♥DAILY LOVE TIP – Wednesday March 23rd, 2011
I’m writing again…finally! Thank you for your patience and for showing up again to read. Interestingly enough, guess where I’m writing? We have left Australia again!
We are in a plane about half way on a 13 hour flight between Sydney and Los Angeles on our way to the United States. What is this telling me I ask myself? I am feeling both distressed and embarrassed that I haven’t been writing. Distressed – because one of the most exciting experiences at the Kerala Retreat for me was that I created a new habit
New habit
where I was able to write every day. I was so happy about that! Writing is a high priority for me and my goal and intention with the blog was to write every day wherever we are. At this stage doing a daily post takes me about 2 hours and adding another 2 hour task to my already full and busy life since we’ve returned from Kerala hasn’t worked.
And I’m embarrassed I tell myself (or my critic tells me) because I am exposing ‘my short-comings’ publicly – again.
I remind myself one of the TOOLS in our TOOLBOX is that when we try new behaviours we see doing them as Experiments.
And what I have learned from this experiment? I have learned that I need to make an appointment and schedule into my diary each day my 2 hours of writing time. And the reality is to do this I will have to cut out doing some other things. And I’m not sure how do-able that is on the upcoming cruise so I will ‘play it by ear’………………
For those of you who don’t know our first destination on this trip is Miami as that is where we board the cruise ship The Norwegian Dawn to go on a 10 day Southern Caribbean Cruise which includes doing the full 5-Day Basic Training with Donna Eden in Energy Medicine – www.innersource.net In fact it is the major reason we are doing the cruise…even though we do love going on cruises!!
……And that was all the writing that was do-able on the flights. I was too tired or too cramped or I had run out of battery or all 3!……but….
Arriving at Miami Airport!
What an Air Travel Marathon – at long last we arrived!….12 o’clock-am it says over the loud speaker…. WELCOME TO MIAMI the sign says……at the baggage claim waiting, waiting for our cases……Surprise, surprise!…..I actually find somewhere that I can sit…..Not often the case in airports…….Maybe they use some sort of logic that we have been sitting so long in planes that nobody would want to sit down!! I find a corner to perch myself on and pull out a scrap of paper and start writing as I am so tired and so hungry and so sore and so grumpy and soooooooo grumbly and when I’m like that I am not very nice… in fact, NOT nice at all… It’s hard for me to be kind and nice when I am over-tired and grumpy….short and sharp would best describe it…
Writing is good as it engages my frontal lobes…….and if I write about things I start noticing how I am focusing on the negative which is good because then there is less chance that I will dump it all over he-who-is-closest-to-me….that is, my darling Shelton….who really has been so loving and kind and has carried (as he always does) the lion’s share of the luggage – AND don’t forget!! – has been on the same trip as me and has longer legs than me!!
I am going to indulge my grumbly self and let that part of me write about ‘the glamour’ of travel…..I need it right now!….. Our trip, according to Shelton, has taken about 36 hours overall – yikes!! How could we have been so unconscious or stupid or both to have booked such a trip let alone “endured it”?? It’s a verrrrrrrry long haul…….
We left Perth on the red-eye at 11.30pm on Tuesday night which took 3.5 hours to Melbourne, then 6 hours in Melbourne airport (thanks so much Zoe for coming to visit and helping us to pass the time), 1 hour to Sydney, 13 hours to Los Angeles, 3.5 hours to Chicago and then 2.5 hours arriving into Miami at 11.30pm!! And then adding in the disembarking and embarking and getting from one end of the various airports to another and going through security and the wait time in between and waiting in countless lines…. Mind you we were very blessed and did get 4 seats across on the Sydney to LA ‘leg’ so we could stretch out across the seats and do some ‘serious’ napping/sleeping even though there was lots of turbulence and was bumpy a lot of the time. Bumpiest flight I can remember from Australia back to LA and we’ve done a couple per year over the last 10 years. United Air as a carrier is soooooooooooo basic after our recent Indian trip using Singapore Air!!
You think we would learn having flown so many times and remember when we book tickets not to take schedules that include such marathon flights/routes…. I was gob-smacked when I looked at our itinerary…..which by the way, I hadn’t checked out until arriving at the check-in counter at Perth airport….. Going from LA to Miami via Chicago is like going from Perth to Melbourne via Cairns!! There is logic in their routes in that each airline has their hubs and Chicago is one of United’s. Grrrrr!!…..Arghhhhh!!
I‘ve so had enough of being cramped with limited ability to stretch my long legs, enough of not being able to sleep properly for the last 36 hours……enough of airline and airport food and having run out of “my healthy food” that I prepared… tired of stupid airport floors – who would design miles of corridors with carpets on them which makes it hard to pull bags on? – so many miles walked in airports…… Noticing there is pain in my body…..especially after 2 weeks of not exercising – my groin, my foot…it makes me limp, my pace is slower…I don’t feel as strong…… I have to really intentionally tell myself “I can do it”. I visualize my “I can do it” steps……
It’s now well past 12 o’clock am….still waiting and then the loud buzzer announcing the conveyor belt is starting to move and the cases begin to spit out….it always puzzles me how when a plane lands that people hurry and scurry to get off and quickly walk to the baggage claim where they invariably end up waiting and waiting for the luggage….
