Mags Gargan
Mindful warrior programme Mags Gargan visits the Sanctuary meditation and mindfulness centre, to learn about a programme helping struggling teens to find peace
“I’m bored.” Two words any parent dreads, whether your offspring is a young child or a teenager. However, according to Caitriona McColgan, young people need to sit in their own boredom for the world to become quiet enough so that they can hear themselves in our over-stimulated society.
“The inability to sit with boredom I think is a huge thing for all of us, but for young people in particular,” Caitriona says. “They want instant gratification – that is the world they have been brought up in.”
“It is almost cliché now to talk about how stressful and fast paced it is,” agrees Bro. Richard Hendrick OFM Cap. “Particularly for young people who are being bombarded with this message that you must always be online and outward facing. I think all of us, young people and adults, can benefit from developing the reflective capacity within us and the prayer capacity within us – the capacity to reach the inner and the divine.
Contemplative
Caitriona and Bro. Richard are both course facilitators for the Mindful Warrior programme offered by the Sanctuary meditation and mindfulness centre in the heart of Dublin city. Founded by Sr Stan Kennedy to provide a reflective, contemplative place for people in the midst of our frantic busy world, the Sanctuary is the perfect setting for being still.
You feel the calm and welcoming atmosphere as soon as you walk in off Stanhope Street into the bright, colourful rooms looking into a circular garden, where people can attend a full day, evening or weekend course, or join the staff and Sanctuary dogs – Coco and Lynn – for a drop-in meditation in the Sacred Space every Monday and Wednesday.
“It is a tiny place but it is mighty in terms of what it does,” says Caitriona, who is programme manager here.
Since 1998, the Sanctuary has been developing a range of courses and workshops in the area of mindfulness and meditation, yoga and movement, creativity and well-being, with workshops from both a secular and spiritual perspective. In particular, it has developed a range of programmes working with young people and those who are at a vulnerable stage in their lives.
The Mindful Warrior programme was first developed 10 years ago by Bro. Richard and Niamh Bruce, who were both youth facilitators at the Sanctuary. “We had been working with schools in terms of bringing meditation, reflection and stillness practices to the classrooms,” Bro. Richard says. “While we were working with mainstream education we kept getting requests from schools working with students who were right on the edge of the school system. Those who were finding the journey to life integration or social integration difficult, who were in danger of leaving school, who had discipline problems, behaviour problems, family problems, etc.
“So the programme basically came out of that request for developing a spiritual, holistic programme that would enable young people to develop the reflective capacity necessary to make whole and positive choices in their own life.”
The 10-week programme is built around an initiation framework linked to adolescent psychological development that includes: ways to experience moments of reflective stillness; traditional wisdom embodied in the ‘gentle warrior’ figure; mindfulness and movement practices; use of creative imagination; insights from psychology of adolescent development.
Maturity
It is particularly suited to young people from sixth class to second year, who are finding the journey to maturity and social integration challenging, as it helps with emotional self-regulation, resilience, choice-making, and growth in self-esteem and positive body image.
“The aim was to bring young people who were finding the road to maturity difficult, through a process where they had a mindful and meditative experience, and within that just one moment of stillness. To give them the capacity to move from disconnection to connection – within themselves and with each other and with their community and environment,” Caitriona says.
“This is about young people discovering within themselves that they have a capacity and tools for reflection, process and growth, and that they can knock on that door. We call it the inner sanctuary and it is one of the practices that we use throughout the training. We take them to this inner sanctuary and they know when they leave they have that fierce inner resilience and they can call on that. That it is a resource that they have in themselves. It is a beautiful thing when a young person realises that they can within themselves find a place of peace and stillness – it is like a eureka moment for them.”
Change
Bro. Richard says an extraordinary change takes place over the 10 weeks. “It is a change not just seen in how they encounter the material, but how they themselves describe the different experiences of the way they relate to disciple, family, education and even their aspirations for themselves begin to change,” he says.
“One of the things that touching that reflective capacity, that meditative experience is we begin – even if we don’t have words for it – to touch the divine green in ourselves. God in Christ calls us to that fullness of life and one of the things the young people discover is that the dreams they accepted from the external pressures – the vision of life and of themselves they had – is actually a lot less than what they are and what they are being invited to be. The feedback we have received from other facilitators and the students themselves is that it has had a lasting and profound effect on their experience of themselves and of their way of relating to others.”
The Sanctuary has now developed a facilitator training course for teachers and youth workers who, after completion of the course, will be able to deliver the Mindful Warrior pro-gramme in their own school or youth centre.
Facilitators
This facilitator training course is intended for experienced teachers/youth workers who are look-ing for experiential and effective ways to work with young people for whom tradition-al models of education or youth work are not as effective.
“We wanted to develop the programme into a training course so that youth workers, teachers, chaplains and people who were working with at risk youth could come and train here and leave with a training they could deliver to young people,” Caitriona says. “We are also developing an adult programme.”
But what is a mindful warrior?
In all of the great mythologies of heroes and hero-ines, the warrior represents the one who is fighting to survive, fighting to be heard, fighting to become themselves.
“It is a big ask to be a mindful warrior,” Caitriona says. “It is someone who is connected and mindful within themselves. That might mean knowing that if they are having a bad day, if someone said something or they got a text, or they had a row at home; the mindful warrior is the young person who knows there is a lot going on for me right now and they go to talk to the school counsellor or chaplain or a friend. It is a young person who recognises things are not ok right now, so I am going to take care of myself. And who also is that person to other people.
“I think for the young people doing something like this, it is different – different from school and from what they normally do. The deep connections and the belonging can’t be broken, and for me that is the strength that it has.”
*The training course for facilitators of the Mindful Warrior programme will take place in the Sanctuary over three weekends in May. For further information please email: youth@sanctuary.ie or phone 01-6705419. Or visit: www.sanctuary.ie