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Stephanie Marquardt
Contemplation & Action
17 March 2015
Why and How Should We Meditate?
We live in a culture of stress. When you turn on the news in the morning, you are
told numerous stories. You could hear about downed airline flights, political figures
committing some form of corruption, extramarital affairs by public officials, the war on
drugs or terrorism, school shootings, race crimes. The list could go on and on for hours,
or however long the news channel has control of the airways. From the moment we wake
up, we are fed this idea that everything that happens in our society and around the world
is filled with negativity. However, if we as human beings could grace ourselves with a
moment to simply breathe, meditate, perform yoga, etc. and focus, we can seek ways to
bring forth positivity and further meditate on the idea that this world is not as awful as it
may appear.
In a Ted talk done by persuasive CEO, psychologist and Harvard graduate Shawn
Achor, he speaks about how certain aspects of life can bring us happiness and thus
decrease negative energy. He talks about the current formula to seeking positivity as the
following at 00:09:26 of the talk: hard work=happiness (Achor, 2011). Anchor states that
working harder can lead to successes and that in turn will generate better work, which can
also lead to further successes. After listening to the Ted Talk, I agree with Anchor to some
extent. There are times where doing well in the workplace or the classroom, etc. may
bring about successful regularities and/or rewards, but there is also the slight chance that
it will go unnoticed. At 00:11:27, he speaks about the Three Gratitudes, which he lists as

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journals, exercise and meditation, as well as random acts of kindness (Anchor, 2011).
These are the strategies he recommends for achieving happiness.
Moving on from a positive psychology aspect, Father Basil Pennington has
written an article titled, Centering Prayer: An Ancient Christian Way of Meditation,
which was edited by Jonathon Shear in his own book. Shear spoke about the origination
of Christian prayer and how at the time it was more of a silent practice. More focus was
on the word and the center of the prayer was focused on the self, which made one feel
closer to God. (Pennington, Shear 2006). The purpose of silent prayers was to ensure that
the external world was shut out and the being praying could allow more selfinterpretation and focus more on God (Pennington, Shear 2006, p.245-46). I feel that with
plenty of sufficient evidence, believing in this form of meditation would be easy to do.
The third source, and interview of Bessel van der Kolk, Professor of Psychiatry at
Boston University Medical School, by Krista Tippet had an in depth explanation of
meditative forms, including yoga, EMDR and Rolfing. The beginning of the podcast
begins with the talk of trauma. Van der Kolk speaks about his experiences working in a
Veteran Affairs Hospital during the Vietnam War (On Being 2013). He states that,
Trauma brings out the good and bad in people, and that we, must be able to
understand both the light and dark sides to life in order to fully appreciate it.(He states
this at 00:06:00). Bessel van der Kolk had a patient that was experiencing nightmares and
after the patient refused to take the medication, he told van der Kolk something that
changed his whole perspective on therapy (On Being 2013). His patient stated at 00:04:21
that he wanted to be a living memorial to his fallen brothers. This struck a chord in
van der Kolk and opened his eyes to new therapies. Van der Kolk explores the idea that

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trauma is a bad experience and is even worse to deal with when it occurs at the hands of
friends, family, anyone we are remotely close to (On Being 2013). When he gets to the
part on trauma that talks about memory, I became fairly intrigued. Being a victim of
domestic violence and rape, I had an easy time comprehending this segment of the
podcast. The concept that I had the hardest time grasping was one that Kolk spoke of,
which was that traumatized individuals are able to repeat the story of their incident with
no transformation to detail or memory. Specific ideas, scents, visuals, etc. can be
responsible for bringing out these memories in traumatized individuals. Later on in the
segment, Kolk speaks about using yoga as a form of therapy (00:20:20), how it is good
for the brain, how the breath and the heart are in sync and how the movement helps to
create happiness and increase heart rate variability (On Being 2013). Doing yoga in high
school opened my eyes to the concept of stress hormones and how easy it was to rid my
body of them when I allowed myself to relax. Another form of therapy that Kolk
educated himself in was EMDR, which put simply is eye movement therapy. This form of
therapy allows the patient to take the power of a memory and diminish it simply by
movement of the eyes (On Being 2013). Kolk explains that nobody knows how or why
this works, but it does (On Being 2013). I feel that giving someone the power over their
own memories allows them to understand the memory and makes them feel that they can,
in some way, change the memory and their amount of happiness through any form of
meditation as prescribed by Bessel van der Kolk.
The fourth source was the only source out of the five that I did not have full belief
in after reading. This reading discusses meditation as a healing process for breast cancer.
They talk about the use of support groups and positivity (Alberta Health 2013). However,

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there was not enough evidence in this article to fully support that reasoning. They need a
lot more variability in order to strengthen the correlation between the ideas of meditation
helping cure breast cancer (Alberta Health Systems 2013). It is true that meditation can
be a powerful part of healing and happiness, but when it comes to medical protocol, it
takes more than just meditation and prayer to heal. It also takes a lot of faith in oneself
and their ability to heal as well. It is stated that, practising mindful meditation or
being part of a support group has a positive physical impact at the cellular level...
(Alberta Health Services 2013). I am not from a religiously based family. Instead, I was
brought up to believe that faith in medical treatments along with prayer can help, but only
together do they have a full effect.
The final source mentioned art, whether it was being made, viewed or discussed,
was able to lower stress levels in people. The article speaks about art that depicts history
and how it evokes feelings in people, makes them wonder about what was happening at
that point in time and so forth (Bergado 2014). Different types of art evoke different types
of feelings and the physicality of making art is said to help relieve stress in individuals.
Those individuals were said to have, a decrease in cortisol levels so long as they
came in with high ones to begin with (Alberta Health Systems). However, you dont have
to be an art major or fanatic or professionals in order to understand art. Our brains are
automatically breaking down information when it comes to art, recognizing faces, colors,
etc. (Bergado 2014). You just have to be able to clear your mind and further meditate on
the art in question.
After reading and listening to all five sources, it is apparent that there are many
different methods and ideologies to the idea of meditation and how we should go about

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performing it it. Of the five, it is unclear which one is the best, because everyone has their
own processes that they do in order to meditate and how they choose to do them is
completely up to their own interpretation of the methods presented. So why should we
meditate? To establish a sense of peace within ourselves that may have been previously
lost. As to how we should meditate? Thats completely up to the individual.

Works Cited
Shawn Anchor, The happy secret to better work, Ted Talk, May 2011, video, 00:12:17.
http://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_anchor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work?
language=en
Basil Pennington, Centering Prayer: An Ancient Christian Way of Meditation, in The
Experience of Meditation: Experts Introduce the Major Traditions, edited by
Jonathon Shear (Saint Paul: Paragon House, 2006), 245-257. Print (pdf).
Bessel van der Kolk Restoring the Body: Yoga, EMDR, and Treating Trauma, On
Being with Krista Tippett, July 11,2013, audio podcast, 00:51:27.
http://www.onbeing.org/program/restoring-the-body-bessel-van-der-kolk-onyoga-emdr-and-treating-trauma/5801
Alberta Health Systems Services, Study shows clear new evidence for mind-body
connection, press release for a study published in the journal Cancer, November
3, 2014: http://www.albertahealthservices.ca/10604.asp and online article with
link to a scientific research publication
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cncr.29063/full

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Gabe Bergado, Science Shows Art Is Doing Something Amazing to Our Health,
art.mic, December 15, 2014. http://mic.com/articles/106504/science-shows-thatart-is-having-fantastic-effects-on-our-brains-and-bodies