The “Copenhagen Crash” & 5 Lessons From 2 Months Alone

Aug 10, 2026

Two months into my six-month solo journey, I’ve found myself in Vienna, Austria – a completely unplanned stop following what I’m calling my “Copenhagen crash.”

In this episode, I’m reflecting on what happens when your body forces you to slow down, the art of going with the flow, and the surprising self-discoveries that come with wandering the world on your own.

From realizing I’m actually my own favourite travel partner to uncovering how my self-deprecating humour might actually be keeping me stuck, I’m sharing five key lessons I’ve learned so far as I navigate the unexpected as learning, laughter, and luggage collide.

Key Topics Covered

• The Copenhagen Crash: What happened when my body and spirit told me it was time to slow down.
• Loving My Own Company: Overcoming my initial fears of loneliness and discovering how much I enjoy solo travel.
• Living in “Spirit Being”: Moving away from the “coulda, shoulda, wouldas” and finding quiet joy in the present moment.
• The Power of Intentional Joy: How actively looking for humour and laughter changes my daily experience.
• When Humour Keeps Us Stuck: Shifting my neural pathways and changing the way I talk about my own perceived flaws.

Timestamps

• 00:11 – Welcome to Laughter Revolution & my Vienna check-in
• 01:05 – The “Copenhagen Crash”: Learning to slow down
• 01:53– Lesson 1: Realizing I love my own company
• 04:18 – Lesson 2: What it feels like to be in “Spirit Being” vs. mental noise
• 07:07 – Lesson 3: The challenge (and gentleness) of slowing down
• 09:10 – Lesson 4: Looking for laughter and wonder as a game changer
• 11:41 – Lesson 5: Realizing when my humour is keeping me stuck
• 13:33 – Reframing “being lost” to building directional competence
• 15:23 – Wrap-up & a sneak peek at my next episode from the Czech Republic

Full Transcript

Marla Simlett:

Welcome to Laughter Revolution. I’m your host, Marla Simlett, and this is a podcast that believes that even though life can be rough, getting through it doesn’t always have to be. Because laughter.

So I don’t have a guest today for my On the Road episode. I will have a guest from the Czech Republic, where I have spent the last 10 days, but that’ll be next episode.

Today, I wanted to talk to you, and myself, about where learning, laughter, and luggage is colliding for me now that I’m two months in to my six-month trip.

So I’m currently in Vienna, Austria, and this is a place that I didn’t intend to be. I had not had this on my radar, but that’s what happens when you’re in spirit being and going with the flow.

So I’m gonna talk to you a little bit about the last couple weeks since I was in Copenhagen and had what I’m liking to call now the Copenhagen crash. Because I had an experience where my body and spirit told me it was time to slow down. I talk a little bit more about that in the latest Laughter Revolution Digest, and you can subscribe to that on my website at marlasimlett.com.

But I had to slow down. And when you slow down, you start to feel, you start to think, you give yourself the opportunity to dive more deeply into the learning that is happening for you, because we’re always learning. And so that’s what I’ve done. So I’m gonna talk to you this morning about five, only five, things that I’ve learned about myself and the world so far on this six-month trip.

So number one, the one thing I’ve learned more than anything is that I love my own company. Now, I suspected that I was good company, and people have given me that feedback, but I was really worried as I was starting out that I was going to be lonely, that I was gonna feel left out, that I was going to have some of that judgment that I’ve had in the past, worried that what people would think about me as I’m wandering around the world by myself.

But so far, I have loved it. I’m talking to enough people, because I’m very friendly and engaging with people. I’m staying in places where I’m meeting people too. And it seems to be fulfilling that need for being social to me. But I’m so happy just to look after myself and talk to myself. I find I’m talking to myself more now that I’m on my own.

But just reflecting more and being quiet and wandering around and seeing things rather than being engaged in all the conversations that somehow deflect from where we are and what we’re doing. I love being able to make my own agenda. Sorry, Michel.

Michel, my husband, is my second favorite travel partner now, ’cause I’m my first, and I do love to travel with him, but it’s so nice to be in my own rhythm and doing what I wanna do when I wanna do it, and not doing things that I don’t wanna do. I know compromise is part of any relationship and part of being a person and being around other people, but God, it sure is nice to just be in my own space and be in my own flow.

