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- The Inner Well Podcast: We all contain a space within that when enlivened and nourished will support us with unwavering stability, expansion, and peace of mind. Join us each week as we dive into honest, grounded conversations about transcendental meditation, consciousness, and growth, and what it means to live an integrated life supported by a foundation of creativity and calm. This is the inner wealth. Hi everyone, welcome back to the inner well. ⁓ One of the things that we're excited to do as teachers is share our personal journeys with you guys. We all have a very different story of how we wound up here and how it's changed our lives as a result of it. And I think it would be nice for our listeners to hear our personal stories so they can kind of be a part of that journey with us and it will help you guys understand where our passion comes from and why we have such a genuine desire to share this technique with as many people as we possibly can. One of the things that we were all discussing earlier today and Danielle had brought this up as a question and it's really something to think about because when people ask you, well tell me about yourself, you know, what do you do? Most people naturally gravitate to their profession. Oh, I'm a transcendental meditation teacher. Oh, I work in finance. Or, you know, this is my identity. This is my reality. And so Danielle brought this idea up of what do you do as it relates to all the things you do outside of your professional career? Like, what defines you as a person outside of your job? And so maybe that's a fun place to start before we even go into the journey is Just tell us what you do. What does Danielle do outside of being a TM teacher? And it came up so organically when someone just asks that question. And the other day, I started describing everything I do in my daily life except for what I do for work. And it really caught them off guard. And I just thought it was so fun. It is totally fun. I love that. So what do I do? I dance. I've gotten really into country swing dancing. That's been the thing that has given me so much life lately. I love. The sauna, I go there as often as I can. I am a dog mom. This is my little baby sidekick, Parton here. That's one thing we've all discovered we have in common. We're all obsessed with our dog babies. And I've gotten really into gardening and cooking and learning about herbalism. And then the other thing that really brings me so much joy is gathering people and hosting and bringing people together around You mentioned something about that one of our calls the other day. Yeah, bringing people together for food and conversation and connection. I love going out to see live music. I live in Nashville and that's just, I love the creative energy here. yeah, that's just And we get to be here with you in Nashville and we get to experience the amazing host you are. So Danielle has been hosting us and preparing meals and this amazing chai that we had yesterday. But I think it's a great question. Yeah. And you know, I have to think about it because I... I'm very conditioned to say, to define myself by those roles. And even though when I think of who am I and what is myself, I don't identify with those things. But yet that is how I express myself to others because we're so conditioned. But for me, I live in LA and I've been there, gosh, I guess about seven years. But before that, I was living in New York, which I love. But the thing that I love the most right now is being out in nature and hiking and going to the beach and being in the mountains and I have a puppy, year and a half, so being with her and playing with her and I feel like those simple things of connecting with nature and being in the woods, that's what makes me feel most myself. I feel like it expands me in this way. And I love art. I used to be a painter, I used to, I still dabble occasionally. Well, I still do, I can get into that later. But I love going to galleries and I do this like gallery girls thing where I'll get a bunch of friends and we'll go to galleries, we'll go to dinner and it's just the best thing to talk about art and experiencing that side of life. So that's how I would define myself. How about you? So I've got a couple different things that I dabble in right now. I'm also very much into dancing. And so I would not say that I am a country swing dancer. I would say that I enjoy watching country swing and trying to implement those strategies on the dance floor myself. Anytime I get to get out and dance, it's one of my favorite things to do. I think it's such a great way to move energy and just have that mind-body connection flowing in a way that's just really euphoric and fun. The other thing that I'm really into is roller dancing. So ⁓ it's so fun, you guys. That's so when we come to Austin, we're going to have to go roll. We're going. Can't wait. ⁓ my gosh. It's so fun. So for those of you of our listeners that don't know what this is, it's learning how to dance on roller skates. The other thing that I do is ⁓ I'm learning how to play the harp. That's cool. Yeah, that's my musical instrument of choice. I love it. And that's such an interesting piece. We were just talking about all these different versions of ourself that continue to evolve. I would love to now coming back to the reason we're here, talking about our journeys with Transcendental Meditation. Where did that start for you? Tell us that story. So yes, when I learned this technique, I was a very different version of myself. And when I decided to become a teacher, I was a very different version of myself. So this technique has seen me through a lot of personal iterations of self-improvement and self-development. so first of all, both of my parents learned TM back in the 70s at a YPO conference in Japan. actually. And so ⁓ my mom was meditating while she was pregnant with me. And then when I was younger, she would meditate and I was always just fascinated by it. But she never taught me when I was younger, because she wanted me to come to it on my own. so Fast forward to my 20s and I'm working in corporate America at this point. I have a very stressful job and I was having lots of anxiety, lots of panic attacks and I was, you know, engaging in all the unhealthy coping mechanisms. Nothing was helping. Nothing was working. It was actually just making it worse. And so then my mom recommended that I looked into it for my anxiety. And so I did. And what I found was not only was it helpful in managing my anxiety, but I feel