I’ve written before about my friend who calls flying “the ashram in the sky” because of all the ways in which air travel challenges us these days.  I recently went on a trip across the country and, throughout five different flights, I had many opportunities to bring my spiritual practice to the immediate moment’s experience.

One of my flights that was supposed to be three hours turned out to be eight, and that offered me the first and most intense opportunity to practice mindful living – to practice being in just this moment, with what was the inescapable fact of the moment.  It had to do with thunderstorms, refueling part-way to a destination, and not too much food.  I kept reminding myself that I was in the ashram in the sky, and that the delays and missed connections all offered opportunities to surrender to the “what is” of the moment, and to move through it without becoming overly stressed.  Spending the night at a hotel in Dallas without luggage offered yet another level of practice.  

Throughout the journey, I found myself consistently and continuously grateful to have been exposed to mindfulness practices, and to have them as tools I could use as the day, and then the night, moved along without arriving at my destination.  I found myself feeling relieved that I’ve had countless opportunities over many years to practice allowing distress and stress to arise, move through, and move on.  My recent journey reinforced the notion that it’s important to do mindfulness practice when we’re not in a high stress situation so that the skills are available when life presents us with stressful situations we can’t escape.

And so, for this week’s experiment, I invite you to take a look at your own mindfulness practice – not necessarily mindfulness meditation, per se, but to check out your ability to move through a present moment you can’t change with a minimum of stress and/or distress.  And, also notice whether, if you are distressed, you’re able to move through that experience without adding more to it because of struggling for things *not* to be as they are.

If you’re not someone who likes to sit and meditate, you can apply mindfulness practices in many other ways.  For example, you can wash dishes knowing that you are washing dishes – experiencing the temperature and quality of the water, feeling the texture of the dishes – really being there.  Or, you can know you’re walking when your walking, know you’re listening when you’re listening.  The key is to be present and conscious at the same time.  As I’ve said again and again, once we’re present, and know we’re present, we have choice.  Rather than just react, we can respond.

As with all the experiments, have fun playing with this one.  For instance, if you find yourself in a stressful situation – stuck in traffic, caught in a long bank or movie line that doesn’t seem to be moving, being under a deadline and not being sure you’ll meet it, notice what happens when you allow yourself to be with the situation as it is and soften into it.  When we give up struggling with things we can’t change, we open up a tremendous opportunity to lessen stress.  Sometimes we can even find humor or lightness when we are free to fully experience the “what-is-ness” of the moment and our oh-so-human responses.