29th Nov 2005

Ms. Theologian takes on anxiety and travel

Dear Ms. Theologian,I often have to travel for work. Typically, I enjoy travel but when I am by myself and on the job, I find airports, airplanes, and hotels lonely and often hostile environments. In fact, I often have a great deal of anxiety in these situations. So much so that I find sleeping and relaxing difficult.

I was wondering if you could recommend any meditations or prayers that might help me through my anxiety when I travel.

Thank you!

Signed,

Fearful of Flight

Dear Flight:

The trick with anxiety is managing it all the time, not just managing it when trying to relax or at night. How do you keep your anxiety level low?

1. Check in with yourself often. Ms. Theologian LOVES The Soul of the World, which is a modern book of hours with prayers every three hours and beautiful photos. It’s small enough to fit in a briefcase (or purse).

2. Avoid triggers. Have you identified what makes you anxious? Not just traveling or hotels, but specific circumstances. Ms. Theologian HATES eating alone while traveling so she always has dates. And by dates, she means friends, not anonymous sex, just in case you were wondering. Anonymous sex would be one of her triggers (oooh, anxiety is already rising, stop, stop, and think of rubbing dog’s belly instead, yes, much more calm).

3. Choose comforting images to guide you. One of Ms. Theologian’s favorite images is that she sleeps in the palm of God (And thank you to Carlos, a priest with whom Ms. Theologian went to divinity school, who gave this image to the class). Ms. Theologian isn’t really sure that God knows that Ms. Theologian is in her/his/its palm during the night, but she’s okay with that. She has even found similar images in other cultures.

A Sudanese Evening Prayer

Now that the sun has set,
I sit and rest, and think of you.
Give my weary body peace.
Let my legs and warms stop aching,
Let my nose stop sneezing,
Let my head stop thinking.
Let me sleep in your arms.

From Prayers at 3 A.M. (out of print, but sometimes available used).

Rest well,

Ms. Theologian

This entry was posted by Ms. Theologian on Tuesday, November 29th, 2005 at 10:14 am and is filed under letters You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Ms. Theologian takes on anxiety and travel”

  1. November 29th, 2005 at 11:14 am Myfanwy Collins Says:

    I travel a lot and feel this same way. Thanks for all of this info. It’s very helpful!

  2. November 29th, 2005 at 11:18 am Stephanie Says:

    I used to travel ALL THE TIME. God!