by Amy Friedman
While I don’t personally know what the stress of combat entails, I can imagine why the veterans that I meet with keep coming back to sit together in meditation week after week. I have had the privilege to share Mindfulness Meditation with veterans every month for the past six years. Many have returned on those Thursday afternoons to learn ways to manage their stress response, create non-judgmental awareness, and absorb a community of support. Some have come out of curiosity or a recommendation from a friend. They return because it helps them navigate life’s ups and downs and find ways to slow down enough to respond versus react.
It is here that we spend time together in shared silence and stillness, absorbing sensations, settling thoughts, sifting through emotional states, and practicing coming back to the present moment again and again. A practice that is simple but certainly not easy. We learn how to use mindfulness to calm the nervous system and create alternatives for choice to emerge; choices based on empowerment and agency versus fear and caution.
At the end of each session, we share our insights and what is present in our hearts and minds. I am repeatedly reminded of the gift of sharing mindfulness in a community setting. The veterans share their applications of these practices to aid in sleep, relationships, family situations, and with body ailments. Like one veteran said this past month, “that practice felt just like putting on a perfectly fitting baseball glove,” it heals and meets them exactly as they are.
