The Everyday Awesome Project

82: Sam's Solo Backpacking Trip | Going Outside to Go Inside

• Polly Mertens & Samantha Pruitt • Season 1 • Episode 83

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Coach Sam is off on her first SOLO backpacking trip- 5 days across Catalina Island! This week she shares why she is choosing to do this adventure and how her desire to be both in nature and alone is just what the doctor ordered. 

So what happens exactly when you disconnect from everything in your daily life and identity to reconnect with your authentic self? While most people wait until they're in crisis mode to address their mental health, Coach Sam takes us on a journey through her proactive approach to mental wellbeing. This isn't about fixing something broken—it's about investing in herself before reaching a breaking point that leads to poor health outcomes. 

We dive deep into why creating space away from our roles, responsibilities, and daily demands opens up magical possibilities for self-discovery. Sam eloquently describes how changing your physical environment—especially immersing yourself in nature—activates creativity and mental clarity that's nearly impossible to achieve in familiar surroundings. The conversation explores those common fears that keep us from seeking solitude: Will I get bored? Will I be lonely? What if I don't like what I discover about myself?

The physical challenge of carrying everything she needs while hiking 40 miles across an island represents something profound about self-reliance and possibility. As Sam shares, "How will you ever know what's possible if you don't show up for yourself?" Whether you're contemplating your own solo adventure or simply looking for ways to prioritize your mental health, this episode offers powerful insights about the transformative potential of disconnecting to reconnect.

Remember that you don't need anyone's permission to be your best self. Your mental wellbeing isn't a luxury—it's a necessity. Follow Sam's journey on social media as she documents her experience, and consider what your version of a mental health sabbatical might look like. Because ultimately, how your life feels is far more important than how it looks.

Subscribe now and join us when Coach Sam returns to share what she discovered on her wilderness solo!



Follow Coach Polly @getbusythriving and Coach Sam @thesamanthapruitt

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Samantha Pruitt:

hey superstars, welcome back paulie here and sam pruitt what's up? Beautiful humans, what's up?

Polly Mertens:

and we're gonna just drive right into it. This is the story of sam, not from a little girl, but you're not the story of sam. This is just a moment in the life the moment before the journey, the adventure where you're heading out into a little bit of wilderness, right? So tell us what you're up to, what's stirring inside of you, this idea that you've had, that you're now taking on next week.

Samantha Pruitt:

Yeah, I am going on my first solo backpacking trip and for the audience that doesn't know anything about me yet, I'm not really a backpacker. Okay, to be clear, I have backpacked once in my life. I am not an expert by any means. It was with two girlfriends. So it was a fun adventure of a couple nights out in the pseudo wilderness and I just am kind of entranced by it, like there's a gravitational pull, if you will, not only towards being out in nature. That's obvious, because everything else about my life for the last 25 years has been out, you know, trying to seek nature and adventure. But in this instance, with the backpacking specifically, it's about going out solo to do this, moving my body up and down the mountains, along the coastline, through the wilds, animals, bugs, dirt, sun all the things by myself, with everything I need on my back for five days, and I specifically chose Catalina Island, the Trans Catalina Trail.

Polly Mertens:

And do you want to start with? Why do this?

Samantha Pruitt:

Like, I mean, we can talk about the what you're doing, but I'm kind of intrigued, yeah that's not the important part, even the how is not that important, like we have discussed many times. You're going to walk.

Polly Mertens:

It's a walk, Everybody does that. No, but I mean, you know the backpacking and the tenting and cooking and stuff like that. But yeah, that's for another show.

Samantha Pruitt:

But the why yeah, and just kind of precursor to that is, I will be sharing this on social, so there will be snippets and videos along the way, including, like you know, what am I packing in the tent and how am I getting there, whatever. So it'll be a really grand adventure that people can follow along, mostly on social, so on Instagram, on YouTube, et cetera. So check that out and that will explain a little bit more of the how. But the why is really why we're here today, right, and my primary why is mental health. Okay, I'm not looking to get fit or Well, so first thing, somebody would just ask you is.

Polly Mertens:

What's wrong with your mental health? Like, do you have a problem? Like, are you depressed or you, I don't know? Are you stressed out? What's wrong? What's wrong, what's going on with your mental health, that you're making this a priority or taking this on?

Samantha Pruitt:

That's so interesting. Yeah, why mental health For me, right now, at this junction in my life, approaching very quickly next month age 56, it's because I invest in my mental health, so it is an ongoing process. I do not need to wait for a crisis to be clear. So I have had many a mental health crisis in my lifetime and many people I love have had mental health crises around me. So no, I'm not in the middle of a mental health crisis and I'm not doing this to work through that. What I'm actually doing it for is to invest in my mental health so that I don't have a crisis, and so sometimes that can I see some warning signs or life is happening.

