Improving relationship with travel pt.2

Amazing, thank you so much for these helpful hints! This is what came up when exploring your promts:

• What would you like to think about it?
Something along the line of: Travel enables me to live the life I want.

• What would you like to think about yourself as you travel?
I´m pursuing progress in two areas of my life that are very important to me, my relationship with my parents and advancing my career.
I am relaxed, at peace and in my centre regardless of other people close to me, general ugliness of the surrounding, noise and smell. None of this affects me.

• If you knew you had a purely neutral or transactional relationship with travelling, what would be different about how you approach and experience it?
What comes to mind are many things that are bothering me now and would not exist with a purely neutral relationship.
I would book travel with ease, follow my intuition of what works for me in the given context, not overthinking it.
I would not be stressed about it from the booking process onwards.
I would not bother the day(s) before that I have to leave my favourite environment to have a stressful experience.
I would go on about my life unaffected by the upcoming travel until I actually have to go to the airport or train station. Having packed my bag in advance and everything ready to go, obviously.
There would be no need to recover from too many sensory inputs on my own (not hiding in my beloved cave in the woods, so to speak).

• How would you care for yourself before, during, and after?
That is something that I feel annoyed by: The more I travel the more time I need to spend on my own, recovering from too much input. This makes me avoid quality time with friends or even my partner before and after – another negative side affect. This is how travel takes up a lot of space in my life, even when I´m not currently travelling. Maybe you have another insight for me here :).

Before:
I´d make sure the schedule is doable, no super early or super late things messing up my sleep rhythm.
Packing my things in advance to have everything ready to go.
Going to the gym, doing my routine.
Having an eye on not being sleep deprived – ie. no late dinners or events the days before
Having suitable beverages and food that is nourishing and healthy for my body to avoid the usual crappy travel food.
Having my noise cancelling earphones charged and ready
Doing an ayurvedic vata-reducing oil massage before shower the day before and the morning before travel.
Eating vata-reducing foods the day before and during travel.
Avoiding caffeine as it makes me more tense and annoyed.
Taking my favourite hand cream because I like how it smells
Taking a sleep mask and/or a hoodie
Having a good audio book and/or podcast ready to keep me distracted
Travel light – don´t take too much stuff to carry around
Limit travel duration to a timespan that is doable for me – depends on the occasion
Schedule meetings ahead and avoid wasting time and overloading schedule.
Leave dinners early enough to maintain my good sleep patterns.
Avoid travel during times of my cycle when I´m more prone to stress, but also not overloading the times I´m enjoying quality time with friends and partner most.

During the flight/train ride to the destination:
Leaving the house early enough, but not too early
Focusing on “glimmers”
Thing positive thoughts about the trip
Using the NC earbuds with audiobook/podcast
Writing something or reading something very interesting
Avoid looking at people where possible, avoiding eye contact
Avoid talking to people more then necessary, while being friendly
Take a taxi instead of public transport within cities and kindly ask to turn off radio
Eat nourishing, rather oily, vata-reducing foods
Remind myself that this trip helps my with the two important aspects of my life.
Nurture gratitude that I don´t have to walk or drive the long distance – saving me so much time.
Nurture gratitude that I don´t have to do more than showing up on time, getting to my seat and sitting there until I reached the destination. Appreciation for the service of getting shipped from A to B without doing anything myself.
Nurture gratitude that the trip does not cost a fortune because so many other people are taking it, too. We all share the ride, so to say.
Do my evening routine/drining my favourite morning tea
Maintain my gym routine via day passes on longer trips (very regulating for me)

After
Taking a day of two off work with no meetings and obligations. Maybe I feel like work, but maybe I´m in need of recovery in a different way.
Asking myself what I need on that day and do it.
Prioritizing sleep, nourishing food, suitable movement (depending on what I need that day)

• What opportunities would you create by having this kind of relationship to travel?
I think that this is so key to having a neutral relationship, maybe even a positive one. This prompt also reminds me of how careful and intentional I must be (and want to be) with my travel. And how limited I will remain here in terms of quantity, but that does not have to be a bad thing.
Opportunities with my family:
Spending quality times with my parents as long as they are still here, not just visiting when a big drama happened and someone is very ill or alike.
Building loving memories with my mother and my father.
Assuring each one that they matter to me, I care how they are doing, and appreciate them just the way they are. Also receiving this from my mother and father. They are physically unable to make the trip themselves and I´m not sure I would want them visiting because then, everything evolves around them and us for too long. We did not have the best relationships and circumstances in my childhood but have been working on improving our relationship over the years.
I don´t want it to be too late to say and let them feel that I love them despite whatever happened or didn`t happen. Looming death has the power to put everything into perspective and focus on the here and now.
Opportunities regarding my career:
I´m not sure I could have gotten away with living so remotely pre-covid – this was great for me. Now, there is a movement back to more personal contacts and it is more or a mix of online and personal contact. That´s just the reality of it. While I´m getting away with very little personal contact in general, it cannot be zero and has to be more than during the previous year (close to zero), for sure. At the end of the day, it all comes down the quality of the relationships, the trust in getting the tasks done in the required quality (or better).
To maintain a good quality of existing relationships and to build meaningful new relationships, I have to meet in person, too. Here, the question is the interval and how many meetings are realistic in a certain time frame, because the quality is important.

In general, a neutral relationship to travel would enable me to conserve my resources (instead of getting stressed/upset, which is a total waste of energy) and go for what I want in an intentional way.

Thanks so much for your help so far – looking forward to the next round of refinement. 🙂

 

Answer:

 

You have put so much loving and reflective thought into this response! I’m in awe! Notice how taking time to dream up your ideal relationship to travel feels and what it creates space for…feel free to take some stock of how the experience of just imagining how it could be was for you.

I’d like to focus on the thought, “I am relaxed, at peace and in my centre regardless of other people close to me, general ugliness of the surrounding, noise and smell. None of this affects me.” Let’s start small. Right now, these things do affect you (and that’s okay – let’s acknowledge the reality of it!). I wonder how trying this thought on feels to you: “At this time, I am learning how to become relaxed, at peace and in my centre regardless of other people close to me, general ugliness of the surrounding, noise and smell.”

If you gave yourself the space to be a beginner with traveling again, what adjustments would you make for yourself?