By Elizabeth Herman | Posted: August 07, 2019
In a state where suicide rates are 30% higher than the national average, a group of four teens proposes mental health needs of students as a valid reason for occasional absences. In the same state, a teen works to educate others about climate change after his parents on the island of Fiji lost their home due to a cyclone. Halfway around the world in Sweden, a teen climate activist plans a journey by high-tech yacht across the seas to petition the U.N. about her cause.
Teen activists are working all over the world for better mental health and violence reduction in various ways. Some of them focus on climate change awareness, and some (survivors of a recent Parkland, FL., school shooting) on reducing the availability of guns in the US, and some use science projects to solve major environmental problems, like removing microplastics from ocean water.
How meditation supports activism
Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar advocates using meditation to help youth decompress from the stresses that they face. In the YES programs for schools offered by the Art of Living Foundation, students can gain empowerment and a better sense of who they are and how they can change the world.
While many young people take active approaches to solving the world’s problems, these changemakers need support for their efforts, which can come in the form of regular meditation practices. In a recent interview, Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar says, “The classroom violence here is appalling. They should be exposed to more human values than violence. When I see children even do a small amount of meditation they come out like free birds, freed from their cage of emotions.”
With problems like gun violence, extreme weather, and other environmental concerns, the future can seem bleak unless the mental health needs of youth receive attention and support from communities, schools and other institutions.
Tips on activism and meditation
Here are some ways meditation can help you to stay involved in the causes you care most about:
Remember your deeper motivations. Seasoned activists acknowledge that in order to stay involved in a cause, it’s important to stay connected with the deeper reasons you have had for caring about that issue in the first place. Anger will give you energy to fight for something you love, but it may not sustain a long term campaign that requires high dedication and sacrifice. If you remember your original motivation, such as love for peace or nature, and hope for the future, you can keep your energy high. Regular meditation gives you time to go inward and reconnect with these deeper understandings of what you truly believe.
Meditation has ongoing benefits, preventing burnout. Benefits of meditation increase with regular practice over time, so you will begin to gain energy and feel yourself strengthening as you continue to work towards your goals. Managing negative emotions is one of these long term benefits. By keeping yourself from getting discouraged, you can maintain enthusiasm for your work and continue it, even in the face of adversity.
Increase your agency. Your ability to act independently and choose freely is also known as agency. Through inner peace and calm, you can stay centered and be more in touch with what you really want and need. You become more dynamic and have more agency as you grow to understand yourself better through meditative practices.
Choose to be proactive instead of reactive. Putting more space between yourself and what is happening in the world allows you to stop reacting so strongly when troubling events take place. With meditation creating a buffer zone, your mind is less like a football of events and opinions, and you gain more control over your responses and your decisions to act wisely. This proactive stance can make you more effective as an activist for change.
Keep smiling and stay positive. You will persuade others more effectively if you happily ask them to come along with you in your work towards a better future. With a smile, your ability to attract the change you want to see in the world will grow more and more powerful. Meditation can help keep the smile on your face and the optimism in your heart. This will bring more hopeful people to act with energy on behalf of your cause.
Staying calm can help others listen and learn. Speaking with conviction and calmness has a much better effect on the responses of others than speaking with anger. If you take time and patiently listen to other points of view, you can start to have conversations that will build partnerships. An activist thrives on networking, teamwork, and coalitions. Meditation can help you keep a mindset that will build the relationships you need for success.
A lot of good work in the world can get done more effectively when individuals care for their own minds through meditation. In seeking to keep schools and other public places safe and make the whole world healthier, the ancient tool of meditation can make a big difference in how sustainably and successfully we work.
To learn more about meditation, find a Happiness Program, Sahaj Samadhi Course, or Yes for Schools course near you!
By Elizabeth Herman - PhD in English, with concentrations in Rhetoric and Composition, and Literature, she offers writing support to clients, teaches locally, lives in Boone, NC, and volunteers for a better world.