Samantha Pruitt:

So for me personally, there's a lot going on. I have a lot of things going on with people that I love. I'm seeing a lot of suffering around me, mental and physical. There's just a lot of things going on in my space on the daily really. So I feel like a great sense of almost urgency around caring for others, having awareness and committing to helping other people who are suffering, and by nature, that generally will empty my bucket relatively quick because of the demands of that, and then, simultaneous to that, I'm having this personal health, physical health thing going on that I've been working on and we've talked about that in a couple of past episodes.

Samantha Pruitt:

So it's related to my gut, my autoimmune disease. So I'm having a little bit of a healing crisis in my physical body and then mentally, emotionally and even spiritually, I'm having this other pretty demanding environment and life right now. So those two things to me and really it doesn't have to be all of that combined for anybody, but it's enough for me to say whoa, sister, now I'm talking to myself, you know, whoa sister, sam, like um, take care here, take care. This is, this is a lot, and so you need to carve out some time, some space and work on your mental, emotional and even spiritual health. So that's what this is about.

Polly Mertens:

Well, I got. I loved how you took us from. You know you've had mental health breakdowns, let's say, or those crises where you know it's sort of like you're running your car at too high an octane. You know you're just, and then it just crashes. You know you kill the engine or something, right, you run out of oil yeah, like fried. You know you kill the engine or something right, you run out of oil. Yeah, like uh, fried, you know. Or gas, or whatever.

Polly Mertens:

The analogy is right, or metaphors like you instead you're like, okay, have done that, I've experienced that in my life led to lots of suffering and pain, and so you have enough awareness now that the way you feel in your body, or the you know you and I talk a lot about being the container in the context for having capacity to hold space for people that are going through your gut. You know your brother's, you know fighting his journey and lots of people in your life that are in their own, you know, worrying up in their life in ways, and so holding all of that space as you do is such a gift. But if you're not taking care of you, right, like we can't give to others. So this is like you noticing, okay, I could continue to just give, give, give, and then I give from nothing, right, and we go into empty and then breakdown, right, riding that engine too fast and it just crashes.

Samantha Pruitt:

So yeah, we don't have to wait for the breakdown.

Samantha Pruitt:

I think many of us I don't want to generalize and say in particular women, but my personal experiences around women in the world, I see this a lot that they are, uh, you know, have a family life, family of origin life, life, professional life, a secondary family, the family they create with the spouse or the kids and whatever right.

Samantha Pruitt:

There's just a lot of demands put on these individuals and at the same time they have their own needs, and rightfully so, right. So sometimes it gets really bad and this can be anybody, but the demands get really bad and it can get a really dark place before they're willing to take any action. So I guess this is just sort of let's just put awareness out there, for step one is like it doesn't have to be Henny Penny, the sky is falling and everything's broken before you decide to do the work Like you. You decide to do the work like you can decide to put the work in at any point, and we would suggest to self-invest all the way along, irrelevant what phase you are um in the process of your growth great, great, I get you know when you started to tell the story of this.

Polly Mertens:

You know, solo backpacking. All of a sudden I remembered I hadn't thought about this in a long time. But when I was in college, right at graduation, it was like okay, before you know, launching into the working world. Um, I completed school a quarter early, so like my friends were still in school and I was like I just had this damn urge to go to santa fe.

Polly Mertens:

there you go, I don't know. And I and this is before the internet and all that stuff, that's all. We are Right. And I went to the AAA and they mapped it all out for me and I put my bike in the back of my and I headed out like a cross, like I'd never even left the California.

Polly Mertens:

You know, I was like you're right, right, but this solo journey of discovery, like there was something. You know mine wasn't a mental health related, but still I think there's a calling inside of you, Like there's something that is like I don't know if it's a pull or a nudge or whatever you want to refer to it as Are you feeling that I hear you talk about this. That's what it seems like.

Samantha Pruitt:

Oh yeah, I've been fantasizing about this for a long time. I have a lot of fantasy adventure trips and things in my brain and I'll slowly chip away at them for sure. Um, this is one of them. So I particularly wanted to do the multi-day backpacking on my own feet, on my own physical body, across mountains, you know, across an island in the middle of the fricking ocean, for goodness sake, right With everything that I need on my back. So it will be physically challenging. That's how I like to do things, so there will be a physical challenge element to it. And then there will be this whole self-reliance piece of do I have everything I need? Do I know what the hell I'm doing? Nobody's coming to do this for me and I'm just out there in the middle of nowhere with no one Sounds wonderful, whereas I know for funny people that's not going to sound wonderful, so they can pick whatever their way of doing this is.

Samantha Pruitt:

But, in particular, you and I agree strongly about these opportunities for growth being solo, because we came here all on our own. Sure, we were birthed through a birth canal from our mother, thank you. But you know we're we're solo beings. We're not part of somebody else. There isn't that piece of us that always has to be with someone to feel safe, to feel capable, to feel worthy? All of that shit is inside of you, but how will you ever know if you don't show up for yourself and find out what is possible? How will you know?

