Panic to Peace: Lessons from Travel Turmoil
I was confused.
“What do you mean by you can’t check me into my flight?”
“I am sorry, it says that you do not have an Australian visa and thus you can’t board this plane”
“No! The website says that if my transit is less than 8 hours, I do not need a visa.”
My hand was trembling slightly and I can feel blood rushing to my face.
I frantically tried to search for the screenshot I took of the criteria and showed the lady at the counter.
My heart is panting. This must be a mistake.
She took a look and repeated
“I am sorry, but you cannot board this plane unless you have an Australian visa.”
No, no, no. This can’t be happening.
I have been really looking forward to this trip and it is a very important retreat for me.
I was supposed to travel to New Zealand via a transit in Sydney.
I was 3 hours early at the airport so I frantically tried to get my visa sorted out. It’s just a transit! Damn it.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work out.
At 75 minutes before the plane took off, I had to make a decision.
I bought a new set of tickets via a different route, with much longer layover and miss half a day of my retreat. It was a very expensive alternative.
Instead of a 16 hours’ journey, it ended up to be a 30 hours’ journey.
The ticket was double the price I initially paid.
It’s either this, or I miss more days of the retreat.
I wanted to tell you that I was calm through the chaos.
I wasn’t.
I was panic, angry, frustrated, annoyed.
When I was finally on the plane, I wasn’t at peace.
I was slightly relieved, yes.
Yet, I was also sad and feeling guilty.
I was beating myself up.
The inner critic was strong.
“Damn, the Australian eTA only cost AUD 60.
Why didn’t I just applied it back then?
Why wasn’t I more prudent?
See? Now you are spending so, so much more.
You should’ve just applied it back then.
Were you taking a shortcut?
See? Now you are paying the price.”
As I was navigating through my emotions, I was reminded of a few things.
One – Acceptance and letting go is always much, much easier in theory, and if we are advising other people.
“Just accept it and let go”
When shit happens, it’s so difficult.
So, if you are finding it hard to accept and let things go, don’t feel defeated.
You are human, just like me.
It just means that we shall keep strengthening the acceptance muscles to focus on what’s within our circle of control and let go of what’s beyond our control.
As all these were unfolding, yes, my inner critic was strong. Yet, I also had a very conscious voice inside.
“Hey, It’s okay. You can earn the money back. You are missing only half a day rather than missing the whole retreat.
You cannot change the past, just focus on what you can do right now.”
Yes, I was still feeling the pinch of what happened. But I stopped aggressively blaming myself and I was much, much more at peace.
Secondly – Asking “Why” repeatedly while you are stressed is often VERY unhelpful. Especially when things did not happen as per your expectations.
There’s helpful “why” and unhelpful “why”.
You can ask “why” to find out the root cause of the problem. That is a helpful “why”.
An unhelpful “why” may sound like this –
“Why didn’t I…”
“Why must it happen at this timing..”
“Why me…”
“Why is she like that..?”
These “why”s do not have an answer.
It doesn’t help.
A better question would be:
“It happened. What can I do now?”
When you keep asking “why did it happen to me”, you are arguing with reality.
You can never win.
It will only aggravate your sense of guilt and put you into a victim mode.
Instead, you can try to accept that it happened, and then focus on how you can act moving forward.
Emotions last for about 90 seconds if you do not keep feeding more information to keep the emotion alive.
When you kept asking the unhelpful “why” – you are feeding more thoughts to keep the unpleasant emotions alive.
Want to know if it’s a helpful why or unhelpful why?
Just pause and ask – Will this “why” question help me solve my issue at hand?
You would be surprised by how many unhelpful “why” questions we ask ourselves.
Thirdly – Life cannot be lived in hindsight. You can only live life forward.
In hindsight, there’s too much “what if” and if you keep looking back, you may be filled with regret and worse, guilt.
It’s not fair to judge your decisions in hindsight.
Perhaps you would’ve made a different choice given a second chance.
However, we don’t have a time machine. We can’t turn back time.
For many of us, the painful times are the ones that shape who we are and form the foundation for beautiful times ahead of us.
The stories we tell are often the mistakes we made when we were younger, how we overcame them, and perhaps even laugh about it.
I know, I know.
Sometimes you want to kick yourself for some of the decisions you made or actions that you did.
Well, always remember that you can learn and move forward.
Even if you are tempted to keep looking back and wish how things are different, you are much better off focusing on what baby steps you can take now.
Be kind to yourself, be gentle with yourself.
A long reflection, signing off with a beautiful picture of Lake Wanaka.
May you be well, may you be happy and may you be free from suffering.
With love,
TJ
PS: This happened 3 weeks ago and thankfully, I am now safe and sound back home 😊
PPS: If you resonate with this reflection and find it helpful, share this with your friends and family. It will be a gift to them. They can choose to subscribe to the upcoming newsletters here.
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