How to Have a Mindful Journey?
For an amazing mindful journey, you need to be mindful of your surroundings. You may have been too busy on your journey to get the next itinerary, rushing to buy a ticket, arriving on time for a flight, and hence forgetting to enjoy the moments of your trip, and when you come back from your trip, you are more tired than before traveling. Let’s not miss the opportunity to learn more about traveling with a peaceful mind.
What is it to be Mindful?
According to Diana Winston, Director of Mindfulness Education at UCLA University’s Research Institute, Mindfulness means paying attention to the present moment and experiencing it with freedom, attention, and interest. According to her, the capacity of our minds should not be wasted in the past or in the future and should be spent in the present in order to be less passive.
In her opinion, a conscious tourist has an accepting role. He or she is a person who respects cultures and makes no effort to hold to his or her existing culture or knowledge, and tries to make a traveling experience as an amateur without any subjective assumptions.
The Benefits of Having Mindfulness
According to many successful travelers, mindful persons enjoy more moments. They are straightforward with their emotions, ready for more experiences, and do not live life out of habit and automation. Such people are flexible, natural, honest, and usually comfortable with different situations. These people are much less involved in stress, making more progress, making less emotional and irrational decisions, and more comfortable and easygoing than others. Thus, these individuals would have a successful mindful journey and have less stress when moving to other locations.
Steps for a Successful Mindful Journey
In order to have a successful mindful journey, travelers need to adhere to many steps in order to be calmer and know what is happening around them while traveling to other destinations.
- Stop: Whenever you feel you can’t go on or you have some troubles, remember the word “stop.” Letter S is for Stopping a Minute. The letter T is for Taking a few deep breaths. The letter O is for Observing your experiences. And finally, the letter P is for Processing with something that will support you at the moment.
- Do not rush things: Try to look for a better opportunity to spend time rather than being in a hurry. Sometimes drinking a cup of coffee or a meal can help ease things in your mind.
- Feel with your senses: Sometimes, the best way to eliminate the thoughts that prevent you from enjoying the moment is to focus on your five senses. Consider speaking with foreign tourists or observing the sunrise and sunset, or maybe tasting some spicy food.
- Lay off social media: Make real connections with people and the environment.
- Capture the real events for yourself.
- Practice with yourself throughout your daily life. Mindfulness is a constant, uninterrupted process; the more you go along with it, the more you will enjoy the moments.
At the end of the day, many travelers need to reduce their stress and be present at the moment. That means that the excitement of traveling should not cause travelers to lose grip of what they need to do and plan their journey with details. Next, the process of traveling can sometimes be not pleasant, and many things can happen. Therefore, on your journey, be prepared for any inconveniences, but at the same time, enjoy the process and cherish every second of your journey. Those memories will be long-lasting and good for storytelling.
