In this blog about being a car-free family I have previously written about cycling. Cycling is one key mode of transport in being car-free. But cycling is of course not without its challenges. And, in the previous post on cycling I closed with a comment about trying to stay calm whilst peddling your bike.

Look I am no saint on a bike and things can really get under my skin when we are out with the family, and getting close passes by whatever version of motor propelled steel box on wheels. One thing I have tried in the past – with varying success – is what I am calling here ‘meditative biking’.

A while back I listened to a guided meditation recorded by Satish Kumar. I liked it, and the main thing I remembered from it was a process of thinking about breathing as part of meditating – ‘breathe-in I smile, breathe-out I relax’. So I wondered, if this can help me chill out whilst sat at home, could it also help me keep calm on the bike, particularly when getting threatened by traffic?

The short answer is ‘yes probably’. It does take quite a lot of concentration to keep running ‘breathe-in I smile, breathe-out I relax’ through your head whilst on your bike – it is easy to get distracted. However, it can offer a bit of an ‘anchor’ to try to keep calm when engines are revving around and reinforced steel bodies are inches away.

The funniest thing in my meditative bike exploits has been in relation to the focus on smiling in this approach. On one commute as the felt threats got higher, my attempted counteracting coping smile got wider! To the point that one motorist must have thought I was psychotic, or had ingested some chemical that I probably shouldn’t have! Anyway maybe worth a try.