Meditation at Work
Why set aside time each day to sit quietly? I mean, we’re
all pretty busy these days, and taking time out to do ‘nothing’ seems pretty
selfish. There are still references to ‘navel gazing’ in some sectors of our
Western culture, and worse yet, taking time during a busy workday... that's just counter-intuitive!
I remember going to
look for a job after coming out of a long retreat at one point; I’d spent the
previous year recovering from a back injury and doing a lot of meditation
practice. I’d ended that period with a two-month retreat. I was exuberant about
my practice and very dedicated. I was in awe of the transformational power of meditation. I was doing volunteer work was working on
an Excel file and scrolling through a spreadsheet; when previously all I’d
ever seen was a blur as I scrolled, this time I saw each individual cell stand
out in crisp relief as I whizzed down the columns. It was pretty amazing; I was able to focus and see things
at an entirely different level, both physically -as with the spreadsheet, visually- but
also on a comprehensive level.
Anyway, I was pretty passionate about all of
that, and when I went to interview for a job I talked a little too much about
my meditation practice and what I'd been doing, thinking they’d see what a great benefit it would be to
have such a reliable, honest and effective person working for them; things I
felt that a dedicated meditator personified. So I was pretty surprised when the
woman interviewing me seemed concerned and asked me, “You’re not going to be
meditating at work, are you?” Ummm... Hmmm. Ok, so she didn’t have a clue what
it was all about. Lesson learned (well, sort of anyway… I’m kind of a hopeless case on this theme… )
Rather than understanding that having a meditating employee would actually be a
great benefit to her organization, she saw it as a liability. Sad. (Next!)
I realized then that most people who aren’t familiar with meditation don’t
really understand what it’s all about. They think meditation is an escape or
that meditators are space-cadets or just ‘out there,’ as much as mindfulness is
popular these days, meditation is still not always considered mainstream.
Many
don’t get that meditation practices, especially mindfulness, are not only an
enormous benefit to the meditator, but that having an employee with the skills
of meditation can affect the interactions of those around them as well as the
bottom-line for the organization. (Nevertheless, I tried to talk a little less
about my meditation in subsequent interviews…)
However, happily, more and more organizations have seen the
effects and the numbers and are offering mindfulness training as part of their
benefit package, Google has even created its own mindfulness program called ‘Search
Inside Yourself’. A few other large companies offering mindfulness programs include Aetna, Genentech,
Ford, Target, Adobe, Goldman Sachs, General Mills, Apple, Nike, Proctor &
Gamble, Huffington Post and AOL.
In general, mindfulness training not only improves personal well-being, but studies also have shown its positive impacts on relationships, productivity and health outcomes. Mindfulness meditation in the workplace has
been shown to decrease sick days and healthcare costs, as well as increase focus and productivity. Research has indicated that for care-giving professionals such
as doctors, nurses, psychologists, social workers, hospice workers, etc., mindfulness programs decrease burnout and increase skills in patient-centered communication (which translates to better patient outcomes). I would
hope that it has become harder for an employer to begrudge an employee a few
minutes of meditation throughout the day for the benefit it reaps all around. There's an old Zen adage that says, "You should sit in meditation for 20 minutes every day, unless you're too busy, and then you should sit for an hour!" Which just might have been an early version of a corporate slogan recognizing the benefit to the bottom-line.
Meditation – at least mindfulness meditation – isn’t selfish
at all. Mindfulness meditation is a practice of awareness. Supporting the
cultivation of a greater level of awareness, focus, and balance should be a
no-brainer for any employer. When we become more self-aware, we become better
able to respond to internal stressors as well as to the people and situations
around us, and, as we all know, it’s difficult to attend to others when we aren’t
able to attend to ourselves.
