YOGA NORTH

BY MEGHAN HATALLA (SHE/HER)

BRINGING MEDITATION

to the (Corporate) Masses

Meditation is not a new practice, but is completely revolutionary in seemingly conflicting contexts, like the corporate world.

In a 2017 study by Academy of

Management, researchers found an increase in productivity in those who began a transcendental meditation practice, but it didn’t stop at simply performing at a higher level. Meditators also felt they built better relationships with supervisors and coworkers. They felt more satisfied in their jobs, and a general sense of happiness (I’m not sure how exactly the researchers quantify happiness, but it’s in the report).

Numerous reports showed similar results, headlined by improvements in focus, decision-making, and self-discipline.

I began meditating relatively recently as a structured part of my yoga teacher training, and the first time I set a timer for five minutes, it felt like forever. Gradually, as the class went on, and I became more adept at sinking in more quickly, meditation became a thing of both respite and rejuvenation: the perfect practice to bring to my corporate job.

Learning more about meditation as something that could help others strengthened my resolve to bring it to my coworkers. In enterprise software, workers don’t have a great track record for work-life balance. High pressure deadlines for code freezes, glorified “crunch” weeks that saw some engineers putting in 60-80 hours at their desks, and catered meals to ensure people wouldn’t want to leave work are the norm. If I can’t change an entire culture, maybe I can help a small culture shift, I thought.

The sessions started small. I came back from maternity leave, not so much rested, but ready to carve out a sliver of sanity among the office workers. A mindfulness group had begun to form, designed by an unpaid intern studying mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR). I collaborated with the group to jumpstart a meditation-focused offshoot.

CREATING THE CASE FOR MEDITATION

Meet Them Where They Are

I knew the importance of understanding more about my coworkers and their ability to participate in a meditation group. For example, would they prefer to meet in person or online? How much time did they have in their day, and when was the best time to meet? We created a survey asking these questions, and included a call for moderators and specific topics of interest.

The survey response was small, and we even got one response detailing how meditation in the workplace was unprofessional. Undaunted but informed, we started hosting small group sessions with interested people. We scheduled 30-minute blocks of times in the day at times that met the needs of most people (Tuesdays at noon), and developed a consistent group of folks. Keeping the time consistent and sending recurring calendar appointments keeps the sessions top-ofmind for our users without any additional pressure to attend.

And even in this pandemic, remoteworking world, we’ve kept the same time blocked off. Attendance changed a bit — people sometimes get too Zoom’ed out to attend yet another Zoom meeting — but numbers stayed relatively strong. In the spring, summer, and fall months, we even managed to meet in person a few times for outdoor sessions.

The format for our meditation sessions is consistent, and provides people with the option to move around a bit. We start with a greeting, share news, and do a short, reflective meditation within the first ten minutes. The next ten minutes utilizes a little movement. I lean on my yoga teacher training to create a short-themed practice accessible for all mobility levels. Finally, the last ten minutes feature a longer meditation, and a few minutes in silence before closing.

Know Your Audience

Our industry is rational, linear-thinking, and scientific. This isn’t an audience that would be into chanting ‘om’ or Sanskrit verses, so I structure our meditations around ideas that will appeal to them. Bringing scientific justification, like findings on neuroscience and meditation, appeals to folks who might otherwise be naysayers.

In our organization, we use Microsoft Teams for most inter-team communication. By posting some articles on the science of meditation to general channels, people are incentivized to join the listserv and give it a try.

The listserv is our primary source of communication with our audience, in addition to a dedicated Meditation Teams channel. Through this, we send out the monthly recurring Tuesday session invite, and always solicit feedback in the invite, on the Teams channel, and in person when I lead the Tuesday session.

“Bringing in the social aspect to start the sessions, followed by movement and the deeper practice, turned our sessions into a communal space. Meditation is no longer just about the practice, but about connection. “

Close the Loop with Results

In our organization, we could meet as a meditation group without formal endorsement. But being a recognized employee resource opens up a budget and resources. In order to achieve this, we needed to show a positive organizational effect generated from the group.

To do this, we did three things:

1Defined the metrics indicating success. We wanted to show our group added positively to the culture, better enabled people to handle stress, enhanced relationships at work, and increased innovation and creativity. 2 Collected all the information and data we could find on organizations who supported corporate meditation programs, and whatever metrics they published. From this information, we created benchmark scores around the things we wanted to measure.

3Sent a survey to our meditation listserv that scored the things we wanted to measure.

We’re in the process of scoring our results to compare with the benchmark numbers we collected. So far, we’re exceeding those scores, and are on track to become an officially-recognized employee resource group.

Designing Your Organization’s Meditation Program

If I’ve learned anything about how to create an effective meditation program, it’s to find ways to consistently take the pulse of your organization. As a group, we saw a steep decline when the organization moved to remote work in March 2020, and we spent a lot of time to rebuild the program and find the right tone to attract and retain people. Bringing in the social aspect to start the sessions, followed by movement and the deeper practice, turned our sessions into a communal space. Meditation is no longer just about the practice, but about connection. +

MEGHAN HATALLA: Minnnesconsin Yoga offers encouraging, adaptable, alignment-focused yoga classes and workshops in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Lead instructor Meghan Hatalla pulls together elements of different disciplines, aiming to enhance somatic awareness in the body. Meghan completed her 200-hour yoga teacher certification with Maria Toso of Saint Paul Yoga Center, as well as furthered her knowledge with coursework from Jason Crandell, CorePower Yoga (power yoga extensions), and Yoga North (somayoga modalities).