like my general headspace started to improve. I feel like I was able to see the world from a place of less victimization, which I didn't realize I had so much of and more gratitude. And I felt like I started taking on other people's energy less. Like I had a little bit of a buffer there, which for those of us that work in corporate America, I feel like that. can be a very beneficial thing to be able to kind of create that space and protect your experience of self in that reality. And I also feel like if I had to say my biggest benefit, it would be this ability to establish and sustain a very healthy relationship with myself, which I just didn't have when I was younger. I didn't have. great boundaries, I didn't know how to say no, I didn't know how to put myself as a priority in my life, and I was very much in that people pleasing mentality, seeking that external validation. And when I was able to experience the space inside me that was already full, that was already content, that didn't need or want for anything, and it didn't require anything or anyone out here to enliven it for me, it was a very life-changing experience for me. And I eventually really wanted to learn how to facilitate this experience for others. So beautiful, Megan. really identify a lot with that story. I really relate. And I think the thing that's so striking is just that feeling level, that feeling of feeling just ⁓ untethered from ourself, disconnected, of tossed around and depleted, and that nothing we're doing is really filling ourselves up. had that same experience. and I'll share my story that I actually sort of uniquely learned as a child. My parents practiced TM also, they also meditated. It's interesting we come from these meditating families, actually all three of us. But I learned as a kid and I did it and I always share this when I'm teaching that I remember my parents meditating. I remember being a little kid and kind of playing and I remember this sort of hush coming over the house and I knew they were upstairs meditating and then they'd come down and they'd be so. and light, and I just loved that as a child. It was so magical. And, you know, I learned this technique. I do remember as a kid feeling this sense of stillness and space. And then I went off to college and I went out into the world and I had this sort of rebellion of that's my parents' thing. And I didn't meditate for a long time. And I went down all these different routes of, you know, going in this direction and that direction. And I too was working in corporate America, very intense job, working in investment banking, corporate, kind of high intensity, work hard, play hard mentality, and it was really draining, it really depleting. And my mom would say sometimes, like, why don't you meditate? And I just, ugh, I can't do it. I really, one of the reasons, and I'll get to this, that I love teaching, is that I would have this experience, kind of like we were talking about in our last episode of I thought, even though I knew how to do this, that I was supposed to have this clear mind. And I'd sit down and meditate and I'd have all this, the thoughts going on and I'd try to focus and I'd try to do all this stuff to kind of control my mind. And I was like, it's not working. I can't do it. And I went to a TM teacher at a TM center and she kind of said something like, don't worry about the thoughts. And I didn't believe her, but then I started practicing correctly. And it was for me, like, and I have said this before, It was like turning on a light in a room I didn't know was dark. It was so profound, this experience of coming back to myself, finding that groundedness, feeling that centered expansion. And I suddenly felt that, ⁓ I can handle whatever life throws at me. I can be in this world. I can be in this environment. And I'm not going to be shaken. And originally, I wanted to become a teacher so I could go into investment banks, corporate, because I could speak to them on their level. teach them this technique that was so effective, it was so efficient, you didn't need to believe in anything. There was nothing woo-woo about it, right? It was just this technique. And so I really wanted to do that. My experience becoming a teacher was so profound. And we'll talk more about that. What is the process to become a teacher? We also get a lot of students asking us about wanting to become teachers, and we can talk more about that. But it was really a profound shift of, again, it sounds simple. but there's nothing more profound, I think, than coming home to yourself and waking up inside and realizing the fullness and the wholeness that's you. What's your experience, Because I know you have a really interesting story about how you became a teacher. I also learned as a kid. I feel really lucky in that I always valued it. I didn't have that chapter of leaving it behind. I always saw... the impact that it had as something that was just an important part of who I am and being able to show up in life and move through the world in a grounded way. It's now been 28 years that I've been practicing this and I continue to see the value of it unfolding and the benefit of it like expanding and deepening and unfolding and you know just showing up in my life in different ways. I think deep down I knew that sometime I was going to become a teacher but it felt like a kind of down the line someday. But then I was about to graduate from college and I had become friends with someone named Bob Roth who he will be a guest on here at some point. ⁓ He's a wonderful teacher, he's been teaching this for 50 plus years. He started the David Lynch Foundation with the filmmaker who really created this foundation to make TM available to those people who experience the highest levels of toxic stress and trauma and. otherwise might not have access to this technique. So I was really inspired by what he'd done and through him I'd met David a few times. And so was about to graduate college, Bob calls me up and says, someone wants to talk to you. And he puts David Lynch on the phone. And on other end of the phone I hear David Lynch. And David has such a quirky, fun voice. He's like, you're going to become a TM teacher and move to Los Angeles. I'm like, yeah, whatever, David, I'll think about it. You know, I'm 21. think I'm going to go, you my sister was studying abroad in South America. I was going to go meet her, travel, volunteer. So I told that to David. I said, I'll think about it. And David says, no, you'll do more than think about it. Totally would have dismissed the whole conversation. But