So that’s the number one thing that I’ve learned. I am good company, and I love my own company, and I love traveling by myself. So I encourage any of you who think, “Oh, I could never do that. I can’t be by myself.” There’s a question in that, I think, as to why we think that. For me, it was this deep-seated sense of loneliness and worry that that was going to throw me into survival or into old coping mechanisms.

And so far it hasn’t. So that worry for me was nada. I didn’t need to worry about that. So maybe there’s things that you don’t need to worry about either.

Okay, number two, I’m learning more what it feels like for me to be in spirit being, so going with the flow as opposed to being in the mental and in those Dastardly Das that I’ve talked about before, the coulda, shoulda, wouldas of things that are supposed to be happening.

And again, that’s that external gaze. That’s that voice of people saying, “Oh, you’re in Vienna, you better see A, B, C, D, and E.” I don’t even know what’s in Vienna. I haven’t done any research about it other than just asking AI what some neighborhoods would be that I might like and what some experience might be that I would like based on the information that I’m feeding AI about myself.

I’ve also learned AI and I have somewhat of an unhealthy relationship. I’m working on that, and maybe I’ll talk about that in another episode.

But going… being in spirit being for me, I’m learning how that feels. It feels easy. It feels relaxed. I have a sense of wonder and a sense of curiosity and joy.

And when I’m not in that space, there’s a little bit of anxiety that comes up. There’s a little bit of all the mental machinations, the coulda, shoulda, wouldas, the Dastardly Das, a lack of trust, and there’s just a lot more noise. Being in spirit being is quiet. And I’m just going and flowing through my day and being able to check in. And when I’m checking in with my body and spirit about what do you want right now?

Oh, I feel happy and joyful, even when I’m sitting on a park bench doing nothing except watching people. So what a gift to be able to have the time and space to tune in to feel what that really feels like so that… and what that doesn’t feel like, what it feels like when I’m not in that space, so that I can start to recognize more when I’m not in that space and shift myself around.

After the Copenhagen crash, I was not in that space. I was hurting myself all over the place. I was banging my head. I was whacking my arm. I’ve got bruises and scabs and I’m a hot mess from that time because I was so caught up in the mental and in all of those things that weren’t my spirit being.

So that’s been an amazing lesson for me and one I’m sure that I’m going to keep learning.

Now, on the other hand, one of the things I’m learning is, oh my God, it’s hard for me to slow down. I really do want to be in that energy of movement because it’s so familiar to me. I have lived my whole life, fifty-nine years so far, being in that space of getting stuff done and checking things off the list and moving quickly.

And since the Copenhagen crash, partly because it’s been so stinking hot, and partly because my back has been sore and I’ve just been in a different space, I’m just moving more slowly, and it feels really good. And I need to gather more of that in my life. Michel’s always telling me, “You need to slow down. That’s why you have this injury and that injury and why your computer doesn’t work, ’cause you keep hitting the button over and over again.” And true fact.

So, but I’m doing that with gentleness because I know that it’s been a long time that I’ve been in this kind of frenetic pattern, and slowing down is retraining my brain and my body and my spirit to be in a different space.

And for some people, me slowing down may not look slow, but it’s slow for me and I’ll learn more about that as I go. And so I encourage you, oftentimes when we’re trying to learn a new practice or learn something, being a different way, we get impatient with ourselves. But it takes a while to learn, and you’re going to step forward and backward, and just using that as a learning experience and using that as a way to gauge your progress.

Because when I think back to, oh my God, there was a time when I would never have been able to just sit for this amount of time, it reminds me how far I’ve come.

Number four. I can’t decide whether four or five is going… I’m gonna say number five first, because one of the things I’m learning is that looking for laughter and wonder is a game changer.

So because I’m doing my Laughter Revolution podcast, and my Laughter Revolution Digest, and all of the social media, Instagram and Facebook posts, finding the laughter and finding the humor, I’m on the lookout for it all the time, and I’ve already talked about what you focus on expands.

True fact. And so I’m seeing the lightness, I’m seeing the positive, I’m seeing the humor, I’m seeing the opportunity for the humor and the laughter. I’m hearing laughter more because I’m paying attention to it. And what a space that is to be in, to be able to help me with all the other learnings that I’m doing.

To be able to be in positivity, to be able to take an experience that could be very negative, and you could go into the negative, and make it funny and make it positive. I think back to, God, it seems so long ago, in Scotland when the train between Inverness and Edinburgh got stopped, and I had to find another way to get to Edinburgh that night, and it was 9:00, and I’d been traveling since 5:30 in the morning.

