Meditation: Calm, Timed Meditation Length: 10 minutes (plus) Where: On the plane, coming home to LA from MI How It Felt: A little stressful
I thought I would be efficient yesterday and meditation on the plane. I was in that awkward time where the movie you watch is finished, and you still have an hour and a half left or so. You aren’t really sure what to do with it. It’s too short to finish another movie (especially once they start making all the millions of announcements in the last half hour- did you know you’re landing? You’re about to land. You’re getting ready to land. Landing any minute now! Really, put the tray tables up, landing is happening. Aaaaand….. you’ve landed!)
Maybe you have a good book- I did, but my iPad randomly unloaded it after a chapter or so. You could watch a dumb show. You wish you could sleep. You just want off the plane at this point. You’re done. You want to stretch and take a hot shower and order some comfort food and take your bra off.
That’s the state I was in when I decided to meditate!
Unfortunately, I hadn’t downloaded very much, so my offline options were slim. “Say Yes to Life!” seemed a bit aggressive to my tired brain, a session I downloaded for another plane ride on another day, a day where I felt more adventurous. An outbound flight to somewhere exciting, perhaps?
There was meditation for anxiety, which was the opposite of how I felt. I didn’t have energy left to be anxious.
Of the remaining options, I chose an unguided timed meditation, thinking I’ve been practicing for almost nine months now. Certainly I could bring myself back to my breath for ten minutes?
Planes are distracting places. It was great to pause and breathe, even if it was into my own mask. It was nice to let my brain rest, even if it took advantage of the silence by trying to rapid process everything from the past week. It was a good idea to take advantage of my free time to fit a meditation in, but the plane was so loud in the background, I couldn’t hear the beep that signaled the end. I was also aware of how loud the plane was, so I kept wondering if it would beep soon, worrying it already had.
I have no idea how long I meditated, but I never did hear that beep!
All the same, it was a win for fitting in meditation no matter how busy or hectic the day may be. And now I’m home in LA with no plans to leave anytime soon (yay!) unless it’s for a cool job or opportunity (yay yay!), and at least when you fly for a job, they have to fly you first class. I’m totally over the creepy crawly feeling of flying during a pandemic with people all shoved up against you.
Vaccinated as I may be, Comfort Plus notwithstanding, love for humanity acknowledged….
People are gross! And loud. And they really love to talk to strangers about how their son is a doctor, complete with detailed biography.
Basically, commercial flight is a slightly OCD introvert’s idea of hell.
Am I grateful for it? You bet! Do I realize how much privilege I have to even afford a plane ticket at all? To be able to fly around my country and be all free and even get free almonds? Yep! It’s amazing and I know I’m lucky.
Still not my idea of a great time. But, oh, I did miss traveling, and I’m very grateful we can do it at all with everything going on in the world.
My Year of Meditation 