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Ten Ways to Turn Travel into a Spiritual Practiceby Joseph Dispenza
author of The Way of the Traveler
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1. Create a
travel shrine. A simple home altar dedicated to a trip will establish
its spiritual character. Include photos of your destination, reminders
of home, and anything that contributes to emphasizing the trip's
underlying spiritual
nature.
2. Pack virtues. Spiritual provisions are as important as material
ones. Pack in with your clothes 3x5 cards on which you've written
"Courage," or "Patience," or "Forgiveness" -- and you will have these
virtues all along your
way.
3. Keep a "Fear Box." In preparing for a trip, we often encounter
apprehensions (Columbus did!). If a fear crops up, write it down and
deposit it in a "Fear Box." Before departing home, seal the box and
leave it on your travel shrine. Now you will be out in the world
without
fears.
4. Take along gifts. Gifting raises a mere trip into a journey of
adventure and gratitude. Small, inexpensive items from home, will
suffice. Giving these to people we encounter along the way acknowledges
our one-ness with "the stranger" and enhances the spiritual character
of the trip.
5. Keep a "Journal of Feelings." A journal into which we record our
emotions on a trip is tremendously useful. It is one thing to see the
Eifel Tower or Big Ben -- and quite another to "feel" them. This kind
of journal keeps the trip grounded as an interior journey.
6. Close the door. Upon leaving home, walk across the threshold with
awareness: "I am leaving the past behind me. I am sealing the past away
with the closing of this door. Before me, now, lies the future -- and I
willingly and lovingly step into it."
7. Make a triumphal entrance. Arriving back home from a trip, do as the
Romans did: make an imaginary triumphal entrance. This is the opposite
of Number Six -- a way of symbolically ending the trip and realizing
that we have been transformed by it.
8. Tell the story of the journey. After a trip, call your friends
together and tell the story of your journey, showing objects that you
brought back. This releases the lessons of the journey to
the world.
9. Name the trip. You've left the first page of your Journal of
Feelings blank. Now return to it and name the trip: "My Journey of
Compassion," "My Journey of Realizing My Tremendous Importance to Other
People," or "My Journey of Understanding the Value of Family."
10. Be the hero of your adventure. All travel is inner travel, because
wherever we are, we are processing our experiences internally. Remind
yourself that you are the hero of all your journeys, and that all your
travel in the outside world is really travel inward, toward ever higher
spiritual consciousness.
Joseph Dispenza is the author of "The Way of the
Traveler." With Psychologist Dr. Beverly Nelson, he conducts
LifePath Retreats in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. A LifePath Retreat
is a five-day guided program that takes participants on a virtual
hero's journey to encounter and move through the blocks that have been
holding them back from living a life that is more eaningful, more
complete, and more satisfying. For information on retreat dates and
prices, phone toll-free in the United States, 888.667.3873, or email
Info@LifePathRetreats.com. Website: www.LifePathRetreats.com.
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Date Submitted:
2004-01-02 00:00:00 |
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