Polly Mertens:

Yeah, I think you know something that you're on the precipice of, for me anyway, because I have been. You know, I grew up in a three person family. There was no grandparents, no aunts.

Samantha Pruitt:

You know it was very siblings, no siblings, no siblings. You know.

Polly Mertens:

so it was very small and then, as I moved out of that, it was like be you know, so local you know, like no sisters, brothers, all this stuff. And so I get you know, the experience I have, more so, of life is most things are solo, whereas I know when I, when I, when I hang out with families and I see, you know, like my aunt and uncle have five kids and you know it's just this whole other, it's like a team, it's a family. You know, whereas mine felt like mom, dad, me and my dad's past, you know, whatever.

Polly Mertens:

So what I dig is where I can see how people that are so used to a unit right Like like they're so used to a unit all the way around and take the responsibilities and the gotcha and asking of things and can you do this? Or whatever. So, like, stepping outside of that can be such a big leap or seem so foreign, if you will.

Samantha Pruitt:

Oh, totally Well, let's talk about why. So, mental health, okay, but then why do I feel so strongly about this kind of thing? So, one is creating the space, and this is where you were going. So, creating the space by yourself, space away from roles and responsibilities, okay, or labels, or stories, or whatever, however you pursue or identify in the world, right. So stepping away from that Aloneness allows you to step away from that. Nobody is knocking on the door, nobody is calling, nobody is I mean, nobody's going to be contacting me, because my phone will be on airplane mode. Sure, I will create some content so I can share it with all of our people, because we so want to fire them up about it. But otherwise I've got nothing. Everybody just figure it out, okay.

Samantha Pruitt:

Um, and then the same thing about creating a space is like, when I think of creating space for myself, besides stepping out of my roles and responsibilities, it's also like I feel like I can breathe, like it opens up a new sense of deep breath, oxygen into my brain, into my body, not only physically because I'm out in nature, right, but I mean like this is how it feels, like there's an opening, an opening to another layer of myself, because I'm removed from all of these other things. That's where the freaking magic happens. By the way, holy hell, balls, you want to find out who you are. You'd be doing this stuff. It's so good, it's so good. And then another layer of like oh, I see myself differently now. I'm learning about myself. So therefore, more is possible for me. So that opening up of space is radical. This is radical self-love, radical self-compassion.

Polly Mertens:

Yeah, and I think the you know you and I were talking before we hit record, about the solitude or the soloneness of it. Right, I'm going to weave this in a little bit, not go too deep, but that whole area of study that I have done with human design and gene keys, right, it talks about how much we're a little bit like puzzle pieces. When we come together, you know we fill in pieces of each other and we amplify pieces of each other whatever. You know that kind of a thing. And when we spend so much time in that puzzle, like we're connected or hooked up to a unit or a companion or something, as you know, co-workers or whatever, like they fill parts of us that we don't and we don't discover for ourselves.

Polly Mertens:

When I unhook from these other puzzle pieces, I get to see the dimensions of myself without them, without you know like you can get into that levels of inquiry of what do I enjoy? Oh, this feels good to me right now. Oh, I think I'm going to do that. You know like, untethered to you know like I've been with you know I dated a man who had kids and it was like, okay, well, let's go do this. And then it was like all the shenanigans, all the people together and the lunches and you know all that stuff.

Samantha Pruitt:

Well, and there was a fee. There is a feedback loop that may or may not be appreciated at the time by the way around. Simple things what are we going to eat and when are we going to sleep? When are we not going to sleep, where are we going to go and where are we not going to go? Right? So it's this feedback loop that those other puzzle pieces in your life.

Samantha Pruitt:

Of course, we love them, we're not saying any, there's no negative judgment here but they have an incredible influence over the way that you operate your daily decisions, your moment by moment decisions, and I started doing these even when I still had young kids at home. And I'm a married woman, all that kind of stuff, have my own business, blah, blah, blah, but I would like create space in those instances. Generally, though, it was with other groups of women, but same kind of concept and I would get away and I'd be like I can eat whatever the hell I want when I want to eat. Oh, by the way, I don't even want to eat, or I don't feel like cooking, or I'm going to bed at eight o'clock because I'm freaking tired. I don't care that there's 10 other things that need to happen in the laundry and whatever the like. So there's a liberation of self when people unplug from their current roles and responsibilities. So to me, this is just paramount for mental health, paramount for mental health.

Polly Mertens:

Well, we're only like a few minutes into this and I'm already like I got to go on one.

Samantha Pruitt:

You're like, I'm packing my bags as soon as we're done here and I'll be leaving. Yeah, the next episode will be Polly's going on. Yes, yes, it will be Okay. The other thing I want to talk about regarding mental health is and you dropped this into the feed and I want you to talk about this changing your environment.

