Why I Believe The Car Is The Best Place To Meditate

Hi,

Team.

The car is an excellent place to meditate.

I'll do a guided meditation on the principles and practices.

That I find the most conducive to inner peace whilst meditating in the car.

But in this video I'd just like to outline my reasons why I find this environment to be particularly useful.

For meditation.

It's an often overlooked area.

We wouldn't ordinarily consider it.

To be a place where we could meditate within.

Perhaps because.

.

.

Of our association with Dakar as a place where we engage in activity and we engage in busyness.

Driving to work,

Driving to pick the kids up,

Driving to the shops,

Etc.

We might associate it with being quite a busy sort of environment.

But that's precisely why it can be so powerful.

As a place in which we can reclaim.

Our attention.

To pull our attention away from this automatic.

Busyness,

Franticness and hecticness of modern life.

To intentionally choose to take.

5,

10,

20 minutes in the car when we're in those transitionary periods throughout the day driving from home to work.

Driving from work to home,

From work to pick the kids up.

Or from their hobbies.

From work to the shops,

These are transitionary liminal periods of time.

And if we're just in our usual habit.

.

.

Of engaging in our kind of autopilot,

Just going through the motions.

We might overlook the opportunity.

That we have to actually just take 5,

10,

15,

20 minutes to enjoy.

A little piece.

A little present.

A little stillness.

When you find yourself in the car,

Instead of just immediately turning on the keys and rushing to the next thing,

What I like to do is just assess,

Do I have five or ten minutes before my next appointment?

Or I might just double check,

Like,

Is there actually a rush?

It's a very powerful meditative inquiry in itself to always ask yourself,

What is the rush?

What is the hurry?

It's a very powerful habit to catch yourself.

In the process of becoming rushed and becoming hurried.

It's powerful to just check in.

So just slow down a second.

Just slow down.

Is there a rush?

Is there a hurry?

You could even have a note somewhere in your car.

It's just a prompt,

Just a little reminder.

Just check,

Is there a rush?

You might find let's just be practical and realistic about this that actually you are under a bit of time pressure So you might reasonably conclude that,

Yeah,

I don't really have the time to actually do a formal practice right now.

And that's fine.

But it was good to check and just make sure.

I would dare to suggest more often than not,

You have way more time than you think.

Way more time than you think.

It turns out there isn't a rush.

There isn't a hurry.

You have five or ten minutes.

Or 15 minutes,

Or 20 minutes.

Everyone does,

At some point during the day.

So this can be a really powerful habit breaker.

It can be a buffer.

Because we might wake up in the morning and have all of our usual stories and narratives that just seemingly automatically crowd into the mind.

And then it's like we jump in the car,

We're still thinking about it,

And then we get to work,

And it's.

.

.

A different set of stories but it's all busy and it's all noisy But if we have the approach where we are intentionally taking these moments each day to reset.

To recentre,

To refocus.

We might have had a busy morning at home.

So it might have been you woke up with a lot on your mind,

The kids were going absolutely crazy,

Or you've got a big day at work ahead,

And it was very difficult to still your mind.

But if we get into the car.

.

.

And literally when closing the doors,

It's like a breaker.

It's right.

So that all stays at home now.

We're going to disengage,

Reset,

Recentre,

Refocus.

Take time to just breathe.

Become very present,

Become very still.

And just allow your awareness to come into the here and now.

And you can set a timer on your phone.

Again,

Five minutes would be enough.

The more time,

The better.

But five minutes is enough to actually prevent this autopilot mode from picking up steam.

By coming into the present moment in this way,

You just allow the body and mind to just become very still.

And then you can actually enjoy the drive to work then.

And when you get to work,

You're actually turning up more refreshed,

More present.

More focused and you can actually engage with work a lot better.

Because you took that five minutes.

See,

Ordinarily we think,

Well,

Yeah,

But I need to be ultra productive all the time.

