Get Unstuck When You’re Stuck (in Bad Weather Traffic)

Fact: I love winter. I can’t get enough of it. (Really, I don’t know why I just don’t move back to Alaska, or Maine, or get really brave and give it up for my fave northern place, Newfoundland.)

Fact: I live in Cleveland. Here, we are at this moment under a winter storm warning that will last at least 30 more hours. 6-10 inches of snow is expected.

Fact: This has me very excited, but I know I am in the minority, for (I hate to complain or sound like I am pointing fingers) many of you who live in this fair city--have lived here for a long time, even--hate winter or are pretty bad winter drivers, or both. I understand. That’s why I am writing.

For the duration of the storm, many of us are going to be stuck in bad weather traffic, like it or not, for there is a thing called work, and many of us have to drive to get there, and then get back home again. Allow me to now share a few tips with you to help you get unstuck from the sticky traffic sitches you’ll likely face. The key is to treat your commute, when it’s in bad weather, like you are in a groovy yoga class on wheels. Allow your transport to be transporting in the best, safest, calmest, most om’ish way.

1) Cover your survival bases. Take water, a blanket, and crackers with you. Have enough gas and windshield wiper fluid in your car.
2) If you have a favorite CD or i-pod playlist, take it and play it. Play it softly, beginning while you’re just starting out on your wintery journey. For storm driving, I highly recommend calm and serene music like Krishna Das “Door of Faith” or some tunes that make you so nostalgic in an easy-breezy way you just kick back, relax, and deal.
3) If you are in such a bad stuck-traffic sitch that you are in fact in your car but traffic is not moving enough to notice, listen to your music and watch the snowflakes falling or flying. Note all the shades of wintery colors around you. Try to invite a connection in your mind between the music you are hearing and the nature that is in motion: snow, trees, snow.
4) If you feel the slightest agitation, anxiety, or anger rising in you as you sit, crawl, or drive along, practice long deep breathing through your nose. This is the classic yoga breathing exercise that helps us use more than our upper lungs to breathe. When we breathe in and out slowly, evenly, and deeply through the nose, we get a lot of oxygen in the body, which calms the mind and slows the heart rate. When you breathe in, let your shoulders and chest relax and allow your belly to expand. When you breathe out, let your belly sink.
5) If you think #4 is too hard, weird, or distracting, practice it while you count slowly and methodically in your mind: Inhale 1, 2, 3, 4. Exhale 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on. This gives your brain something to do while it isn't needed to drive but a foot every minute or so.
6) If you’re so stuck that you want further unstuckedness, make a game of your breathing. Inhale a four count, but say in your mind a one-syllable word four times or a two-syllable word twice instead of numbers, and repeat on the exhale. Example: (inhale) Peace, peace, peace peace. (exhale) Peace, peace, peace, peace. Example: (inhale) Sum-mer. Sum-mer.(exhale) Sum-mer.Sum-mer. In yoga, this is called a mantra. Mantras are repeated sounds or words that through their repetition put you into a blissful zone, get you unstuck, and bring you balance and perhaps even a feeling of oompf.
7) See all cars that surround you as fellow drivers on the same road in the same sitch as you. Cultivate the awareness that you are in bad weather with all those others around you, so you might as well be as kind and patient as can be. Even if people show rage and demonstrate scary and bad driving techniques, try not to make it your point of notice. Send them well wishes in their driving escapades and return over and over to your yogic driving practice.
8) Think Om. Think Om.
9) Do not text. Do not talk on your cellie unless it’s an emergency and you’ve stopped your car.
10) Stay present: one with the weather, on with your calm, and one with the road.