Here: Urban Meditation’s central location at 1515 Douglas is bringing a sense of calmness and community to the downtown core.
“We’re all so busy sitting in front of computers all day, and it can be quite analytical. Your brain gets really full. Taking a dedicated amount of time to focus on just clearing it out, you can wind down. Then your brain learns to form those pathways to wind down, so you don’t have to take work away with you as much,” says Here: Urban Meditation client Taimi Koskela of Quadreal Finance.
The Third Place
“Typically, if you do something like this, it won’t be at your home or office, it will be at a third place — and often that’s a disincentive to go,” says founder and CEO Eric Gerritsen. “We looked for a space where people could easily stop by in the course of a normal workday.”
Modern Antidote
“It’s a very powerful antidote in terms of the other kinds of benefits that come from having a calm, stable mind, including better productivity and better concentration,” Gerritsen says. “And invariably that is helpful for work and life.”
Perfect Timing
“Three or four years ago, this probably would have been too early,” Gerritsen says. “But four years from now, I think you’ll see similar set-ups in office towers around the world. It rationally fits into the needs of a modern computerized working environment.”
This article is from the December/January 2020 issue of Douglas.
