Mindful travel allows us to explore with eyes wide open, transforming sights into insights, challenging our perspectives, and turning every journey into a learning experience.
Travel comes in many forms, tourism, getaway, exploration, soul-searching. As I often say, travel should not be just about the destination (the “where”), but about what you will find there (and how you relate to that), and especially how to transform these sights into personal insights. In this sense, travel is an excellent opportunity to practice mindfulness, challenging our perspectives, and opening our minds to new possibilities, which is the essence of Travel Coaching. The following are just a few ways to engage in mindfulness while travelling.
Step 1: Actively observe your surroundings.
Look beyond simply what is there, and wonder what may lie underneath the surface. Allow and encourage the mind to wander, to contemplate, to dream. If possible, close your eyes and let your other senses absorb your surroundings. The sound of the call to prayer, the smell of a summer lavender field, the taste of curry in the open market, the texture of silk fabric on your fingers.
Step 2: Be aware of how this trip affects your feelings and body.
What feelings are stirred through the new and strange sights and smells you encounter? What memories are evoked? Which parts of your palate explode by the new exotic tastes? How the morning mountain dew feels on your skin? How is rampart poverty affecting your stomach? How deep the bass sound of Buddhist chants resonates inside you?
Step 3: Accept equally both “positive” and “negative” experiences.
A destination is not just the tourist showcase, and we should actively search the true nature of things. Poverty, crime, discrimination, war, hunger, low quality housing, stressful living. We should accept these images and experiences, in a non-judgmental way, and try to learn lessons from them. This does not mean we are endorsing them, simply that we are willing to explore them as facts.
Step 4: Acknowledge that your perspective is not a universal truth.
Your fleeting thoughts while travelling are not necessary your truth (let alone a universal one), and may not even reflect your core values and beliefs. Which other perspectives can you find along the way? Which things/situations you thought as difficult/strange/fearful you managed to overcome and experience in this trip? How well did you connect with local people and their point of view?
Step 5: Discover and explore your core values.
Is this trip on par with your own personal values and beliefs? Do you experience what you want to see, or what others want you to see? Which parts of the trip felt most important and most in tune with you? What did you find while not searching for it? How your beliefs are challenged/affected through this trip? Which destinations are you inspired to explore next?
If you are looking for something to help and inspire you before embarking on your first mindful trip, this is an excellent course on mindfulness, especially suited to battling anxiety and depression in our daily lives.
https://caring-mindfulness.thinkific.com/courses/mindfulness