Polly Mertens:

Yeah.

Samantha Pruitt:

So changing your physical environment what does that look like for you? What's that look like for you in the past? You take a lot of solo trips, dude. You do some epic ass shit like international, I don't know. You're just going to be going to Cambodia now. Bye, right. So changing your environment what is that for you?

Polly Mertens:

I'll give a couple examples, I think the one that is, you know, I've been doing for the last 10 years. So I own a beautiful motor home. I lived in it three, three years full time. It was just my joy bus, right. So one of those so that's what I was going to say, is that's where this is going is when I'm in my physical home I have things that I enjoy, but you know I have tough phone calls or I, whatever, I get mentally trapped in something that I can't. You know it's all in the energy still lives in my home. I get in that bus, it's only freaking, it's only ever felt amazing. You know what I mean.

Samantha Pruitt:

So that kind of shit like 50 square feet or something.

Polly Mertens:

Yeah, it's like I just, I just look at it and I go, oh my God, I love you, you know. And then I like get inside of it. I'm like I'm just happier, you know, like I'll go out there, you know, just to be in it. Sometimes, like I once in a while not very often, but because I sometimes park it on the property I'll just grab the kitty cats. I'm like let's just go sleep on the bus, you know like, or let's just, or I want to like write in the bus or do some work in the bus or color in the bus or something Right? So when I talk about environments so we can places in our like I know there's people that you know I'm not big on going to the same place multiple times, but some people have a timeshare or a favorite whatever cabin that they like to go to Because that's their thing. Like my bus is my. The energy is just different in that space. The energy is just different in that space. Now, granted, so I have a big thing about, I have. So there's people in the world and even different categories of ourself, right On the spectrum of certainty and variety. So if this is a yardstick, you guys, if you can't see me I'm describing this. There's this yardstick, and on one end of the stick is certainty, and on the other end of the stick is variety, right is certainty, and on the other end of the stick is variety right. And however you want to word those like certainty, sameness, consistency, routine, variety, different, risky for some people how they look at it right, unsure, uncertain, right, I have a high need for variety.

Polly Mertens:

Like I just like I like newness. I do so. I go on my trips. It's as soon as, like I'm not recognizing things, I'm already like this is cool. Like as soon as I like go on a road that I've never been, I'm like this is awesome. Like just my brain just kicks into a new gear. It's like look at that tree, oh my God, that's really cool. You know, like I just went down to Oceanside to visit a friend and I'm on my little scooter and I'm just cruising around because I'm like I don't know Oceanside very well, and all of a sudden I look over and there's a mission In California. We have the I don't know how many missions, but I'm like I've never been to that mission before. I lit up like a firecracker.

Samantha Pruitt:

I was like, and I zoom over there and I check out the garden, and I check out the garden and I check out the. I was like, is it open? You know, just like the newness of person, that that's a food source for you, literally for your creative juices. And I know, for me also, going to new places and exploring them or just being in them, even if I'm not exploring them, I'm just like literally sitting on the top of a rock, on a fricking mountaintop or whatever.

Samantha Pruitt:

I'm like my creative aspect of my mind and my personality and my calling is like bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing, bing. All of a sudden. I don't know what the hell is going on, but somehow I'm getting like, literally I call them about this idea. If I'm moving my body, then it's next level. I literally cannot make the notes in my phone fast enough to capture all the ideas that are coming. Right now, like yesterday, I have a whole bunch of notes in here from just a two hour hike. I couldn't make, I couldn't stop.

Polly Mertens:

It was just like hit after hit after hit after hit, and I don't know if this is true, but something you said just made me wonder. So in my study of hypnosis and the mind and LP and stuff, so we talk about your comfort zone, right, and so your brain is formed and it's just a giant supercomputer, right. It stores all these memories, experience, all this stuff, like you know, in the old school data drive you know you had this hard disk, right so it stores all that stuff and that's the extent of what it knows. It's like I've been here and I haven't been here and those are the outer limits, right. And I'm wondering, as you were talking, I was like when we like puncture that little perfect known world, that the mind has memorized all these things, and it goes. It's like oh wait, you know, and it didn't kill you, right, because the mind keeps all that stuff safe.

Polly Mertens:

So it's like stay inside of this, you know. The old brain is like this is safe, we know this. You haven't died in here before, you know. And then you go out to a new mountaintop or a new destination or something. You're like we didn't die here. Oh, what's here, you know, and I just wonder if something is about that.

Samantha Pruitt:

Totally, and it's very internal, interestingly enough. Which leads me to my next reason, which is all part of mental health, but still it's. I mean, we just call it grounding, right. So it's a real thing to be out in actual nature. There's a great book called the Nature Fix. There's so many books in science around this now, around the healing elements of nature, forest bathing, et cetera, et cetera. So look into that if you're about that.

