Shining a light on meditation, trauma and living with wisdom!
Imagine you are living in a very dark room; life is generally ok, but you do have strange bruises on your shins from bumping into things and a terrible sneezing problem.
As a psychologist and meditation teacher, I sit at the very interesting intersection of science (and the world of evidence-based practices and techniques) and wisdom traditions (and the depth of understanding regarding what it means to be human).
As the amount of scientific research into the efficacy of meditation as a tool to support our mental health increases, together with our understanding of what offering a trauma-informed meditation approach might look like, I have been deeply pondering the question “Is meditation for everyone?”
If you had asked me this question 10 years ago, the answer would have been a straight out YES. Back then, I was a meditation and mindfulness evangelist. I would maneuver every possible conversation towards the topic – I am pretty sure people started avoiding me at parties for the fear of being told how they “should” be living! But, with the passing of time and the growing of wisdom (hopefully!), some profound life experiences of my own and some additional reading, training and teaching, I have learnt that the answer might not just be YES, it is more likely to be YES, “and”…..
The “and” is rather nuanced and quite delicate with many layers to it. I will try, however, to explain the “and” as best I can for you.
The truth is, research tells us that meditation IS good, it is helpful, but it may not be MORE helpful than other things we can do for our mental health and general wellbeing. It may not be wise for us to replace our other coping tools (such as exercise, good sleep, and high-quality relationships) with just meditation, but I contend that it may be very wise for most of us to add it to our tool kit. Especially now, in a world with so much pain and in need of so much healing. Our outer world reflects our inner world so let’s start there.
Meditation, however, may not be appropriate for everyone, all the time. For those of us with a profound trauma history, meditation can be useless and, in some cases, damaging if not explored with caution and as part of a holistic approach to healing. However, we must be careful not to “throw the baby out with the bathwater” and continue to invest time and energy into both research and education when it comes to this powerful, profound, and age-old tradition. To explain this concept further, let me share a metaphor.
Imagine you are living in a very dark room; life is generally ok, but you do have strange bruises on your shins from bumping into things and a terrible sneezing problem.
You are not exactly sure what is causing the bruising or the sneezing but, you have learnt to live with them and manage them as best you can. You use an ice pack on the bruises and take antihistamines when the sneezing gets unbearable but usually, you just try to avoid the areas of the room where you have noticed the bruises and sneezing get worse.
Then, one day, you invite a friend over. This friend asks if they can turn the light on - the room is so very dark, they say they feel you might be able to see more with some light. This friend has read a lot of books about turning lights on and in fact, has turned on many lights in the past. You are sure they would do a good job, but you still say, “no thanks, I like it this way” and so, for the time being the light stays off.
The next time the friend visits however, they ask again whether you would be happy for them to turn the light on for you, and this time, as they ask in a way that is kind and understanding, without judgement and with great curiosity, you say “Oh, OK, let’s give it a go”.
So, on flicks the light.
For the very first time in your life, you see that the little room you have come to call home, is not only full of furniture that you didn’t know was there, but also completely covered in dust. Now, it is very likely the furniture is what you have been bumping into in the dark and the dust is partly the cause of your sneezing. You notice the corners where you become most sneezy are completely covered in a grey powder! But you also notice that your room is part of a much bigger building and even though at times you felt alone, you never really were. This is a big surprise!
Now, you have many choices at this point, a couple might be:
1. You can say “thank you friend, but this whole living in the light thing is just not for me!” and simply carry on with your life the way it was, this is of course completely your choice.
2. You can become angry with your friend as they were the one who switched on the light and you were very happy thank you very much, just living your bruised and sneezy life. You keep avoiding the furniture and taking your antihistamines and promptly turn the light back off and ask your friend to leave and not come back.
3. You can thank your kind friend for showing you the true state of your room and then perhaps ask for their help to either move the furniture around a bit and clean it or get in professional cleaners. You understand this rearrangement of furniture and cleaning might take some time, but you are prepared to do the work and get in a roll up your sleeves. As the sorting out and cleaning goes on, you learn to navigate more effectively around the furniture in the room, you even remove some pieces that are way too small for you now that you are an adult! As the dust clears, you might be able to reduce your reliance on the antihistamines or, perhaps one day, stop them all together. The discovery that your room is one part of a much bigger building brings you great relief and support.
In this metaphor, the room is our mind, the furniture our unconscious habits, the dust is our traumas, pain and neuroses, the corners are the really scary parts of ourselves, the friend is a meditation teacher, the light is meditation, the ice-packs and anti-histamines are our exit strategies (alcohol or addiction or medication or whatever we take or do to avoid seeing our habits, ourselves and our lives clearly), the professional cleaners are psychologists and other helping professionals (body workers, doctors, psychics etc.) we might work with to support and facilitate our healing. The big building we are part of represents the connection we can start to feel to the world around us once we meditate – a sense of belonging and a sense that we are never really alone.
The key message here is that meditation, per se, is unlikely to actually create the pain that can sometimes be revealed when we begin to practice. Once “the light is on”, we can start to see all the parts of ourselves that we may have been working so hard to avoid. We see the sad and lonely and anxious parts, but we also see the loving, joyful and grateful parts. The truth of emotional numbing is that it is not selective – when we avoid feeling the more challenging parts of being human, the more beautiful parts of being human get dialed down too. The further gift in all of this is that meditation might just introduce us to the possibility that we are an integral part of the whole tapestry of life and help us feel connected and supported – even in our most difficult times.
So, is meditation for everyone? Well, the answer is Yes and there may be times it is not appropriate. Furthermore, our approach needs to be tailored to each individual and their unique needs, there is not a one size fits all approach to meditation.
If you are looking at learning to meditate yourself, do it with a 1:1 teacher (or coach/therapist) or in a class where you can ask questions. Integrate it into your current plan for good mental health and wellbeing (good sleep/nutrition, exercise, and positive relationships) and make it a daily habit. My deep hope for you is that the light of your own awareness and love will guide you in your life and bring you many years of connection, joy and good health.