By Shannon McQuaide
In the last four weeks, a small group of firefighters interested in learning meditation has assembled online. It started with a request from a single firefighter and almost overnight additional firefighters have approached me with a similar request-–can meditation help me?
The answer is yes; meditation can help you, but only if you meditate! It’s like any other skill you want to develop in that it requires that you spend time training your mind to focus, to pay attention. And meditation is not limited to sitting a cushion. For instance, yoga requires that you pay attention not only to the contents of your mind but also the sensations produced in your body through conscious breathing and movement. That’s why yoga is considered a moving meditation. At the same time, not everything is meditation. For instance, my husband likes to say that running is his form of meditation. My response is, running could be a form of meditation? The Buddha said all life is suffering, and then devoted his life to alleviating suffering through mediation. If we were to use the Buddha’s life as a barometer for meditation, if running alleviates suffering, then it is a form of meditation.
Mindfulness has become synonymous with mainstream meditation, but it is also a way of being. You practice mindfulness with the aim of becoming mindful. Over the last month, I’ve emailed our growing group of fire meditators resources on mindfulness meditation from UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center, TED talks on how to tame our brain, and recommended an App called Headspace.
This week I took a very big risk and e-mailed the group an audio recording of “Metta” or “Loving-Kindness Meditation.” Loving-Kindness is a meditation to cultivate our propensity for kindness for others and our self. Why is this a big risk you ask? Because for years I thought it was absurd to mentally send myself goodwill, kindness, and warmth. Why would I want to be kind to myself, I thought? Surely I haven’t done anything to deserve special treatment. But then I read some research on the role of compassion practices to potentially quiet the symptoms associated with PTSD, specifically to reduce the emotional, alienation, and sense of “deadness” in relationships–all of which loving-kindness may reverse by the cultivation of positive feelings towards others.1
Learning about benefits of compassion practices, I decided to investigate it. Each morning for the past several weeks I have practiced loving-kindness meditation, and I have been astounded by the results. I have found myself to be less intense, less driven, and looking for more opportunities to have fun. I have also found my conversations are not as hurried and that I am more generous with my time. Probably most interesting is that I wake up and look forward to this practice. It does not feel difficult or like work. Rather, feeling kindness toward myself feels perfectly natural and beneficial for all aspects of my life.
To receive weekly meditation resources from me, just email shannon@fireflexyoga.com and use join in the subject line.
Reference
- Goleman D, and J. Richard Davidson. Altered Traits: Science Reveals How Meditation Changes Your Mind, Brain and Body. Avery, 2017.
Shannon McQuaide is a registered yoga instructor with Yoga Alliance and the founder of the FireFLEX YogaTM program. FireFLEX Yoga was developed through her work with the San Jose (CA) Fire Department, where she continues to lead FireFLEX Yoga classes. She is a certified functional movement trainer and has a master of arts degree in leadership and psychology. Shannon@fireflexyoga.com http://www.fireflexyoga.com.