Samantha Pruitt:

But being out in nature with animals and plants, which are also living elements of the natural world which, by the way, is what we actually live in, people Okay, Believe it or not, there's an energy that comes with that, right. And however you perceive plants and animals is your own personal thing, whether you have religious beliefs or spiritual beliefs or whatever. But being out there will shift your energy. So that's a real thing, right. And then, additionally, what will shift your energy is being on the ground or having elements of touching and being on nature itself. So I don't care if you want to lay on the beach and do nothing or if you want to hike the damn mountain or across the desert or whatever, but that is also magic.

Polly Mertens:

Well, you know, one of the things that just remind me of something, you just sent me those tapes, the telepathy tapes, episodes, right, and the one I listened to was about this autistic child who was really into stones and talked about how stones have energy and autism. They, you know, they pick up on that frequency and I, I'm like our freaking planet is a giant stone, like, absolutely Like it has a frequency, right, absolutely Huge frequency, that we, I would say, you know, some people are a little more ocean driven, you know, like that that's the energy or the frequency. Some people are more earth driven, you know, or warmth or cold or whatever, but like it's tapping into a frequency that that feels good for you, you know, and I think we're, it's a part of our I mean, we come from this earth like it feeds us, it's a part of us, you know, like it's, it's what makes us wait, you should probably say that again, because people have forgotten that I mean unfortunately, let's just remind people yeah, like guess, like, guess what?

Polly Mertens:

oh, you're on an earth. At the end you're just that little dust going back into the earth and then, poof, another human comes here. You're you. You know, you become part of the earth from the food your mom eats and the sunshine that she sits under, and all this, yeah, this isn't woo-woo stuff. This is called science being in nature or being in the ocean or being in water. It's like it's a part of us.

Samantha Pruitt:

It's a part of us and it's so powerful. And people everyone knows what we're talking about because they've all felt this, because it's a real thing, but they forget about it. Then they detach from it and they build another life that doesn't involve those things. You know, I live in an incredible valley, the Coachella Valley. It's surrounded by mountains, so I have the luck of I don't have the ocean, but I do have the luck of, like, an incredibly vast desert and all of the seasons that go with that, and then these massive mountains, 10,000 feet here, 11,000 feet around me, which are forested and beautiful and snow capped a lot of the year and whatever. So I can be in all of these different environments.

Samantha Pruitt:

But then I'll go into a workspace or places where I talk to people and they have not been on those mountain tops, they haven't been in these areas, and I'm like, but you live here, how do you not drive to work every day and not see that mountain? Because I'm literally cannot even look at the road. I'm like, hey, what's up, what should go up there next weekend and what's going on over there? And then I'm thinking about Joshua Tree, what's on the other side there? And you know I'm drawn. They're literally like calling me. They're like Sam, come, you haven't been to joshua tree lately. You should get over here. That's the joshua tree's talking to me. Yeah, but somehow people have just like pretend nature's not there. Yeah, it's like the conditioning.

Polly Mertens:

You know, as humans, we, we forget some of the things we're talking about, but this is our wake-up call. So you're like, hey, I'm doing it. I'm going back back into what feels.

Samantha Pruitt:

Here's the interesting thing about Catalina Island is I'm not really. I lived around the ocean most of my life, literally grew up around, grew up at the beach, lived in the beach or near the beach, like where I could get there within minutes A bulk of my life, which is kind of also hilarious. But the oceans never really called me like that. The desert does and the mountains do, but in this instance I picked an island that's floating in the middle of the ocean. So I'm kind of curious how that's gonna be for me and I'm actually looking forward to it. And most of the campsites are actually on the ocean, literally like they're on the beach. So it'll be really fun to like hear the ocean again and smell it and feel its moisture and you know its ions and all the kind of cool stuff, and think about the aquatic life that's out there. Hopefully that won't give me weird dreams. I do have a lot of dreams.

Polly Mertens:

So just so people can picture, and maybe you don't even know, but I know that there's campsites that you're going to, so there are probably going to be some other people at some point. But a lot of you know, when I think of Catalina, first I think of like, oh, it's the town you know. Like there's a I forget the name of- the town.

Samantha Pruitt:

Oh, avalon, yeah, that's just the port, yeah, so it was like that part of it.

Polly Mertens:

But then there's all this nature part of it, right so?

Samantha Pruitt:

oh yeah, wild foxes. There's a rare fox that's only on that Island, which is super cool, and there's a lot of them. And there is bison. So there's actually quite a few bison and you do have to be very careful because they will go right on the trail and they are very interested in just hanging out there and giving you looks and not interested in what you're up to. So you have to leave the trail and go all the way around them. They're very dangerous, so you have to be careful. But yeah, there's cool like wildlife. Um, I'm going the length of the island, hence the 40 mile trip. You know I'm not just going to the port and camping there. Yeah, I am taking the 35 pound backpack and going up and over the entire ridgeline mountain line of this island and then I come down every night to a campsite in a different beach until I get all the way to the end of the island and then, um, yeah, well, one of the things we talked about is, you know some people could do you know a getaway.

