Sometimes life sucks –but, France shouldn’t!

TRANSFORMATIVE FRENCH LIFESTYLE TRIPS

French values can be restorative when life hasn’t worked out the way you planned. The Romance countries of southern Europe have a reputation for passion, pleasure and a relaxed approach to life -and, that’s exactly how life is lived in France! France and her sister Latin-Catholic countries, Italy and Spain, inherited similar cultural priorities from the Roman Empire:; a prioritization of community over the individual; leisure over work; and, pursuit of ephemeral pleasurable experiences over the avoidance of pain through the accumulation of comfortable possessions (like big airconditioned houses, kitchen gadgets, automatic everything or lazyboy chairs). Basically, French cultural values are an invitation to re-examine the priorities that come with the so-called “Protestant work ethic” and material consumer culture. Where Americans live to work, the French work to live. Where an American may identify themselves by profession, “Hi, I am a florist/nurse/teacher/lawyer…”; a French person is more likely to view discussing work outside of business hours as a social faux-pas. In France, you aren’t your work —and time is for building relationships. That priority is woven into the laws and customs: a full-time job is officially limited to 35 hours a week, plus workers receive approximately 5-6 paid weeks of vacation per year, and most businesses close from 12:00-2:00. to offer people 2 hours so they can enjoy lunch at home with family. This different perspective on what’s important in life led to the comical account A Year in Provence in which the British businessman Peter Mayle chronicles the culture shock he encountered as he struggled to adjust from his fast-paced work life in a country of people who shared his strong work-ethic and worship of timeliness, to the laidback French lifestyle. That same Latin way of living life to the fullest is what the author of Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert, specifically set out to experience when a midlife crisis sent her traveling around the world “in search of everything”. And, again, it was that very Latin way of living that resuscitated Lisa Gustavson when her life took an unpleasant 180 which awakened her to the possibility that other women re-examining their lives just like she did could benefit from the therapeutic effects of the French lifestyle if only she could give them a key to unlock the door to cultural immersion —so she invented that key and she called it Sojourner Tours.

A CRUSHED SOUL

In 2011, Lisa was living in Tokyo with her French husband and their two small children. She was dreaming of becoming a university professor and had won a research grant that enabled her to collect information to support a PhD thesis on a French/Japanese topic –looking toward the future, she saw a clear path leading to success and she felt unbelievably fortunate. Suddenly, one of the biggest earthquakes ever recorded shook the country, a huge tsunami ravaged the northern coast compromising the Fukushima nuclear power plant and Lisa found herself waiting in terror with the rest of the country as they braced for the radiation ensuing from eminent meltdowns. The choice was lose-lose for Lisa: stay to pursue her career dreams but roll the dice with her family’s health; or, flee to safety and give up her career. In Lisa’s value system, her children were the top priority –so, with difficulty and a few detours they managed to make their way to the French countryside where her husband’s cousins offered them safe refuge and the emotional poultice of the French perspective on life. Lisa’s family’s lives were safe but Lisa’s long-time dream of becoming “Professor Dr. Gustavson” died. She was lost. Giving up her career path left her feeling lost without purpose or societal value. Her soul felt crushed… and then she began to awaken to the priorities that shape the French lifestyle and she saw an opportunity to heal through re-evaluating her values from a French perspective.

That was the start of a decade-long journey of self-discovery which gave birth to Sojourner Tours and its evolution from a company that celebrates the best life has to offer to one that is also dedicated specifically to women and their well-being, self-love and pleasure. Drawing from her personal experiences of pain and healing, Lisa’s mission is to design transformative, restorative, life affirming sojourns. The result? Sojourner Tours promotes women’s psychological, physical and spiritual growth through food, fun and France. —You get it if you’ve read a book like Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love or Frances Mayes’ Under the Tuscan Sun. Travel can have powerful wellness effects when you go beyond the typical tourist trip –and, that kind of exceptional voyage that takes you both abroad and within is EXACTLY what Sojourner Tours is all about!

A FRENCH PERSPECTIVE CAN MEND YOUR SOUL

The French lifestyle was balm to Lisa’s wounded soul, light on her path went her destination fell shrouded in darkness. An immersion in the French lifestyle is an opportunity to rediscover that uncomplicated, effortless pleasure that comes from the everyday things that many of us started overlooking as we forgot how to love ourselves and instead got caught up in the pursuit of happiness or the approval and love of others through prestige, intellectual prowess, success, fortune, beauty, perfection, fame, etc…

French daily life is about being present and living in the moment. This ancient traditional practice is part of the philosophy of the Romantic Latin countries of Southern Europe which were the model of the Slow Movement that inspired Carl Honore to write In Praise of Slowness: Challenging the Cult of Speed which is considered the seminal work of the cultural revolution of people seeking a healthier, battery-charging, bucket-filling alternative to the hamster wheel of commute-work-sleep-repeat which is linked arm-in-arm with industrial food. This French way certainly prompted Lisa to awaken to the possibility that sometimes we miss out on happiness because we are working so hard trying to find it!

Most of us never get to experience more than one culture with any depth but living abroad was so life changing for Lisa that her scrape with death brought her an epiphany: everyone deserves to experience the mind altering effects of immersing themselves in another culture!

At first it seemed like an impossible pipe dream. People scoffed at Lisa saying that what she wanted to do was unrealistic. They had a good point. The majority of us are familiar with the tourist trip as a welcome break and fun parenthesis to the daily grind; but few of us can leave a job, sell a house, or break-up with a partner and take off to travel abroad for a year or move the way authors Gilbert and Mayes did. Even less have in-laws with a vacant home like Lisa. So, how can we hope to get the wellness effects of cultural immersion when we can only take a week away from work and/or family? If you have a friend living abroad, they can be a great shortcut into experiencing a foreign culture who can take you to the special places that only the locals know and explain cultural differences that might otherwise escape you. And when you don’t know someone living in another country… well Sojourner Tours is the friend you wish you had in France but haven’t met yet.

So,

When the time has come to look at your life, values and priorities from a different perspective…

When you are ready to slow down…

When you want to feel an emotional connection to the land and community as you nourish yourself…

When you want to fill your heart with the overwhelming richness of gratitude for life’s simple pleasures...

When you are ready to savor life…

You are ready to join our beautiful family of women sojourners!