Have a travel objective.
“As you walk and eat and travel, be where you are.
Otherwise you will miss most of your life” Buddha.
A famous American Buddhist lama, Surya Das put it simply, we scurry through life, we dwell in memories of the past and plans for the future but rarely are we fully present in this very moment. We miss beauty right in front of us. We miss sadness. We miss the texture of our lives. We miss the truth of our experiences from moment to moment. As I thought about how I was going to approach my precious nine months and my three-month sojourn to Europe, I knew that I wanted to absorb and appreciate every moment. I didn’t want to miss a minute.
I knew that by approaching my time mindfully, my journey would be medicinal and necessarily slow to absorb every moment and every location in a respectful and engaging way. I would enjoy the journey and while I reflected on how I was feeling, reacting and get to know my soul for real.
While I was stepping into some of the most beautiful places on the planet I would be on a personal journey of discovery of my mind, body and soul. What a challenge. What a privilege.
A ‘How To’ Book
There’s a book written about how to do everything right? I was looking for a book that would guide me on how to design my journey so that I reaped exactly what I wanted from the experience. A book that took mindfulness and applied it to travelling. After hours of searching Amazon I came across a book called “The Mindful Traveler – a guide to journalling and transformative travel” by Jim Currie.
Jim says “Mindful travel awakens the senses. Colours are more vibrant and electric. Sounds are brighter and stirs and inner song. Images race across our inner screens as we sense that we are part of an unfolding drama”. It’s ticking my boxes. Hmm should I be ticking mindful boxes or enjoying the learning and the touch of every page as I turn to learn a new lesson – I’ll get the hang of this…
Oh my god. As I turned the pages of Jim’s book I discovered that he had a whole chapter dedicated to “Intentions and Objectives”. This chapter had advice, tables, processes and everything to discover my very own travel intentions and then provided a guide about how to set objectives to arrive at an even deeper intention. Was this guy reading my mind? Did he know that I had lived my entire life via a table, a process and set of objectives? Mindfulness and objectivity – who would have thought you could combine the to. I was sold.
After hours of jotting ideas….
Diligently I set about applying the process. I spent hours thinking and jotting ideas about why I wanted to travel and what I wanted to get out of it. I knew I wasn’t interested in the type of travel advertised in brochures or on TV. I didn’t want to tick tourist boxes. I knew I wanted to travel mindfully, find myself, enjoy beauty and deliver a challenge.
Here’s what I came up Mr Jim Currie. I hope you are proud!
My basic interest was to travel to Europe and see the things that everybody else raved about but I determined that my real objective was…dah dah:
“A spiritual and courageous journey to confidence”.
That felt right.
Part 1. Release me from my pantomime
Part 2. A mindful journey to confidence – you are here
Part 3.