, that was him understanding where she comes from and why she loves what she loves, and then wanting to build it into their life together. He's the one at the grocery store now buying mortadella and Italian sourdough. She isn't passing her family's culture down by herself anymore. Take whatever opened up in you somewhere else and let it change your regular week here.

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• Email: hello@theheartworklife.com

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