Polly Mertens:

You know could be oh, you go to Las Vegas or you go to San Diego or something like that. You could do that solo. So, totally, totally. So what, what? You know, what would you say if somebody's like well, I really don't get the backpacking thing, I'm not going to?

Samantha Pruitt:

do it?

Polly Mertens:

What about a mental health retreat, if they wanted to be somewhere a little more cozy or, you know, comfortable?

Samantha Pruitt:

Well, I'll tell you about a really radical one. I did one time during the pandemic, which was basically my 14 day quarantine in Australia during the middle of the pandemic, where I was locked in a hotel room for 14 days with no windows that would open. I could see out, but no windows would open and I could not enter the doorway, nevermind leave the doorway, so like the door could only be opened if things were delivered to me and I could not enter the doorway, nevermind leave the doorway. So like the door could only be opened if things were delivered to me and I could not exit the doorway. So I mean, there's one way of doing it.

Samantha Pruitt:

There's a lot of different ways that you can go in, retreat, inward, back into yourself to have deeper conversations. I'm not here to tell anybody that they should throw the backpack on and do the thing. I love that for a multitude of reasons that we're speaking about, but however, they want a version that they can version that it's fine by me. Look at what some of the things you've done I mean you've done incredible things also very solo internal experience. Maybe you want to share one or two of those.

Polly Mertens:

I was going to ask you, you know. So, one of the things you had someone reach out to you and it's beautiful that all the people that are like what are you doing? What's going on, you know there's this stirring in your social following, right? So someone had asked you like, what are your questions? Like, one of the things I'm sure somebody is asking is, like, what do you do on this solo thing? Are you like just looking at your navel or are you bored watching TV? What are you doing? Like, what? Like, how do you? What do you do? Like, what's what's happening?

Samantha Pruitt:

And maybe specifics are like what's the questions your friend asked you Like what are you asking yourself as you're on this trip yeah, yeah, I mean it's just a side note, but it's also hilarious because you just reminded me. So I was 14 days locked in that hotel room in Australia in the middle of the pandemic. I never turned on the TV and, by the way, I never got bored 24 hours a day with myself only for 14 days. So that is a big fear that people have. It's like will I get bored? Will I like what I'm hearing inside my head? Will it be emotionally painful for me? Will I be lonely? Will I feel lost? I mean, these are really the questions that people grapple with when they think about being alone period at any point in their day, nevermind on stuff like this. And I mean I just want to impart that there's nothing scary about it. So we shouldn't be as scared of ourselves, of our own internal voice, of the thoughts and the emotions and the ideas that come up. We shouldn't be afraid of them. They're part of us and truly, what I believe is that you release them and you process them through this experience.

Samantha Pruitt:

That's why I also like to add sweating in the process. The physical element, for me, helps to pull it out and to allow me to process it. Believe me, I got to climb 10,000 feet of elevation gain in the course of this journey with 35 pounds on my back. So there will be some huffing and puffing and sweating and some effort and it's a full body experience. So for me, that adds to the allowance, the freedom, the liberation of these trapped ideas and emotions and I'm not saying they're all bad. Part of me is there, because I have a creative project I'm working on and I want to continue to work on and I actually want to put a light of fire under it. So I want to release some of those other things. So, to me, that whole process is so critical to our existence and we don't want people to be afraid of it, do we? You know, I was just gonna say like I don't think.

Polly Mertens:

You know, yeah, we do a lot to avoid a feeling or feeling the feelings that we think we can't, we can't handle, can't take right. And I was like so, if you get bored, be bored. Like, ok, just like, guess what, you're not going to be bored for the rest of your life, it's not going to stick on you. It's like OK, I'm bored, right. Or you're lonely, ok, be lonely for a little bit, just like. Notice, you know, whatever. The other thing I was going to say is I hadn't thought about this in a while, because it's been a while since I've been like out. There is how quiet it gets in the mind. Oh, it's so good.

Samantha Pruitt:

It's so good.

Polly Mertens:

It's really quiet. When you've thought all the thoughts, you've processed all the you know, and I love it, you feel light, yeah, and it's just like there's a freedom of mind, there's not a having to. You know, kind of remember this time schedule, whatever it's like the mind's like huh, this time schedule, whatever it's like the mind's like huh, what are we doing today? It's just like a fertile garden playground, if you will.

Samantha Pruitt:

One of the reasons I was always drawn to trail running and, in particular, ultra running, is because you basically couldn't think about anything else except surviving the next mile, and so that was literally like I have to put one foot in front of the other and continue this methodical, meditative pace, you know, and then at the same time, am I drinking enough? Am I eating enough? It was very like self care, self nurturing, self reliance, that's it. The rest of the world literally drops away for those hundred miles. You're like I have no clue what's happening anywhere in the world and I don't care, I don't give a shit, it means none of that means anything to me. It's so good, and I think this is just like an extension of that, at a slower pace that will allow me dialing down the intensity, that will allow me a lot more time to move through ideas and thoughts and emotions and open up that creativity as well.

