Latest / The Inner Well Podcast / The Ripple Effect: Real Life Student Stories
Transcript
- 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 this episode of The Inner Well. So we thought we'd all take the opportunity to give you guys some of our most pivotal experiences that we've had as teachers. We've all taught thousands of people at this point, and so what are some of our standout students? I think it's always really fun for everyone to hear how this technique is showing up, because it helps to really establish a level of possibility. And I would also like to just say, to preface this by saying, we're not trying to set any expectations here. This technique is gonna show up differently for everyone and every single person we see benefits from this in sometimes very flashy ways, sometimes just the basic ways that they needed to, to fulfill an experience of nervous system regulation for them. and how that shows up in their lives with more peace, more sustainability, more groundedness. But we as teachers always get this question, well, what's the coolest experience or what's some of the most pivotal experiences that you've seen? And so I thought it might just be fun for us all to share at least one of these experiences so people can have the opportunity to hear what's possible. ⁓ Tanya, you've taught in so many different formats. You've taught veterans, you've taught kids, you've taught adults. And so I feel like you would be a good person to start this discussion. What's been your coolest standout, most pivotal experience that you've seen with your students? ⁓ man, there's so many directions I could go, but there's one person who always stands out in my mind because she had such a dramatic, immediate pendulum swing, there can be this proportionality to the amount of struggle that someone's experiencing. And do you see that with your students that if someone's really just in a challenging point in their life, often that pendulum swing is proportionate, that they see dramatic immediate changes. And for some people, it's more subtle and gradual. And all of it is correct and is what you need at that time. But this one was one of those dramatic pendulum swings is a veteran, a woman veteran that I taught. ⁓ few years ago at this point. And she came in on that first day, definitely skeptical. She was only there because her therapist had recommended it because she was in a place of really deep struggle. She was experiencing a lot of very real health challenges, but also discontent in her relationship. She came in and she was just very candid and very funny. Like, I love this woman so much every time I see her now. Like, she's just hilarious and amazing and just so real. And she's like, I hate my job. I have the worst job in the world. My boyfriend, I have a bad relationship with my son. My health is bad. Just everything was, and to be fair, she did have a really awful job. so the first day, I asked, are you really open to doing this if it's just because your therapist told you you should? I don't want you to do this if you don't want to do it. She's like, no, no, no, I'm open. I'll give anything a try at this point. So she comes in for that first session. And after the first day of meditating, she walks out of there. She has this big smile on her face and says, I found my happy place. This was great. And then she comes back the next day after she's practiced a couple more times and says, all my coworkers thought I was on drugs because I was so positive today. They didn't know what to do with me because they're just used to this negative. And just the immediate from one day to the next, dramatic transformation. But then as things continued to go on, you know, over that we'd, I'd see her periodically over the coming weeks and months. And she had, she had lupus. And after this was just a few weeks, maybe a couple months of practicing TM, her, she went in for her routine, you know, checkups on all of that. And the levels of inflammation in her blood were significantly decreased. And her doctors asked, what have you changed? What's going on? And nothing else had changed. Learning TM and implementing as a practice was the only thing that had changed at that point. ⁓ So that was one thing that really blew me away is how just immediately the physiological effect. ⁓ it can show up. so, I mean, it was every area of her life. She came back and she was talking about how now she has a great relationship with her son. you know, she and her boyfriend are getting along. She just has so much more positivity in every element aspect of her life. She actually likes her job just on every level, her life transformed. And so those moments as a teacher are so fulfilling. Like it's not me, you know, it's that student being open, showing up, doing this technique to the but to be able to play a tiny role in facilitating that kind of shift and transformation in someone's life is so rewarding and really why I do this and what keeps me going. And whether it's dramatic and immediate like that or subtle and gradual, it's always just such a rewarding thing. she was a fun one. Every time I see her, I'm just so excited to see her and what new story she has. That's That's really cool. I also like how you, and I think this is important, for all of us because I think we all share this experience of having such a humble gratitude for being able to facilitate. Not that it's coming from us, it's coming through us. know, again, this is ancient knowledge that we have learned how to guide people through this technique, but it's such a beautiful experience as a teacher to be able to be a small part of that transformation. and to be able to witness that from a place of humble gratitude as the one that just vessels the potential for people to connect with themselves. Yeah. Yeah. So beautiful. Yeah. Everything you said and as you're talking, Danielle, I had one person in mind I was going to talk about and then it changed and it changed to another person and changed another. Because I think we all have so many of these stories and you were talking about sometimes it is really dramatic like that. There's a big contrast. Sometimes for others, it's sort of a slow roll where they come back in and they're like, ⁓ I'm getting it. I'm understanding it because they're seeing it showing up in their lives. So I'll just share a very simple experience, but I think it's sort of sweet that when I was a very new teacher, this was probably one of the first people I taught in the first few weeks. I taught a girl and she was someone who, she was going through a hard time. I think she was, you know, newly out of college and into the workforce and just having some ups and downs and transitions. She came in and she learned and it wasn't anything particularly special about her course or significant or about her experience. She liked it, she felt good ⁓ and she was happy. And then she came back a couple weeks later and we checked in and she said, know, I'm really noticing a shift and what's even more interesting to me is that my family is noticing and she was living with her parents because she'd just graduated from college and she was like, my parents are actually really interested in learning. Could I bring them in? And I was like, of course. then her parents came in and learned and they went through a course together and they loved it. And then her brother came in and then her boyfriend came in and then an aunt came in. And after a few weeks, I had taught maybe seven or eight or nine people in this family and they were all loving it. And they were like, can we all come in and do a group meditation together? And so they all came