The Wellness Train
I remember a while ago at Liverpool St station, someone pushing past me and running for a train that wasn’t due to leave for ten minutes. It was half empty so he wasn’t rushing to get a seat, why was he running and pushing past me? We were catching the same train, did he think he’d get there before me?
Then the realisation came, this poor man was likely in a permanent state of running and my guess is that even when he’s seated on the train, he’ll still be rushing inside. already onto the next place before the train left the platform. Never rested always agitated.
For me, train journeys offer the perfect opportunity for a little mindfulness. All you have to do is remember to get off at the right stop, the rest is taken care of. It’s all out of your hands, leave the getting there to the driver and for the next hour or however long your journey, go nowhere and be here.
Instead of reading the newspaper, which is really mostly fiction and designed to cause you to upset and distress, how would it be if you did nothing for a bit? And you can put that damn phone away too, it’s mostly mindless distraction and it’s not good for you, really it isn’t.
You could start with a quick body scan, anchor yourself to the present moment and come alive to now. You could do the looking out of the window meditation, I’ve done the train journey into London maybe 1000 times, but every time I do it I see something new.
See if you can resist the temptation to describe compare or even label what you see and see with your eyes, not through the words in your head. You’ll never get bored there’s so much here, the miracle life is here now, how can you be bored? Boredom is being here and wanting to be there. See if you can be here for the whole journey because even when you get there you’ll still be here and if you are there rather than here you’ll miss everything.
See if you can forget you are going anywhere, be always here, never going but always arriving. You can turn the stress of getting there into the joy of arriving and when you reach the destination carry that mindfulness with you.
If you are up for some train mindfulness, why not join me on the wellness train on May 7th – Teaching mindfulness on a train – It’s a first for me but how could I turn down an opportunity like that? Join me