Polly Mertens:

Sure, and I can't wait. I mean you're, you're already creative. So coming back with even like look out guys. I'm not sure what the episodes are going to be like.

Samantha Pruitt:

So coming back with even like look out guys, I'm not sure what the episodes are going to be like, but they're going to be inspired by this so let's tell people how they can do it, because I do believe this is going to resonate with a lot of people and I do hope they follow my journey and they'll see everything I share, everything. It's like I have nothing to hide. I really don't. It's not going to be perfect. It's going to be messy as hell who cares? But I'll. I'm happy to share, but I want to really inspire other people to consider this for them. So how would they go about that? What could that look like?

Polly Mertens:

Next steps yeah, well, you know, for an RVer, you know, if that were me, you know it's getting in an RV, so I was just going to share. You know, when I did one of my trips it was like no reservations, no plans, no destiny. I was kind of like I'm just going to go north. Like I was sort of like drawn towards Washington, you know, from California. I was like just going north and didn't have to get there at a certain time to never. You know all this stuff and so freeing Now not to say that that's how you started for everyone, right, you might have something that inspires you. Like I was pulled to santa fe. Like what the hell I got santa fe? I was like looked around, I went okay, clearly it's not for me anyway at the time this is way before santa fe like took off and became this me, whatever I was just like okay, so this is santa fe.

Polly Mertens:

I was like, yeah, I think it was about the desk, the journey, because it's not about the destination, because I wasn't somewhere I wanted to live or hang out for very long, but so maybe there's a calling that someone has. How about you? What's, what's, what's? How do you, how are you doing this? What are you doing?

Samantha Pruitt:

Yeah, and I kind of think of it also as a sabbatical. So some people are familiar with that, like whether you're a teacher and that's sort of your, you have summers off or whatever the heck the thing is With the alliance that you're building and you should briefly talk about that too. There is going to be some intention to that community and that program that you're developing, and I'm thrilled to be part of it. Like that can look different for anybody. What brings them to that? It starts with the curiosity, right, but some people identify with that whole kind of sabbatical which is like I'm going to give my brain a rest and I'm going to do something creative or think about something different. Some people see it as a rest, as a recovery, as a way to bring themselves back down into maybe first gear or something like that, physically and mentally, and for other people it's the opposite.

Samantha Pruitt:

The calling is towards like I need to get up and go, I need to be upping my game into lighting a fire under my ass and making some changes. One of the people that reached out to me is very much in a place of like what am I doing with my life? What is this shitty job? Sitting in a cubicle shell selling these things and blah, blah, blah, whatever. Like this is a hell. No, how did I even get here, trapped in this thing, right? And so for them, it's very much like I need to do this and I need some support around it, and that's what this program and alliance is going to be about getting out of this. So I can't, you know, I need to give myself permission, I need support around planning it, I need support around structuring it, I need some coaching around and maybe even facilitation and resources around making this happen. I want this right. So theirs is more like a fire under the ass, if you will, whereas the other people are like I need to settle the hell down.

Polly Mertens:

Yeah, I need to. You know it's a push or a pull right, like they're going.

Samantha Pruitt:

We say fired up, or fed up, totally, totally.

Polly Mertens:

Yeah, it's true, you know there's a lot. So you know it's that old analogy of you can boil a frog, you know, because they just sort of like get into the norm and the heat just gets a little bit more and more and more. And what you're doing with yourself is you're like noticing, hey, it's getting a little hot in here. You know, I've got some upset in my digestion. I'm taking care of a lot of people, holding a lot of space for people, my own well-being. You know your thermostat. You can already tell right. And so the boy and the frogs guys, in case you don't know it. So if you throw a frog into boiling water, it jumps out, but if you slowly boil it, it doesn't jump out, it doesn't know.

Polly Mertens:

So you know where in your life are you? Just like that settling, you know, has just like gotten more and more muck. You know, like, like you feel so detached from. Why am I doing this? Does this even matter? Am I supposed to be doing something else, right?

Polly Mertens:

And so people just either tune that out for so long I say our soul mine anyway, sorry, let me speak in first person my soul is like it's like nope, can't keep doing this. So I have a short fuse on that muffling that I can't keep it down, on that muffling that I can't keep it down. And it's discovering. You know what one of the things I do is I go fast forward into that life. If I keep doing this and I make it worse and, like I just did this yesterday, like I was doing it as a process where you teach the mind or you condition the mind. Briefly, you don't do this for like a while, but you just show it. If we keep living like this, in 10 years, how bad could it get? You know, and you know like, how bad could you feel? Like, like pulling away from your soul, like what's lighting you up? You're just like giving away so much, trapped in this right.

