Mindfulness: 10-minute grounding meditation, on a plane

About this practice

Nothing to learn and nothing to fix: 10 minutes of grounding for mindfulness, on a plane. A guided session of about 10 minutes, suited to all levels. Nothing is recorded and no account is needed.

What this works on: mindfulness

Attention spends most of its time in the past or the future. Being present is not a state you find, it is a return you keep making.

It tends to show up as:

• Missing conversations while composing replies
• Arriving somewhere with no memory of the walk
• Eating without tasting

Every return to the senses is a repetition of the actual skill. Losing it is part of the practice, not a break in it.

Doing this on a plane

• Use headphones, and keep the seatbelt on
• Bring a layer — being cold works against settling
• Skip alcohol; it makes the alertness worse

Cabin noise is constant and will mask the audio more than you expect. Try the headphones before you settle in.

How grounding works

Grounding brings attention to physical contact and the immediate environment. It works on the principle that the body cannot be somewhere else, so contact with the surface you are on is always available as an anchor.

• Feel the contact points — feet, seat, back — and let them take your weight
• Use the senses deliberately: what you can see, hear, touch
• Return to solidity whenever attention drifts

What happens, minute by minute

1. 0:00Part of you is still in the last conversation you had. That's fine. It can sit here too.
2. 0:16Press down slightly and feel the push back. Your body already knows where it is.
3. 0:30Now let your attention move from the room into your body, slowly, the way you'd move through a doorway you know well.
4. 0:48If it helps, imagine your attention is a torch beam. Right now it's wide and soft.
5. 1:03Breathe as if you had all evening. There's no rush in this part.
6. 1:16Notice your breathing getting quieter on its own, without you deciding anything.
7. 1:29Feel the tops of your thighs.
8. 1:39Let the whole of your left foot be heavy.
9. 1:50Feel your heart somewhere in there, doing its work without instructions.
10. 2:02Feel your calves, front and back.
11. 2:12Picture the present moment you keep leaving as a weather front passing over. You are not the weather. You are the sky it moves through.
12. 2:31Imagine the here-and-now your attention skips as a room you can walk out of for a minute. The room will still be there.
13. 2:49Notice how quickly your mind labels things: good, bad, boring, nice.
14. 3:01If your mind has gone somewhere else, the floor under you has not moved. Start from there.
15. 3:16I'll leave a gap here. Use it however you like.
16. 3:28Notice the tone of your own inner voice. Is it kind?
17. 3:40The floor is holding you right now. You do not have to hold yourself up.
18. 3:54Let's rest here in silence. It's short.
19. 4:04Notice how you're sitting. Adjust if you need to. Then settle again.
20. 4:17Name what you can see, hear and touch. Counting senses is not a distraction; it is the practice.
21. 4:33A short silence. Let it be empty.
22. 4:43Notice any part of you that wants this to be over.
23. 4:55Count four breaths silently. Then stop counting and just follow.
24. 5:07Keep following the air.
25. 5:16Feel your upper arms hanging. They're heavier than you remember.
26. 5:28Notice if your breathing is faster than you expected. Don't correct it. Just note it.
27. 5:42Stay here a little longer.
28. 5:51Now the right shoulder. Let it be a centimetre lower than it was.
29. 6:04Let the breath be slow enough that you can hear it, just barely.
30. 6:17Stay with it.
31. 6:25Notice your pelvis resting on the surface below you.
32. 6:36Feel the air move past your upper lip. It's the coolest spot on the way in.
33. 6:51Silence for a few breaths. Nothing to do in it.
34. 7:03If you catch yourself fighting the ordinary present tense, that is worth noticing. The fight usually costs more than the feeling.
35. 7:20Notice how the present moment you keep leaving changes shape when you stop resisting it. Usually it gets smaller, not bigger.
36. 7:37Follow one full breath from the moment it starts to the moment it ends.
37. 7:51Whatever the here-and-now your attention skips is doing right now, your breathing can keep going underneath it.
38. 8:06Notice if you're waiting for something to happen. Nothing is scheduled.
39. 8:18If you're bored, stay with the boredom for a moment. It's usually thinner than it looks.
40. 8:33Let's pause. Just the breathing for a while.
41. 8:44Feel the contact points — feet, seat, back. That contact is the whole anchor.
42. 8:58Stay a moment longer than is comfortable.
43. 9:08Let your jaw, shoulders and hands be loose as you finish.
44. 9:20Let the last of the stillness stay with you for a few more seconds.

Questions people ask

Meditation is a practice, not a treatment. If you are dealing with ongoing distress, please also reach out to a professional.