By David Treleaven
A few months ago, a colleague who taught meditation in corporate settings asked for my advice.
A woman in one of his programs had experienced sexual harassment in the workplace, and she was now experiencing symptoms of traumatic stress. When she’d meditate, images and sensations would flood her field of consciousness, leaving her more rattled than before.
“Should I keep meditating?” she’d asked him. “I want to work with my stress, but practicing seems to be making things worse. What should I do?”
This is a conversation I’d been having for years with meditation teachers and practitioners all over the world. Add the #MeToo movement to the mix, and this conversation has become even more frequent and intense.
What should we do when a person in our work environment, or group meditation class, is struggling with trauma? How can we support them? And how prevalent is trauma in the first place?
Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness
From these questions, I developed a framework of principles and modifications designed to support trauma-sensitive mindfulness meditation. A kind of “best-practices” approach to the topic, trauma-sensitive mindfulness is part of an emerging conversation about what a trauma-informed approach to mindfulness and meditation looks like.
But let’s back up for a moment.
Why would people run into trouble inside of a mindfulness practice? How prevalent is trauma, anyway? And what does trauma-sensitive mindfulness actually mean?
Let’s start with the last question first.
Trauma-sensitive, or trauma-informed, practice means that we have a basic understanding of trauma in the context of our work. A trauma-informed physician can ask a patient’s permission before touching them, for example. Or a trauma-informed school counselor might ask a student whether they want the door open or closed during a session and inquire about a comfortable sitting distance. With trauma-sensitive mindfulness, we apply this concept to mindfulness instruction. As teachers, or as an organization, we commit to recognizing trauma, responding to it skillfully, and taking preemptive steps to ensure that people aren’t re-traumatizing themselves under our watch.
The need for trauma-sensitive mindfulness is a reflection of both odds and statistics. Over the past decade, mindfulness has exploded in popularity. It’s now being offered in a wide range of secular environments, including elementary and high schools, corporations, and hospitals. Any number of workshops, retreats, conferences, seminars, and institutes offer mindfulness instruction. Books and articles on the subject have flooded the marketplace.
At the same time, the prevalence of trauma is extraordinarily high. The majority of us will be exposed to at least some type of traumatic event in our lifetime, and some people will develop debilitating symptoms in its aftermath. What this means is that in any environment where mindfulness is being practiced, there’s a high likelihood that someone will be struggling with traumatic stress. From an employee experiencing domestic violence to a person who witnessed something horrific, trauma will often be there. And while not everyone who has experienced trauma will have an adverse response to mindfulness, we need to be prepared for this possibility.
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