A Quarterly Magazine for RAF Families
by Hagar and Clare Macnaughton W
ithout sounding like too much of a hippy, when Clare suggested a meditation day for
veterans and those returning from ops in Afghanistan, the first thought that went through my mind was ‘I am not a veteran and I haven’t just returned from AFG!’ But then, as Clare also said, I am a stressed out bunny right now. So, as I am an enlightened, open minded Serviceman, I thought I would give it a go... Not afraid of trying it, just afraid of liking it…
Clare. I was contacted by Catherine at the London Meditation Project because she wanted to connect with military partners. Catherine had posted her meditation day invitation on the forum Rear Party and quite frankly it went down like a pint of cold sick. Nobody signed up. We spoke on the phone and she invited me along to a day for veterans. I jumped at the chance. I make no secret of my feminist hippy values and I am always open to new ideas and new ways of thinking. I love the exploration of the new. I obviously reserve the right to disagree too. I dragged Hagar along. He’s a stressed out bunny right now and he was willing to check it out.
The day was fascinating. I truly loved every second of it. Catherine sent me some questions and so I am going to answer them for you. I want you to know the feedback is honest and fresh.
Here goes…
What drew you personally to want to explore meditation? I don’t know. I didn’t know what it was but ultimately, I was looking for some calm and reflection in my life because I am feeling burnt out and raw.
12 Envoy Summer 2011
Any comments on the way the facilitation worked?
I loved the centre. It was intimate but yet still clinical enough to not be insincere.
How was the hospitality? Did you feel comfortable in the place?
What needs do you think meditation could help meet for military service people and combat veterans? I think we all need to take some time out in our days, in our lives to stop and reflect on why we are who we are. This time for reflection is priceless and yet there seems never to be enough room in the day to make it so.
How was the meditation teaching for you? Was it clear and helpful? Yes, strangely it was incredibly helpful although I never felt I was being taught. What I took from it was that in order to meditate you need to stop, sit still, close your eyes, try to count, breathe and not speak. Not speaking was my biggest challenge. I speak too much. Bizarrely, to not speak was very liberating.
What parts of the day were most important for you? The whole day was important to me. I loved the openness and the trust. I loved the shrine room time and I embraced the news skills. I found meditating hard yet liberating. What amazed me most was the instructors. They were one thing upstairs and yet in the shrine room they were different people. It’s difficult to explain. The presentation was so contrasting from the military environment. Military personnel dominate a room with their presence. Yet the meditation teachers had very discrete presence out of the shrine room and yet as they shared their skills with confidence and assurance was exuded in a completely passive yet skilled and experienced manner.
I loved it! The hospitality was brilliant. The food was divine. I feel happy just thinking back on it.
Would you recommend trying meditation to others in Military Service, and to ex-Servicemen? Is there a gap you perceive in welfare support that this could help to fill?
I would recommend it to everyone. I think it is important to take some time out of your day to sit and reflect. There is a gap but I think the obstacles to overcome are people’s embarrassment about the fact that they don’t understand what it is, that they think it’s rubbish or they are afraid to ask for help.
How can you envision meditation contributing: as stress management, support in decompression, supporting partners and families to have some space to be together with support to relax and ‘be’ in a different way? A way to offer support for those holding a huge amount of emotional experience and stress – through trauma, injury and loss and/or through sustained intensely demanding conditions… etc. I think it would be brilliant way of re- connecting families with their partners after prolonged periods of absence and two very different worlds of experience. It would be an amazing, passive way of bridging the gap and bringing the worlds together in a supportive, shared environment. It would encourage dialogue and also create a community of people who have shared experiences to connect and lean on each other. No doubt the feeling is that it is already in place and they don’t need help. In my opinion, there is a lot of denial. This is the hurdle that needs to be overcome. In order to help the community the community needs to acknowledge there is a problem. I don’t know how you do that. First rule of fight club is you don’t talk about fight club.
www.raf-ff.org.uk
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