I really need to grind it out so I don't have time for five minutes to meditate.

But you see that that ultimately has the opposite effect.

It's the busyness of the mind that actually.

.

.

Gets in the way of productivity.

Because you'd get into the car and you'd just be rushing and hurrying the entire time.

So caught up in the mind that you are not present,

You are not focused on reality.

So this is a powerful transmutation.

We are taking a period of time in which we ordinarily are quite busy.

And we transmute it into five minutes of total peace,

Total serenity.

It's reclaiming.

Reclaiming your attention.

So it's not relentlessly stretched out.

Into this chaotic world.

Reclaiming it,

We're pulling it back into ourselves.

To just spend that five,

10,

15,

20 minutes.

Breathing,

Centered,

Present.

And ah.

Now,

This goes a very long way to helping us with our tendency towards anxiety and stress,

Particularly if it's work related.

And by doing this at regular intervals throughout the day,

So the car's one place,

I also.

.

.

Might sound strange but at work you can always take yourself to the loo right and in a cubicle for three five minutes no one's going to ask where you are you've just gone to the toilet right That's another period of time,

A liminal space between other spaces where we can simply reset,

Recentre,

Refocus.

We find we're not actually at the mercy.

Of the busyness and the franticness of the mind.

It's a very natural break point.

In the day provided that we're perceiving it in that way.

So if we're in autopilot mode,

We'll jump in the car and just get driving in busy,

Busy chatter,

Chatter of the mind.

But if we're slowing things down,

Becoming very present,

Becoming very intentional with our time.

And we see the car not as a place of busyness,

But as a kind of peaceful sanctuary in itself.

This is your space.

This is your time.

To just Ensure that you are grounded and centered.

Reclaim that peace,

Reclaim your attention,

Reclaim your awareness.

Your presence of being.

Powerful.

This is very powerful.

We no longer feel quite so at the mercy of the hustle and bustle of the modern world.

Because we've started to recognize we can actually take steps to practically reclaim our inner peace.

So that brings me to another aspect.

Why the A car.

As an environment is very conducive to inner peace is that it's actually quite a controlled environment.

So you might think that I mean,

Right now you can see I'm in a car park.

You think there's a lot of unexpected things that could happen.

It's kind of wild.

But I find that although there's a lot of things that often happen around and outside the car,

Just what's actually happening inside the car?

This is a closed space.

You can control the temperature.

You can control the light to some extent.

Yeah,

You can't control what goes on externally.

But internally This is your environment.

It's very safe When you really,

Really come into this you find it's a very safe environment.

It also might seem like a small thing,

But actually it does really help.

The seats are always comfortable in a car.

Have you ever noticed that?

This is one of the most powerful things that if I'm coming into a guided meditation in the car,

One of the first things I notice is actually just how well designed.

The seat itself is.

Very supported.

Very soft,

It's nice,

It's secure.

There is a sense of groundedness in just that.

It might sound so simple.

But sometimes simplicity is the key,

Particularly in meditation.

It's just noticing,

Wow.

This seat is so comfortable.

The temperature,

It's so nice in here.

Yeah.

Just that on its own.

You can look around.

There's enough going on in the outside world that it's kind of interesting.

But in a way as well,

This is,

I don't know why,

This is just something that's only just come to mind now.

But it's like you become invisible in a car.

Like,

People could walk right past.

Like,

Right now,

Somebody could walk right past the window or in front of me or behind me or something.

Most people wouldn't be aware of my presence in here.

It's like you become invisible.

Nobody's going to come and bother you.

Or if they do,

You know,

They need a very good reason to come and bother you.

Thank you.

This is another reason it's really important.

If you can,

If you have the.

.

.

If you have the freedom to do this,

Turning your phone off in the car whilst you're doing your meditation is really powerful too because nobody's going to come and bother you and nobody can contact you.

So you have this time to yourself.

It's a little bit of alone time.

Just a little glimmer.

