Spending money learning to be mindful? Meditate on that
Calm, an app that promises to help users sleep better, boost confidence and reduce stress and anxiety, was valued at $250 million last week
Ihave never meditated and I don’t exactly know why. I can’t really think of a reason why I have stayed away from it. Yet last week, I recommended meditation to a colleague who was sharing how she’s had a tough year. My exact words were: ‘May be, it will bring a certain sense of calmness to your day.’ I don’t know where the conviction or words came from. Perhaps from the fact that everyone around me is recommending it as the ‘it’ activity to deal with the increasing stress in life. My reluctance towards meditation is partly due to my natural instinct to stay away from anything that’s trending. I am yet to watch Game of Thrones, 50 Shades of Grey and Harry Potter. I have a lot of catching up to do. But when I look around, I notice that all those who were playing with fidget spinners as stress relievers a few months ago are now meditating. Meditation apps are likely to make colouring books for adults passé. Calm, an app that promises to help users sleep better, boost confidence and reduce stress and anxiety, was valued at $250 million last week, according to CNBC.
Am I against the journey towards mindfulness? Definitely not. My concern stems from our overall ignorance and healthcare consumerism. The rise in stress and anxiety levels in our lives makes it imperative we take out a few minutes from our daily lives to experience silence; but are we adopting it before learning anything about it?
What is meditation?
“Meditation takes you back to you, connecting you to what you are feeling and thinking at that moment. I often tell my clients to think of it as a ‘date with yourself’! If you are not in touch with your potential, dimension, et al — how can you use it well?” says Rania Abdel Ghaffar, a UAEbased Happiness and Relationships Educator (rania-the.com). “Even sitting in silence is a form of meditation. Any singular experience can be meditative: reading, eating, bathing, writing, praying, chanting, and even watching television,” shares Ravi Sabnani, founder, CQ Innovation, a consultancy agency. “For me, meditation is painting at night — when everyone else is asleep. I experience the same sense of calmness when I practice photography,” says Sonu Sultania, an artist-photographer who frequently travels around the world to capture the sights on her canvas and camera lens.
Are we equipped to meditate?
“Mindfulness has definitely become a rare commodity. Unlike other subjects like math and science it’s not taught in most schools. Neither do parents really teach hand it down to us. So, people are happy to pay for it. Or read about it. Or like me, use an app (Headspace) and push myself into it,” says Sabnani. “Visiting yourself is easy for some and challenging for others. It is like being in a bubble and working towards eliminating everything else until it’s just you left in there. It is important to know the methodology. When I help people understand who they are, it helps them focus better. We need to remember that what distracts me will be different from what distracts you. We need to learn to gain focus, identify the most comfortable position to meditate in, and learn about the right way of breathing,” says Abdel Ghaffar.
The herd mentality
We suffer from a herd mentality to turn to celebs for health advice. However, we don’t really turn to doctors for entertainment? Steven J Hoffman, the lead author of a paper on the subject in The British Medical Journal says, “We need to rethink and better understand where people obtain their health information and what makes them act upon it.” Says Sabnani, “Technically, there is no wrong way to meditate. But I don’t think it’s a fad. I think people are trying to learn more about being calm, mindful in the current world of information overload, social and work pressures. And not knowing about something always has its pitfalls.”
It’s selling
On the weekend, I was watching Wild, Wild Country, a Netflix documentary series based on the controversial Indian guru Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (Osho) and the community Rajneeshpuram of his followers in Oregon. In one of the episodes, the cult leader Ma Anand Sheela says, “Meditation has become marketplace, it is a product.”
The words since then have been echoing in my head. I may be absolutely wrong, but is meditation the new kale? It is also listed as one of the top ten start-ups to invest your money and time in. “In our world, everything turns into an industry. But, at the end of the day, we don’t need to spend any money to meditate. What we need is a ‘million-second daily life activity’ and not a billion-dollar industry,” feels Abdel Ghaffar.
So then, meditation is both a booming business and an intelligent mental aid. And like most things, it’s up to us what we make of it. We should consume it in the right dosage, manner, combinations, et al; much like kale. The silver lining: “You should avoid being led mindlessly, but even if you do still you will end up following the path to mindfulness,” says Abdel Ghaffar.