So often in healthcare, industry, and our lives, we talk about mental health as something “other.” While many healthcare companies are trying to normalize mental health, they continue to frame it as a problem to be solved. I am no expert in these terms, and, as a spine surgeon, my role in patient care tends to focus on spine problems and treatment.
The gap between mental health and wellness is a gray area for me, but my thinking around it shifted when I met Lauren Monroe at the Forbes Healthcare Summit. The four chairs that had been set up for a series of corporate fireside chats were suddenly replaced with a drum set and standalone microphone. Monroe began to sing.
Monroe’s performance, to me, felt like a guitar-fueled lullaby in the middle of a sea of business suits. I noticed the juxtaposition while bouncing frantically between meetings, but it only truly registered when I took a moment to reflect after the event, and even more so, when I had the opportunity to interview.
Most of the people I interact with are situated in fast-paced startup culture or driving corporate strategies. Monroe is changing healthcare in a different way. She, along with her husband Rick Allen, drummer for Def Leppard, founded the Raven Drum Foundation, an organization that holds drum circles to facilitate healing for veterans, first responders, and trauma survivors. One of the things I appreciated most about Monroe’s work is that her approach is applicable to all people and to all parts of life, not just those who have been afflicted by extreme trauma. As the wife of a trauma survivor and the mother of a pre-teen, Monroe doesn’t just talk the talk. She herself uses the tools in her transformational healing toolkit every day.
How do you use mindfulness and being present to forward your career?
I think mindfulness and the state of being present is rudimentary. It flows out of me. It is how healing takes place, where self-discovery takes place. To develop a practice is a portal to this – physical pain, emotional pain, difficult transition.
My career has developed out of my own childhood dreams and being a voice for suffering. I have related to the service of others. I was also very spiritual. I took a path where these two met. I created different paths – music, dance education, and psychology, and then I studied the body to be a massage therapist and then an advanced therapist. My spiritual life is always coming back to the body. I have observed that energy medicine is that bridge between the mind and body, and I was able to bring them together. The message is always the same, focusing on the essence of being present, the inner voice. When we are aware, we free up some of the inner chatter. For example, if we are on the phone typing while we are on line at the grocery store, we are disconnecting. We are missing out on the moment.
How have you applied mindfulness to being a mother?
I think that in all of my own inner work and in researching body and spirit, there is one important element through it all – the intuitive process. I was very interested in the neurobiology of intuition when I had a child. Sometimes you don’t need language, you are connected in a very different way. I ask myself when making decisions – how does the body feel about that? And I teach that to my child. What is the right thing to do? What does your inner voice say? I have learned through my experiences that when I don’t focus on that, there is more pain and unhappiness.
What made things like mindfulness and being present become important to you? Were there certain life events that helped you see their value? You are very mission driven toward the path of service.
When I was younger, I was a prophetic dreamer and I was a medium. I would feel the presence of aunts and uncles who were coming to me after they died. They led me to have a relationship with the unseen world, and I was not afraid. And when I shared this with others, they had traumatic responses, and so I had to shut it down. And that propelled me into learning how do I describe what is happening to me, so that I am not considered “woo woo” or “hippie.”
I had this ability to sense things. As one particular example, many years ago, we were all supposed to go out and meet friends, and I had this feeling of dread come over me. I asked my boyfriend at the time: “Can you just check the brakes on the car.” And I said: “I don’t want to go out tonight, can you just drop me home.” And he dropped me off. I had a deep unsettled feeling that something bad was going to happen. There was a terrible accident that night, my boyfriend was seriously injured and our friend was killed. I saw the effects of post traumatic stress, I felt it as a partner and as a friend.
This and other experiences taught me that I had to look into my body. I learned about breath-work, and how to be grounded into the earth and into your body. These were anchor points in my learning of trauma.
I also learned that the mind can be tricky and sneaky. Being able to focus on what you want to manifest, to focus on your health and happiness, that all requires a mastery of mind. Once you have that skill then you can achieve heart and mind coherence. There are new exciting studies on the relationships between EEGs and EKGs and what happens chemically in the body when these two systems are in balance
Your husband has also experienced trauma. How has that affected you in the past and/or on a daily basis?
As the spouse of someone who has gone through trauma, you have to rely on your senses to understand their mood, and how to create an environment that is calming and not overwhelming. Sometimes it’s giving them space, sometimes it’s nurturing your own space, giving everyone a calm place to land. Learning the patterns of yourself and your partner is important. I also have learned how to communicate that with my daughter. She herself is learning how to create calm for herself and handle stress. There are so many therapies and tools to support mental wellness now that didn’t exist 15 years ago.
And how has trauma affected your daughter?
My daughter was 10 during the pandemic, and there are a lot of mental health issues everywhere. She was starting to notice things about the outer world that she would ask questions about. I have had to communicate with her on how to observe someone when they are experiencing anxiety or panic attacks, and how to not be afraid, and understand what is going on, communicating that it is a temporary state. We don’t need to be afraid of changes through times of stress, we just need tools.
Do you have tips on motherhood/parenthood?
Create a home where there are constant reminders on how to be grounded and mindful. Place anchor points around the house that you frequent, like the kitchen sink, or where you enter the house. For example, I place a flower in a vase to remind me to take a breath. I place some lavender in the car. These are reminders to cherish the moment, to be in the now. We don’t get these moments again. When we don’t take a pause to be where we are , the days just go one after another, and we fall into a cycle of not being present. Being in the moment allows us to be more connected to our kids. When kids are little you have to pay attention because they demand it. But as they get older, you can miss a lot. These are little things, but strong anchors.
What made you and Rick decide to co-found Raven Drum Foundation? Why was that important to you? What personal challenges led you to become passionate about starting Raven Drum?
I met him through a friend as an integrative healing practitioner. We realized quickly that together we had a gift to give to other people. We had an ability to be together, to create healing spaces together, and journey through music to feel good. We worked with refugees from Afghanistan, mainly children with missing limbs who experienced trauma And that was our first drum circle. We did some drumming and I taught them some breathwork and guided them in learning how to quiet their minds to find a safe place in their body. We drew with them, and we saw how the whole experience shifted them so deeply. We felt it, and we decided to build the foundation, focused on the language of music paired with mindfulness. We have drum circles with groups of people, all ages from different neighborhoods, professions and backgrounds. Everyone with a story, a challenge or a struggle. We all have things we carry. Within a drum circle, cultural differences, political differences, they don’t exist, it is a unified group of people being human and lifting one another up.