Of that peaceful solitude that monks enjoy,

That sages enjoy,

That nuns enjoy Just that small glimmer of solitude where it's just you and you,

Nothing else.

It's just pure awareness.

Yeah,

Never considered that,

Actually.

But yeah,

It's like you become invisible in the car.

So you can kind of just,

There's enough going on in the world around you that it's kind of interesting.

But it's not the.

.

.

Flashing,

The harsh noise and the gaudy imagery.

Of a tv screen or a phone or a tablet or something it's not that kind of Over stimulating.

Interesting.

Particularly if you can find a space where there is something in nature that you can look at.

I'm very blessed where I am now because I can look at some of the beautiful trees and shrubs and flowers and foliage and everything.

But you could find in anywhere.

Again,

This is another very powerful thing.

It's a natural noticing.

Because ordinarily,

If we're stuck in that autopilot and all up in the mind,

You come out of work and you think,

Guys,

Car parks so gray and boring and dull and lifeless.

And you get in your car,

Everything's all artificial now and all electronic.

But if you actually stop.

You stop and look around.

And actually just bring yourself fully into the present.

Something I've noticed in my meditation journey and practice.

There's always something natural you can find somewhere.

In a car park,

It might just be a single tree that they've planted somewhere.

Well,

Just become focused on that then.

You might even just see a plant pot in a window somewhere.

It sounds tiny,

It sounds too simple,

Sounds too easy,

But.

.

.

These are all little moments that help us to reclaim.

Our sense of inner peace and ultimately positivity as well.

Just looking for the good.

Looking for the good stuff.

So we're not.

Up in that negativity biased mind.

We're actually just bringing ourselves and intentionally choosing to look for the good.

Look for the nature so you can always see something.

And by doing this.

.

.

We start to challenge some of our assumptions about the world.

And about our own mind,

And about the way that life works.

Because we're actually courageously,

Intentionally taking the time to not engage with all the narratives of the mind,

But actually just go to your current experience,

The experience in the present moment.

And previously we had an assumption,

There's no way I could meditate in the car because my mind's going to be far too active and there's far too many people about,

There's far too much going on.

But now.

.

.

You can doubt what you think but you can't doubt what you experience.

So even if it's just a minute or two.

Of experiencing peace even whilst in the car.

There is a very powerful transmutation that happens.

The energy and the franticness of the mind transmutes to peace and serenity.

And all of a sudden,

Wow.

OK,

So meditation isn't something that is reserved only for the start or end of the day.

It's actually something I can do during the day.

And this is so liberating.

So liberating.

Because we start to realize that we do have this power.

We are not at the mercy of our work life,

Of our family life,

Of even the psychological world.

You're not at the mercy of these things.

Not if you choose not to be.

But it takes some effort and it takes a bit of sacrifice as well.

Can't just jump in the car and immediately put the podcast on and try to zone out and try to get away and put the music on so we try to stop thinking that way we need to sacrifice just a little bit of our energy to actually know just Really?

Integrate this discipline the discipline to do this as tempting as it is to stay up in the mind to take the mind's biscuit.

That's like the bait of the mind.

It's like,

Well,

Just get involved in this train of thought,

This juicy train of thought.

It's actually,

It takes a little energy to apply the discipline to say,

No,

This is five minutes without thought.

This is five minutes without thinking.

This breaks.

Breaks our addiction to thought.

Thank you so much for listening,

Team.

I'm going to record a guided meditation now.

In the car,

Just on the practices and principles of how I would meditate if I do have 20 minutes to myself.

But I'll put that as a separate video.

Originally,

I was going to mash the two together,

But it would have been too long.

So I thought I'd just do them separately.

So you can always check that one out as well.

It might just give you some ideas of where to get started,

But also then that empowers you to take a few of those principles and you can just come up with what works for you,

Essentially.

Thank you for listening Thank you for following.

Take care,

Be well,

Stay present.