YOGA AND SWIMMING:

A Powerful Combination

BY JANET FAVORITE

As a child, I watched musical extravaganza films made in the 1940s. Busby Berkeley was well known at the time for his overhead camera views of synchronized swimmers performing in large pools. Swimming in those years provided a way to show off your amazing figure in a bathing suit or loin cloth. I had no idea at the time how important swimming and yoga would become in my life.

My mother, a tall, slim Scandinavian, taught her four children to swim. She floated on her back while all her children tried to grab her toes. Our local pool offered an afternoon of swimming for twenty-five cents. My brother and I rode our bikes there most days. A girlfriend was a gifted diver who loved sharing her skills. We practiced our jackknife dives along with inward and outward dives for hours.

During high school, I practiced with the synchronized swimmers, but never joined the team. Family life disintegrated by then, and I wanted to keep my secrets.

Swimming became vital after surviving breast cancer at thirty. I managed a small two-person deli at the YWCA before my diagnosis. I remember walking down the street alongside my director. She asked: “What will we do if you get sick?” I replied: “I never get sick.” Regrettably, I was wrong. The doctors found breast cancer soon after we opened. I found coming back after having a breast removed so early in life a challenge. Mastectomies affect the range of motion in your arm. My free “Y” membership allowed me to use the pool and recover my mobility by swimming laps several days a week. A six-month waiting period for reconstructive surgery assured plastic surgeons the cancer entered into remission. Chlorine is not recommended for my breast prosthesis, so I swam without it. My mom’s advice about “getting over” yourself was stated as: “Nobody will jump off a galloping horse to look at you.” No one noticed my missing breast — most of us only think of ourselves while wearing a bathing suit.

The YWCA also offered a support program for breast cancer survivors called Encore, consisting of group support along with pool exercises. The exercises included yoga-based arm extensions that stimulated muscles, improving range of motion.

Water is kind to our bodies and joints. Movements are easier to achieve in water’s buoyancy. What we accomplish in the water can be practiced on land. I attended many yoga classes throughout the years, achieving flexibility that enriched my life.

Fast forward thirty years. Older adults dread hearing warnings of knee replacement in our future. Both my knees wound up equally bad from years working as a caterer. I convinced my orthopedic surgeon to do both knees at the same time so that I would not miss work. Recovery became a rehabilitation marathon. My physical therapist recommended several exercises for range of motion. I sought more flexibility and attained it in the pool by swimming laps with yoga stretches in between.

The king dancer yoga pose requires you to extend your hand behind your back, lift up your leg, and grab your toes with your arm stretched behind you. I spent an entire year to be able to accomplish this in the pool. Challenging myself affirms my abilities and retains my agility. Subsequently, I accomplished the pose on a yoga mat.

You can be active in the water in numerous ways. Our family owns a small cabin on a lake my sister and I inherited from our mother. On sunny summer days I swim, floating where we scattered my mom’s ashes. I call it “floating to relax.” I speak to my mom of how I still miss her.

Floating is a type of yoga meditation. If you close your eyes you hold no sense of what direction you will be facing when you finally open your eyes. You can hear only your breathing as the sun warms your face and you become one with the lake.

I enjoyed swimming all over the world. I boast of swimming in three oceans, three seas, and two great lakes, along with many rivers and smaller lakes. Each provided a diverse experience: some enjoyable and others, like the North Sea, bone-chilling!

Sharing my love of water is very important to me. My children, grandson, and great nephews all enjoy the water. My mind stores memories of my grandson Rory treading water with his hazel eyes engaging me and droplets of water clinging to his lashes. He also assured me: “Come closer to the raft, Grandma, I promise I won’t jump on you.”

Swimming during this pandemic proved a challenge. An arm injury kept me out of the water all summer. Indoor pools remained closed until just recently.

“You never realize what you have until you’ve lost it” is an old saying. Several of us have found this to be sadly true over this terrible year. Many abandoned their yoga classes, the fear of infection keeping people away. Others lost so much more than our exercise routines.

The little moments of our lives are what we remember and cherish, wishing for a replay. Those who survive will be grateful for the ability to create new memories. Hopefully, those memories will include a world where all of us can share yoga practice and the pool. +

“Water is kind to our bodies and joints. Movements are easier to achieve in water’s buoyancy. What we accomplish in the water can be practiced on land.” “Floating is a type of yoga meditation. If you close your eyes you hold no sense of what direction you will be facing when you finally open your eyes.”

JANET FAVORITE is a long-time resident of St Paul, Minnesota. She is the author of a published memoir called Raising Robert, written as a guide for new parents of special needs children. She swims often and boasts of swimming in two Great Lakes, three oceans, three seas, and several cold Minnesota lakes. She feels her outdoor adventures replenish spiritual energy, enabling her to cope with life’s challenges.