Learning to Live: Philecia McCain on Portugal & Self-Trust
Sometimes changing your life isn’t about becoming someone new. It’s about finally making enough space to recognize who you already are.
After years of working at an intense pace, Philecia McCain found herself returning to a dream she had carried since childhood: living in Europe. Eventually, that dream led her from the United States to Portugal—and into a completely different way of living.
But moving countries didn’t magically solve everything. It gave Philecia the space to slow down, pay attention, and confront a much more personal question: when you take away the pace, expectations, and routines you’ve built your life around, what remains?
If you’ve been craving a different way of living but are wondering whether you need to completely reinvent yourself to find it, this episode is for you.
In this Episode:
Why Philecia’s childhood dream of living in Europe never fully went away
What finally moved her from imagining a different life to actually pursuing it
Why she approached the move to Portugal without needing it to be permanent
What slowing down revealed about the way she had been living
Why changing your surroundings doesn’t automatically change who you are
How Philecia learned to trust herself more deeply
What it means to create a life with more peace, presence, and room to breathe
This isn’t a story about escaping one life for a better one.
It’s about discovering what becomes possible when you give yourself permission to live differently.
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