the next day, things just started showing up and lining up in my life in a way that it was a very clear, yes, this is what I'm supposed to be doing. Like he just planted the seed and then it started growing. Immediately. Within a few months, I was on the TM teacher training course, is five months, five, six months in residence, deep dive, disconnected from the world ⁓ to become certified, to be able to facilitate and share this experience with others. And then shortly after that, I moved to LA. I started our first programs with the David Lynch Foundation there, worked with the foundation for nine years between LA and New York. ⁓ And then for the last six or seven years, I've been teaching now general public through a TM Center in Nashville, as well as traveling quite a lot and teaching in programs with veterans and first responders, which has been such an incredible experience as well. And I'm excited to share more about at some point. And I love that. That's something maybe we can just touch on that for a minute because, again, back to this idea of teacher training. So this is extensive. We go away. In my case, I went to Thailand. mean, it was beautiful. We're in Thailand. But we're not traveling around Thailand. We are in one place. session, it was six and a half days a week, right? You're not talking to the outside world and you're really becoming steeped and immersed in this knowledge. It really actually transforms the nervous system so that you come out and you you were saying it beautifully, Megan, and you also, Danielle, just about being someone who can, you know, guide people towards this experience. This is really what it's all about. It's the intellectual understanding, but it's also this sort of physiological change that happens so that when we now teach, we're teaching in this authentic tradition of teachers. So it's really special. And I like to kind of touch on that about the teacher training because, you know, this isn't something that, you know, we've all had these sort of interesting backgrounds, but we've come to this to really devote our time after doing this really deep work to not only be able to kind of have our own nervous system set to teach, but then to be able to deliver this to others of all walks of life in all areas of the world, right? And I think that's such a beautiful point because one of the things that's so profound about this tradition that we're all a part of with this practice is this idea of vesseling this knowledge, you know, being able to. have an organization that ensures that their teachers are in a space where they can effectively facilitate this experience for others. And it is such a life-changing experience. I I know for me personally, when I went in, I came out as a completely different version of myself that I was so proud of, that had so much confidence and so much fullness and so much purpose. that I didn't have before I went on the course. And it's still to this day, you know, my favorite version of self that I've experienced. Beautiful. Yeah, I feel exactly the same way. When you were talking about just all the different demographics and that really this is a human being thing. I think that's just such an important piece because sometimes there can this be idea of like, ⁓ I'm not someone who would be into meditation and my experience over now over 15 years having taught in schools in underserved communities in LA, in the Bronx, in New York, veterans in the South, corporate settings, and then just any everyday people who walk into our TM centers seeking out something different. There's not a type of person who would be into meditation. It really has just allowed me to see what a universal human being experience this is, that we all have that inner well that we've been talking about. We all have the ability to access that depth of our consciousness, of our creativity, of our energy. And then it expresses so differently in each individual's life. And people come to it for different reasons. shows up differently in different people's life. But it's something that I confidently believe every single person, every single human being has access to. And this is the, I'd say, simplest, most direct, user-friendly way to access and cultivate that on a consistent basis. So beautiful. So well said. And as you were speaking, something was coming to mind for me that there's also a reason. why you've been able to teach for 15 years, you've been able to teach for 10 years. Anybody can walk in off the street or in any kind of demographic and learn this because it works. It's a systematic, effortless technique. Doesn't matter what brings us in the door. To learn TM, you will get all the benefits because you tap into your own inner well. It's not something else, it's not something outside of you. It's all right there and it's all within. And so we can so confidently Express all of this because we've seen it in action not only in ourselves in our own lives But in every single person we teach which is what a blessing what a gift And I just want to say if anyone if you're jumping in at this point and you're like, wait, what are they talking about? What is this transcendental meditation thing? Go back and listen to our first episode. We dive really in depth into what is TM? How it works what the process of learning it looks like But it is something that like we're talking about is always learned one-on-one in person. So I just want to make sure it's really clear that we're not actually teaching the technique of TM through these episodes. This is a conversation about it and understanding it. ⁓ And if it's something that you want to learn in the show notes, it will always be linked to go and find the teacher in your area because there are hundreds all over the United States. There's hundreds of people who have been through the same training that we're talking about here. to be able to teach, facilitate, support your learning of this practice, which is so profound and that is an important piece of it. So tm.org is always the place to go for that. So we'll continue to have more of these conversations. It's been great learning about your guys' stories. I love it. Yeah. We didn't know any of this about each other when we sat down today, so this has all been fun. It's fun. All right. Well, we'll see you guys next time. Transcendental meditation is a scientifically validated technique that provides access to become more ourselves. Join us next week for more conversations with real people living fulfilling and peaceful lives with infinite support from their inner well.