Returning home after coaching multiple teams through large-scale change, I am early for the last departure. I head straight to the gate, seating myself in a shiny white chair near the desk, as if being closer to the attendants will tether me to wakefulness.
Sleep is already descending—warm liquid heat flooding my body, a slow shutdown, like a computer powering down. Slipping between worlds—between the hum of the airport and the abyss of sleep, between the present and the spaces I inhabit when my body gives in—I grip the chair. I hope that even if I fall asleep, someone will see and wake me in time to board the night’s last call to the sky. This sudden, insistent sleep has crept up on me, uninvited. A force beyond my control.
By day, I was highly functional—drawing insights, holding space, emerging shifts. But Sunday nights at home, sprawled with my three children in our usual nest of cushions, watching Once Upon a Time, my body betrayed me. I wanted to watch, to engage, but within minutes, my middle child’s voice would pull me back—”Mam?”—their face creased with quiet worry. I’d realize I had powered down mid-sentence. I tried again, determined, only to blink out once more, their eyes still on me, waiting.
There must have been tells—little giveaways that I was fading—because they began to catch them before I did. “Mam, I think you should sit down,” they’d say, already pressing a cushion into my side, steering me toward rest. If left alone, I would be found asleep halfway up the stairs.
When they called to board the plane, I am one of the first on. Relieved to make it to my window seat, I scrunch my sweater into a pillow and surrender to sleep.
I awake to the clink and murmured hush of flight service. My seatmates, whom I am noticing for the first time, glance my way as the flight attendant asks if I want a drink. I am clammy, and ask for water. I take the cup, but nausea rises—fast. Pushing it back toward her with an apology, I unclip my seatbelt and stand. My neighbors move quickly to let me out as I lurch toward the aisle.
I barely make it to the lavatory before my body revolts. The flight attendant moves faster than I thought possible, flinging the door open as I crumple inside, just in time.
For the remaining three hours of the flight, still weak and unsteady, I sit on the floor outside the restroom. Despite the black work dress, the tights, the heels. Despite the queuing passengers who try not to look.
Two women compliment my hair. I reach up, half-smiling, half-dreading what I might find. Please, let there be no sick in my hair. Maybe they are just being kind.
The attendant tells me not to bother going back to my seat and even redirects the queue, offering me her jump seat instead. I sink into it, grateful, but as I sit facing the whole plane, nausea still rolling through me, the discomfort of the moment presses in.
So, for nearly three hours, I observe.
I sit there, knees tucked, head resting against the bulkhead, watching the quiet hum of a plane full of people in transit. A span of time long enough to bring nervous systems into sync, to form a kind of collective attunement—if we allow it. Instead, people sit in silos, headphones in, scrolling, absently sipping from plastic cups.
I think of the generosity of the flight attendant, the kindness of the hair appreciators, and am grateful for these outliers. And yet, in that moment, I am also relieved by the general separateness—I wouldn’t want to infect the whole plane with my sorry state!
Musing, I wonder what would happen if we viewed this travel time differently. What if, instead, we leaned into the invisible rhythms pulling us toward each other? If we shared a glance, a smile, a story? What if the quiet symphony of bodies pressed together in the sky is more than just proximity?
If you’ve ever taken off the headphones and engaged with a seatmate on a long flight, you know the potential this dedicated time offers. There’s something about sharing space together over an extended period of time that allows us to connect on more than just a surface level.
Teams often balk at setting aside three hours once or twice a month to develop their co-leadership, preferring the perceived efficiency of two-hour sessions. But I’ve seen it again and again—two hours is not enough. In the few instances I’ve agreed, they’ve always realized they need more.
I know the exact moment it happens. Two hours and 37 minutes into a team coaching session, the energy shifts. A settling. A collective breath. It’s not a failing on our part as team coaches that we need more time, nor a ploy to justify our work. It’s a biological phenomenon.
Bodies, minds, the essence of the team—attunement takes time. Time to re-synchronize nervous systems, to bond emotionally, to deepen trust and coherence—to develop relational resonance.
And yet, as I observe the hush and hum of the sleeping plane, I wonder. Perhaps there is already a small level of resonance. Maybe, in this case, we don’t need to do anything more meaningful than get on and off the plane.
Maybe this is what fairy tales knew all along. The princess under an enchanted sleep, the hero who forgets his past, the land that only awakens when the spell is broken.
Maybe we are all sleeping between worlds, waiting for something to jolt us awake—to pull us into deeper connection.
Maybe the real magic is in staying awake long enough to find each other, in syncing the unseen rhythms between us—neurons in flight, finally in tune.
And it is time I wake up, too. Because on this flight, for the first time, I admit to myself that something is wrong. This is more than exhaustion, the strain of travel, or coaching, or parenting, or existing in the world. I need to go to the doctor.
A Call to Reflect
- Do you ever think about the way you move through the world—singing in your car at red lights, waving too enthusiastically, telling stories at the hair salon, tripping over bag handles, spilling coffee, laughing too loudly?
- Or falling asleep in meetings, at the theatre, at the cinema—somewhere between present and gone before you even realize it?
- Do you ever wonder if maybe—just maybe—your way of being gives others permission to be real, too?
- What if, in three hours of journeying together—whether in the air, in a team coaching session, or through the work of becoming—we let ourselves wake up to each other?
Note: This incident was almost 10 years ago now, so no need for concern! Although my mysterious symptoms remained mysterious, they disappeared shortly afterward.