- Title: Meditation truck brings peace to heart of NYC
- Date: 26th July 2017
- Summary: MEDITATION SESSION
- Embargoed: 9th August 2017 21:21
- Keywords: Calm City meditation food truck NYC mobile meditation Kristin Westbrook
- Location: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
- City: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
- Country: USA
- Topics: Living / Lifestyle,Human Interest / Brights / Odd News,Society/Social Issues
- Reuters ID: LVA0026RCVH3T
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: In one of the most densely-populated cities on the planet, a moment of peace and quiet can be hard to find.
But Kristin Westbrook is offering passersby a mental break from the bustling city life.
Calm City is a mobile meditation studio. It also looks like a food truck.
Since May, Westbrook, a certified meditation teacher, has been offering guided meditation inside her converted RV. The sessions are $10 (USD) for 10 minutes.
Susan, visiting from Massachusetts, saw the parked truck while walking back to her hotel and stopped in for a session.
"It was awesome, awesome," she said. "It's a total reset. It's a total reset. I mean any sort of high level stress, it just would bring it right down, remind you to breathe, remind you to come inside, remind you to just feel your feet and drop in. It's perfect."
The Calm City mobile studio can seat up to nine people comfortably and offers a calm, quiet, tranquil space to meditate.
Westbrook said she came up with the idea while working as a creative director in Midtown Manhattan.
"I wanted to make it as convenient as a food truck. So that you could just pop in, get 10 minutes of calm, of connection to yourself, and then go back to work without it being a big time commitment or travel commitment. So that's why I came up with the mobile studio," she told Reuters.
"Generally, meditation is 20 minutes, but 10 minutes really is enough time to bring your focused awareness back to your breath, in this case," she added.
Westbrook says Calm City is New York's first mobile meditation truck and only the second in the nation. She believes the other is in Detroit.
She said the idea of mobile meditation is an unknown concept and said her three-month old business is still in the 'testing phase,' but she is eager to share meditation with the public.
"I love when people come in here and mediate because the look on their face just changes so much when they leave. It's so relaxing and so purifying. People walk by and they are like, 'oh wait, let me stop in. let me see what's going on in here.' And they are kind of stressed and then they sit and they sit for 10 minutes and their whole mood shifts and it's really great."
Westbrook said she has been meditating since 2001 and credits the practice with helping her two-time battle with breast cancer. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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