A little while ago I asked a life long meditator and family friend how he put into practice his mindfulness skills when driving a car. It was a kind of cheeky question really because I was struck and suprised at how this calm, thoughtful, unflappable character seemed to morph into an aggressive, angry and quite dangerous driver when behind the wheel. He replied that his mindfulness was based on “flowing through the air”. Later I had to scream at him to slow down when we nearly swerved off the road at over 80mph!
More recently I’ve started paying attention to the “voices” in my head as I drive. I’ve noticed that much tension arises from worrying about what goes on behind me. I suspect behind this is a fear that other people will get angry and beep their horns. I’ve noticed that my mind is constantly looking out for what I might be doing wrong and then concocting elaborate defense arguments for the action that I’ve taken that may or may not incur the wrath of another driver. Of course usually nothing happens. But what a lot of energy is used up during this process! I’ve also noticed that if I beep my horn at other drivers, usually I will get a near instantaneous reaction, finger up, beep back or less than friendly hand signal of some sort because I’ve beeped at them. Here’s some helpful hints that I found online on tuning in whilst driving….
http://www.wildmind.org/applied/daily-life/mindful-driving
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/will-baum/la-coping-kit-mindful-dri_b_426575.html
http://bpd.about.com/od/livingwithbpd/a/minddriving.htm
