What one-quarter of the public dreads most about the holidays is travel. Could consciousness make this easier?

It may seem counterintuitive if you’ve been a student of the metaphysical types who recommend such steps as “closing down your crown chakra when you enter the subway so you won’t absorb that bad energy.”

However, Access Consciousness founder and best-selling author, Gary Douglas, advocates increasing your consciousness and awareness to ease your holiday travel and the rest of your life.

“Is there such a thing as ‘bad energy’ and ‘good energy’?” he asks. “No, there’s only energy!” Being as aware of it as possible can definitely ease your holiday travel blues. Judging which energy you wish to accept and not accept as good or bad locks you into judgment, which diminishes your awareness. Being as aware as possible can actually contribute to creating the smoothest possible journey, Douglas has found

If it’s airline or travel industry employees you’re dealing with, Douglas recommends pulling energy from them. You don’t have to visualize, you just have to ask energy to flow from them towards you. It may surprise you, but the feeling of having your energy pulled is experienced as pleasurable by most people. Madonna and Angelina Jolie pull energy like crazy. We get the feeling of having our energy being pulled by watching them, and that’s one of the reasons we enjoy being their audience.

Airline and travel industry employees get plenty of angry energy pushed at them all day long, especially when there are travel delays and other complications. Douglas, who travels extensively teaching seminars worldwide, has found that pulling energy and being conversational, very polite, and asking questions can accomplish a lot. “Everyone who approaches these people is angry, and none of them ask questions,” he has noticed. When he approaches their desks, he turns on a megawatt smile, says hello, and asks them how they are doing. He pulls energy from them, which gives them the feeling of being received rather than being battered.

If you’re willing to consider that you might really have magical powers, you could try your hand at calming air turbulence. This only works if you’re not vested in the outcome, but it is amazingly easy to do. If the fasten seatbelt light comes on and the air gets choppy, just project a feeling of level calmness outside the plane in all directions. Chances are good that the ride will calm down and you’ll soon forget it was ever turbulent.

For all of these methods to work, it is most helpful if you are not vested in the outcome.

Douglas and his business partner, Dr. Dain Heer, learned the importance of not being vested in the outcome the hard way on one trip home from Australia. They had been working flat out for 30 days and decided they deserved to fly home business class. They tried to upgrade their coach seats using miles on every airline where they were frequent flyers, all to no avail. Only by being a new ticket at the last minute full fare were they going to be upgraded.

They noticed they were being vested in the outcome and changed what they were asking for. “What if we asked for the greatest trip home we could possible have?” they asked instead. They did not get their upgrades, but they spent an enjoyable uninterrupted time together on the trip, and had the only empty seat in the whole plane between them.

What would it take for your holiday travels to be the greatest trip you ever had?