Featuring Dr. Alyson VanAhn from Associated Clinic of Psychology

Short meditations on kindness provide a way to instill self- and other-focused compassion in order to combat our harsh and often hostile environments at home and as a larger community.

As if the pandemic weren’t enough, we have also spent many months bombarded with news and our own experiences of ongoing hostility. It has come from local, national and international sources, but also from our neighbors and community members at times.

If we felt pessimistic about kindness and goodness in others before COVID-19 hit, this has increased that feeling. Even if we were more hopeful, social unrest and a sense of hatred in the air weighs heavily on our already-strained coping resources now. We likely feel anger, sadness, anxiety, fatigue or other negative things as we are exposed to one tragedy after another and as our communities seem more at odds with one another and further isolated.

Research shows short meditations to be useful ways for us to build resilience, reduce pain and impact many other areas of our lives positively even in the face of significant distress:

• Designate 1-2 minutes in a quiet, comfortable place with few distractions (perhaps in your vehicle prior to going in to work)
• Start with a breath or two – in your nose, out your mouth
• Repeat simple statements such as “May I be peaceful, may I be happy, may I be healthy” or the like.
• Pause and continue to breathe.
• Add a few statements focused on others. You can start with someone like your child or friend for whom it is easy to have compassion, then work toward people you may even dislike or who are adding to the hostility you feel. You can simply replace “I” in the statements above with the name of the other person.
• Repeat this practice as often as you would like and notice how you feel before and afterward.

For many more ways to utilize brief or more extended meditation to build resilience and calm in your life, positivepsychology.com has many simple and brief examples to get started. 

For more information about stress relief during COVID-19, go to www.leadingagemncoaching.com.

For individual assistance, call , LeadingAge Minnesota’s COVID-19 Staff Coping & Support Line number is 612-445-8656 or email covidsupport@acp-mn.com. This free service is open to any staff or leader to schedule a 20-minute coaching call. A professionally trained coach from the Associated Clinic of Psychology will listen to a caller’s concerns and help them create a coping roadmap for stress relief. There is no cost for this program thanks to the support of the LeadingAge Minnesota Foundation and DHS grant funding.