Samantha Pruitt:

Well, and a lot of my work with humans is around health and fitness. Not all of it, a lot of it's business too. But, like in the health and fitness space, they're like a year from now, a year from now, what will be happening in that physical and emotional body? Damn, yeah, if you don't do, okay, you don't have 10 years. 10 years is full disease state and you may or may not come back. Hello, a year from now, what's up? Body and brain going to look like Not liking that, okay, cool. But here's the cool thing. Like I mean, 90 days from now, do you have any idea how much better this can be? Like, give me 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, boom. Give me 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, boom. So this is like taking a moment, whether it's a day or a weekend, but we're really prescribing something longer.

Samantha Pruitt:

Ideally, everybody gets vacation time. We hope to some extent it can look different for everybody, and this doesn't even have to cost money. We're not saying you have to have money to do these things right. You can just literally do a lot of these kinds of things honestly for free if you're creative, and we can help you unpack that. Whatever your resources are, help you figure that stuff out.

Samantha Pruitt:

But you need more than a day. You need more than a couple of days, you know, I mean by day three, especially for me out in the wilderness. You know, like I don't even know how to explain it I'm pretty sure I leave my body. That's what it feels like. So I'm just going to confess that right now I'm pretty sure I leave my body. I don't know what's happening there, I don't know I have. I just am not woo woo enough to really know what the hell that is all about. But, um, I feel like my weight, I feel light, I feel like, oh my God, it's just incredible. It's incredible. And the problem is, then you come back into life and you, you know, but you you come back a different person.

Polly Mertens:

So you do. Yeah, your container has shifted. You know I was going to say you're empty, but you're also. You've shifted your container right.

Samantha Pruitt:

That puzzle piece that you are, you're more clear what it is and so sometimes it doesn't fit with the other puzzle pieces that you've been hanging out with, you know or a lot of times you come back and you've made some radical decisions right, and I will be journaling and writing and doing some stuff, yeah, and they can be not radical decision. They can be radical decisions about I need to make a decision about this thing and I need the time and the space to do that, so off I go. Or it can be not necessarily a decision, but just a shift in in operating, um, operating systems. Like I come back and I've had a reboot in my operating system, so when I come back into the space I just I just see it differently, including the humans, and so I have, all of a sudden, I have solutions and I have more compassion and I have a different creative energy and whatever. Like there's just a shift right, so good.

Polly Mertens:

So good, okay. Well, we're going to be talking about mine.

Samantha Pruitt:

I'm off, so follow along. It's going to be a trip, literally it's next week.

Polly Mertens:

Right, You're going next week.

Samantha Pruitt:

Yeah, so I'm going to leaving next week. I'll be boarding the ferry on the 17th. Okay, yeah, so I'm leaving next week.

Polly Mertens:

I'll be boarding the ferry on the 17th, crossing the Pacific Ocean to Catalina Island. Yeah, so good, and everybody's going to be fine. You know what the house is going to be good. Oh yeah, I'm not worried about it. Everything's going to be right where you left it.

Samantha Pruitt:

Well, I hope not. I hope I come back and they move some shit around, right, oh they. Well, I hope not.

Polly Mertens:

I hope I come back and they move some shit around. They had their own solo journey. They just haven't left, but they had that opportunity.

Samantha Pruitt:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's good for everybody else not to see me for a while.

Samantha Pruitt:

So, what's our one thing? What's one thing you want to share with people or ask people, or leave people with? I mean, my thing is, um, you don't need anybody's permission. You just don't okay, you just don't right. That's my one thing. I didn't ask anybody if I could do this. A lot of people ask me oh, what does this person think about it? And this I'm like I don't know. Go ask them what the hell are you asking me for?

Polly Mertens:

let Be telling me I'm doing with my life now.

Samantha Pruitt:

Yeah, and what are you insinuating that I needed to, like go to them and ask for permission to be my best self? Do I need to ask someone permission to be my best self? I'm pretty sure I don't.

Polly Mertens:

Some of the people that know you or that know you well at least. I'm wondering who they're saying. Are you asking They've seen you do this before and they know you're come back? You know, like you said, a different person, better person, you know feeling refreshed and renewed. It's like yeah go do that.

Samantha Pruitt:

Yep, yeah, I've done other versions of this. I've never done the five day solo backpack, so that is yet a new adventure in the life of Sam Pruitt Variety I love it, I love it, I love it, totally Okay.

Polly Mertens:

All right, my sister. Well, I can't wait to hear when you get back all about it, and we'll follow you on social. So let's remind our humans what do they want to keep in mind as we go on?

Samantha Pruitt:

Yeah, how your life feels is more important than how it looks.

Polly Mertens:

And every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.

People on this episode

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Polly Mertens

Co-host
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Samantha Pruitt

Co-host