As we head off overseas for the first time in a while, I notice that the once easy, low stress and almost subconscious task of packing, making arrangements, navigating an airport, the crowds, the queues, the hours of flying is now anything but.
I want to acknowledge the heightened sense of awareness, the slight sense of anxiety and caution with which I packed, left the house and contemplated being away from home.
Which has, of course, become home and office.
My brain is listening to this and now thinking ‘oh, is there something to be nervous of? Let me watch out for that for you…’. It’s priming – an amazing system where we use our unconscious to process the 50 million bits of information we encounter a second and distil it to the 50 (yes, 5-0, not 50,000 or even 500) bits a second our consciousness can actually pay attention to and process. This priming can help us try new thinking and skills, chose new situations and, in this case, reinforce an anxiety that is not even based on anything really threatening!
How can I use priming to help me regain my usual sense of excitement and joy about being in one of my favourite places in the world (um, that would be Italy, not the airport)? By deeply tapping into my memories of being back there. I’ve just completed a 10 min visualisation – actually, more like a 5 senses-isation! The smells, sounds, people, landscape and taste of being back – the feel of the sun, how my heart fills when I look out of our window across the countryside… and remember THAT is why all this travel business is needed. To get there. Respect the process that it took to get out of your house, navigate the crowds, know that you have everything you need (which isn’t actually much) and soak it in when you get there.