And finding the two Philly girls who maybe they’re listening to this, and if they are, Hey! And deciding we’d call a cab together, and waiting for a cab, and we laughed and we told stories, and we got to know each other. And then the cab ride was fun, and it was just… it became a joyful adventure.

And I watched other people who were on that train go into survival and into panic. “Oh, my God. How am I gonna get to where I need to go? I had things that I had to do. I’ve got people that I have to call.” They were just in this survival spiral, and there was no fun in that. And I can just imagine how their nervous systems were ratcheted up and how that would make them experience the rest of that day trip experience.

So looking for joy, looking for laughter, it’s a game changer, and I encourage you to start doing it because what you focus on expands, and why wouldn’t you want to focus on joy and laughter and wonder? ‘Nough said.

So then I’m gonna go into what was gonna be number four, now it’s gonna be number five, is a big lesson that I’m learning, and maybe this isn’t the one to end on, but it’s the most recent one for me, is that sometimes I use humor in a way that keeps me stuck.

So I talk about laughter, I mean, my whole thing, my whole schtick is talking about how laughter can get you unstuck. To find out that I am sometimes using laughter and humor in a way that keeps me stuck has been a bit of an eye-opener and a bit of a… I’m gonna say head fuck.

Yes, I did say fuck. My apologies. Not that I don’t swear all the time, but I’m trying to be a little more proper especially here.

Anyway, it’s really messing with my head, and so here’s where that’s come up. So I’ve talked a lot about having directional dyslexia and being directionally challenged, and it’s a true fact. I have trouble with left and right, and I get turned around really quickly.

And I’ve been using that as I’ve been traveling for some funny bits and for some funny schtick and posts and things. But a colleague, a dear colleague, pointed out to me that I am keeping myself stuck in that belief. In using that as part of my humor, I’m not opening up any opportunity for things to be different for me because I’m focusing on that, and what you focus on expands.

And I would like to be better at getting around and not getting lost and feeling more in… I’m gonna say in control of that, but feeling more competent with that, and I can’t do that if I keep using it as the punchline for my jokes. So I wanna shift those neural pathways for myself. I wanna be different in the way I describe that, and I’m holding onto that a lot because that’s a piece of humor for me.

That’s a place I can make fun of myself, and people get it, and they laugh, but I think it’s to my detriment at this point. So I’m gonna call up on my phone because I saw something come up on my Instagram feed of phrases you can use instead of “we’re lost,” and I think I’m gonna use these phrases instead to be able to start to shift that thinking pattern for myself.

“We’ve expanded the itinerary.”

“This counts as bonus cardio.”

“This is an unmarked scenic detour,” and I’ve had a lot of those. And one of the things I love about kind of getting lost is I’m coming into different spaces. I can still do that without perpetuating that belief in myself that I’m incompetent.

“We’re just really committed to seeing it all.”

I love this one. “Technically, every direction is a direction.” True fact.

And, “We’re experiencing an unexpected location preview.”

So I’m keeping those on my phone so that I can refer to them, and I’m going to work on shifting that perspective for myself. So if you hear me joking about being directionally challenged, I encourage you to call me out because it may not be where I need to be, literally and figuratively anymore.

I’m still committed to finding the path untaken as a path unknown or unpreviewed, but I wanna do it in a way that’s more intentional and that frames me as the competent direction finder that I am. So that’s all I’m gonna say about that.

So that’s it for me today. I hope you’re enjoying the podcast.

I hope you will send it out, the link to anyone you think wants to hear a little bit more about laughter and learning and what I’m learning about on my trip.

And I’d love to hear from you. So let me know what you think. Let me know where your challenges are and where you’re using laughter to shift into a more positive space.

And if you know you love the podcast and you wanna hear more, make sure you subscribe so you get an update on when the podcast launches, every other Thursday.

I will have the lovely Monika from the Czech Republic as my guest talking about laughter in the Czech Republic and the US because she’s lived there as well.

It’s gonna be a fascinating interview, so stay tuned for that in a couple of weeks.

If you want to tune into my Laughter Revolution Digest, which also comes out every two weeks, I’ve got some pictures of my trip and some other things that I’m laughing and learning about, and you can subscribe to that on my website at marlasimlett.com.

Follow me on Instagram. I’ve got posts going all the time or on Facebook. And let me know what you’re laughing and learning about.