in and it was just so sweet because the reason they were learning and they were, know, they happened to be a family of people who were generally open to something new. but none of them had meditated before. None of them really saw that as something they could do or found a value, but they started seeing the difference in each other and enjoying being with each other. And then the best part, they came back, it was a few months after I taught them and they said, we just had Thanksgiving together and we were our extended family, but we all decided that before we ate our Thanksgiving meal, we're gonna sit down and meditate together at the table. And they meditated together and then they just had the best time. they, it was just such an example of this is such a simple thing. Anybody can do it and the way that it can show up is in our relationships with others, you know and that relationship with ourself Yeah, I love that. I love the whole it became like a family event. That's so cool and that ripple I love that something I often Will just say to my students at the end of the class is that even though this is something that you're doing for you Which is beautiful and important that we prioritize doing things for ourself. It also has that ripple effect out through every person you interact with. Whether that's the person you don't flip off when they cut you off in traffic or the person who's being really slow in the line at the grocery store when you're in a hurry and normally you'd get really frustrated and it just slides off a little easier or whether that's your immediate family or those people you are in close relationship with, it has that ripple effect. And I feel like we're at a point in the world where we desperately need people who are prioritizing being that calm, grounded, peaceful influence rippling out into the world. And I think that's a really beautiful element of that. It is for ourself, but it also naturally has a profound impact on everyone around us as well. That's right. Well, yeah. And I think that our relationship with ourself is our primer for our relationship with others. It's what lays the foundation for our capacity to be relational and having a technique that really enables you to sustain a very safe, solidified, grounded and expanded relationship with yourself really enables this capacity to have this relationship with other people flourish in your reality. and it enables you to show up in ways that you didn't have the capacity to without that depth and groundedness. So I think it's really cool. I love that ripple effect. Okay, you guys wanna hear my story? I can't wait. So this is one of my favorites and like you guys, have so many, but this is one that always sticks out to me. And so when I was teaching back in Dallas with my ex-husband, he and I had this entrepreneur. that came in one day and he requested a private course, so it was just him. And so we didn't have any buffers, you know, in our audience, so to speak, to be able to sort of really derail a little bit of his frustration with why does this take four days? And he was just beside himself because he was super busy. He didn't have the time. He was like, I'm only here because I listened to something about Ray Dalio talk about how this was. one of his pivotal techniques that enabled his success. And, you know, I really follow him and respect him. So I'm going with it, but I just don't understand why it has to take four days. And so we went through all of the basics of, well, you get so much knowledge, you know, we really have to split it out over four days or else you won't retain or integrate any of it. And so he just kind of reluctantly decided to go through huffing and puffing the whole way. Well, he comes in on the third day and he sits down and he is like, I am sold on this technique. And Josh and I were both like, what happened? know, what changed your mind? And he said, I have been trying to close this business deal for the last nine months. He's like, it's been such a source of frustration for me. It's kept me up at night. I have just really turned myself inside out trying to figure out what I need to do to just get this done. He said, I sat down to meditate this morning. The answer came to me, and I had it closed by noon. And so I just, I love this example because I think it's such a good ⁓ opportunity to show what can happen when we get out of our own way. You know? That's it. And gosh, I mean, that's one of the things, you know, that we, as TM teachers, know, part of what we're doing is helping people to get out of their own way a little bit, right? To learn how that when we get out of our own way, when we allow this thing to happen for us, then we get everything. Then we can close that deal. Then we can get that good night's sleep. Then we can actually like our job or at least tolerate it, right? That it's getting out of our own way. But that concept, is not really what we think of when we think of how to operate in the world. So it can take a little bit. I love that story. That's so good. Yeah, I just, think it's a good opportunity for also this whole paradigm of contraction versus expansion, right? I mean, when, you you just think about it logically. When you're stressed, when you're frustrated, you're putting all this pressure on yourself, all of this just contracts you. into this very small space that doesn't allow for creative intelligence or, you know, the most obvious answers to spring forth. And when you are able to ground into that inner well and really get that expansion that comes from connecting with self on that level, then all of the answers should just kind of spring forth and you can show up for yourself in ways that you weren't able to. when you were so contracted and you didn't have the space to hold yourself. Yeah, 100%. Another way that just reminded me of how David Lynch often talks about ideas. I thought that was such a great example of it. David often would say that ideas are like fish. And if we want to catch the little fish, they hang out in the shallow waters. But if we want to catch the big fish, we have to go deeper. that TM is what's allowed him as a ⁓ creative genius in so many different areas, but TM is what's allowed him to access these deeper levels of his own mind, of his consciousness and integrate that into his daily life. But I love that he also clarified he doesn't go into his meditations to go fishing, to go looking for those ideas. it sounds like- super important point. It sounds like the student wasn't going into his meditation with any expectation or looking to come up with that answer, that business deal. And it was just in naturally tapping into that inner well, to that expansive level of the own mind that then as we go out into our daily life, it starts to flow. Thank you for joining us for this episode of The Inner Well. If there was something that resonated for you, please let us know. If there's any questions that you have that you'd like us to answer in future episodes, connect with us on Instagram and send us a message. If you're curious about transcendental meditation and wanting to learn the technique yourself, you'll always find the link to tm.org where you can find your closest teacher in the show notes. So check that out. Next week, we will be in Austin with Megan and she'll be interviewing one of her students there. So moving forward, there will be more of these episodes where we're each in our respective cities interviewing our students or experts. And we're so excited to continue to share these conversations and diving into the inner well with you. 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 wealth.