Safe Travels: A Ritual for the Sky
I’m packing for a trip this week. And as I fold clothes, gather chargers, and dig out my travel pouch, I keep thinking about something that’s been quietly forming behind the scenes.
A small ritual. A moment of calm. A way to come back to myself before I go anywhere.
It’s called Safe Travels™, and it came from a very personal place: years of flying anxiety.
There was a time when stepping into an airport felt like being pulled out of my body. The loud announcements. The artificial light. The people moving at breakneck speed. It wasn’t really the flight I feared—it was the loss of myself in motion.
So I started what I now think of as a travel anxiety ritual. Small anchors: lavender oil on my wrists, a crystal tucked into my pocket, a long breath before boarding, a silent phrase whispered under my breath: You’re safe to move forward.
These practices didn’t miraculously calm the storm. But they offered a sacred pause: a way to reconnect with presence before the rush. And slowly, those pauses formed a rhythm—a soft beat beneath the chaos.
That rhythm became the seed of Safe Travels™.
It’s a ceremony I created for people like me—people who want to feel calm, grounded, and connected while traveling. It’s a pocket-sized ritual for transition, and my dream is to see it offered in airport stores everywhere.
Each kit includes a small piece of Black Tourmaline crystal—a grounding crystal for travel I carry on nearly every flight. Tourmaline is known to absorb energetic static and stabilize fluctuating energy. It serves as a visceral reminder:
“You don’t have to move at the speed of the world around you. You can move from your own center.”
The core of Safe Travels™ is a guided meditation for flying anxiety—crafted in collaboration with ambient artist Jared Nichols. Jared doesn’t just compose music—he sculpts sound.
Imagine textures of wind and water, tones soft but layered, a resonance that feels like light passing through stillness. He wraps every note around the meditation so that, when you listen, you don’t escape. You return.
This isn’t background noise—it’s a presence in transit meditation. When you’re in the middle of a transit moment—waiting at the gate, feeling turbulence in your chest, settling into a seat—you hit play. And the invitation is simple: to breathe, ground, slow, and come back to yourself.
We didn’t want white noise or distraction. This piece is intentional, centered, and deeply rooted in recovery and presence.
Safe Travels™ isn’t just for the sky. I use it when:
I’m waiting to board at a busy gate
I walk off a plane and feel the lift between destinations
I settle into an unfamiliar hotel room
Each moment offers an opportunity: to practice presence. Travel isn’t just movement. It’s a threshold—and thresholds deserve tenderness.
Because here’s what I’ve come to believe: anxiety isn’t the invitation to hide. It’s the chance to return more deeply into yourself. Safe Travels™ isn’t about escaping discomfort. It’s about meeting it with softness, grace, and intention.
When I created Safe Travels™, I didn’t aim to fix travel anxiety. I aimed to create a container: a moment of return, a space to breathe, a whisper of care in transition.
Carrying the Black Tourmaline. Playing the meditation. Lighting a candle if I’m in a hotel at night. It’s a way to reclaim calm—not by avoidance, but by engaging presence intentionally.
A Note on the Experience Pillar
This ritual is also part of a broader vision—my Experience pillar, where my voice lives beyond the screen and into physical space. It’s what I call a voice-forward experience pillar: a space of embodiment, ritual, and real-world presence.
Inside this pillar, we’re creating a collection of in-room meditations, ceremonial kits, and sensory tools for arrival, reset, and reentry. You might encounter my voice guiding a sleep meditation inside a five-star resort. Or hear a gentle welcome in a ceremonial trail carved into nature. Or find yourself grounding through one of our before-and-after touch ceremonies in a spa setting.
And then there’s Safe Travels™—designed not for arrival but for the moments just before. The in-between. The breath before the shift. A trip ritual for presence.
It’s all part of the same intention: to help you stay connected to yourself in motion, in pause, and in transition. Whether through an in-room experience or a black tourmaline travel kit from an airport shop, the goal is the same—presence.
Use it when you feel scattered.
Use it when your breath rises.
Use it before you board—or when you land.
Let it hold you. Let it slow you down. Let it remind you that you’re safe to move forward—without losing connection to yourself.
If you’re curious about the intersection of ritual, space, and travel, I love this reflective piece by The Travel Mind Channel on the art of grounding in transit and how small ceremonies can help create emotional continuity in motion (see Calm Before Takeoff).
As for me—I’ve packed my travel pouch.
My favorite crystal.
Some rose spray.
And this ritual.
Not because I’m free of fear. But because now I know how to return to myself—even while moving.
Safe travels, truly.