I am always amazed at the amount of airports we go in and out of and that we get to the end of our flight and our cases are there for us at the baggage claim!! It’s a miracle all the people looking after us and taking care of things behind the scenes in any industry and I always marvel at this each time we fly……
In fact there is a very naive part of me that still marvels looking at planes how they even ever get off the ground!!…….but we won’t go there now…
Cases collected and the shuttle whisks us the short drive to the Hotel and we get a check–in gift of a giant warm chocolate chip cookie – Doubletree Hotels’ “signature” apparently! Shelton is delighted. His favourite. The room is inviting and comforting….in fact, a great room and hurrah it has a bath so I indulge and have a soak with aromatherapy relaxation and soothing oils for about an hour (which includes having a snooze in it) and finally to bed in a great bed at 2.30am and a great sleep!!!!…..
Questions for you: What do you do when you get grumpy …….or you are tired and overstressed and the negative things feel like they are piling up?
I do appreciate your indulgence of me grumping and grumbling :O)…. from a now renewed and positive Susie again, with love and gratitude xx
susies♥heartpathblog 
Hello to the gorgeous Susie
How come with all the traveling you do, you don’t go business class or belong to lounges that have fresh healthy food? Massage and that sort of stuff? Why take a chance on getting 4 across? Why not use all those ‘extras’ that airline/airports are promoting. What about doing a workshop on a cruise that takes you to America? Maybe old-fashioned travel is a better option, workshops on long distance trains- Sorry, it’s Jupiter my planet of expansion getting the better of me :0) Just struck me that maybe its an option?
I’m at a yoga retreat in the blue mountains with Swami Saravasati – remember her from way way back on TV? So I have lots of time to ponder your question, yes I bought my laptop, very glad as it’s a very strange type of yoga retreat- I may find myself grumbling before long!
I think I try to find one aspect of all those things feeding my grumpiness and start at that place. eg smelling the trees while it pelts with rain, making sure I have dry socks, being warm, otherwise I feel overwhelmed and worse – even more grumpy. I try to catch the spiral down before its too deep. I’d also eat Shelton’s cookie as well as my own. love to both Hilary
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Hi beautiful Hilary – who I imagine is looking even more beautiful and lithe and supple given that you are at a yoga Retreat! I do remember the Swami’s name but not being a “yoga person” have had no personal experience of her. Hope you have a great time and your retreat doesn’t get any stranger…..or that you have to grumble :O)
Thanks for your offering of ‘options’…. I do like the idea of doing a workshop on a cruise that’s takes us to America……or in fact, cruising anywhere is OK with me…..:O)…. I feel so grateful every time you send me some comments – it is like I am often taken to the different chats we have had where we have been each other’s sounding boards or tossing around so many topics and pondering on the ‘meaning of life’…..it’s great to have the blog to keep a sense of connection to each other…
And yes, like you others think with all the travelling we do it would be easy for us to go business class. The reality is to be going business class we would need to be paying many thousands of dollars per ticket or having truckloads of frequent flyer points which would mean that we would have to be flying lots more – like every couple of weeks to amass them. In fact on this trip, I did fly from Perth to Melbourne business class so that I could get a reasonable sleep in the beginning of the trip but unfortunately it didn’t really make much difference overall.
Your comments are reminding me that we did have an exciting and somewhat strange encounter in that we ‘met’ this guy standing in line waiting to go onto the United flight in Sydney. We were at the end of the line in the gangway/walkway near to the entrance of the plane waiting to board the plane and he was going on about being a “very” frequent flyer – said he had millions of frequent flyer miles with United and we only had a very quick interchange with him and we said what do you do with all those and he said he gives them to his family. He then said anytime you want an upgrade just email me and I’ll give you some miles!!!! And this was after about only a couple of minutes of talking and then we were getting on the plane and he was going to the left to First class and we were going to the right to the back of the plane without any email address.
We hastily said we’ll talk further on the flight and get his details but when Shelton tried later they wouldn’t let him into the First class area of the plane….. but Shelton, not to be defeated, speedily made his way to the baggage claim when we arrived and caught up with him and got his email address. So all we have to do now is see if he means it by asking him for an upgrade through his miles back to Australia. Let’s hope (or I guess I need to be saying – let’s visualize) he is ridgey didge!…If this guy comes up with free upgrades it is worth flying with United again! Maybe this is the power of the Law of Attraction. I have actually been thinking of what I need to do to effortlessly be able to fly business class. I haven’t been able to allot much time to focusing on it yet but maybe the energy has started flowing…Let’s hope. No! It’s – let’s imagine ourselves experiencing our return flight effortlessly and comfortably…..in business class. And by the way, I don’t like chocolate chip cookies so he ate mine….teehee xx
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Hey Susie, can’t imagine how you cope with all that international travel. I love the idea of the adventures, but don’t think I would handle all the flight times and the yuk airport food etc. Hope the cruise is great. And I am very interested in the energy medicine course. I did something like that years ago but it was only a weekend. Very interesting though. Look forward to hearing more about it. Have missed chatting to you and hope to catch up when next you get to Oz.
Love Glenys xx
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