Latest / The Inner Well Podcast / From Averse to All-In: How TM Became Non-Negotiable
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 World. Well, good to see you, Luke. for being here with us. Welcome to the Anterwell podcast. I will always remember that moment when we reconnected after you had learned TM. It was probably a year or two later. We'd been crossing paths for months, probably going to the same sauna, cold plunge studio that we go to. And there was a moment when you kind of recognized me and realized that I was your TM teacher and that always stuck with me. Will you share that moment and what you were experiencing in it? It was a little wild. mean, like you said, we had been crossing paths and it had been so long and I wear this ridiculous hat in there. So I'm very unaware most of the time what's going on. This one particular day, I was just sitting there and you were talking with someone and it's a pretty small space. So whether or not you're trying to eavesdrop, you just overhear certain things. And I kept hearing you say TM, TM. And I was like, oh, she's probably talking about transdental meditation. And so I kind of like butted in and I had been at that point pretty committed to, I had recommitted to my TM practice about honestly, probably right before I started going to that sauna as well. So. It just felt like I was on this like interesting path and reuniting with you there felt really just kind of like a bit magical. When I had that recognition that it was you that taught me that practice, it was just like this really sweet kind of like feeling. that's what kind of washed over me. Like it was kind of, and I'm pretty emotional person in general. it wasn't, it's not, it doesn't take much for me to get like. going, but yeah, those tears just started flowing because I just felt this like really joyful, like, like gratitude that, you know, it like, ⁓ great. This is, this is great. Yeah. Love it. Love it. Yeah. Well, let's rewind a bit. Prior to learning TM, where were you in your life and what was it that led you to want to learn it? I think it coincided with like a, the David Lynch Like, does he have a festival or something? It was a... A festival of disruption. Okay, well, might not have that. took place in LA a couple of times. Okay, so I did go, so I ended up going to this thing in LA because Bony Vera was there. Okay. And also Bill Hader, two artists that I just like love. so like, I also loved David Lynch. but not to the extent that I understood all about his life in TM at that point. So like it must've just been kind of like in my field of awareness, but not quite at that point. When I moved to Nashville about four years ago, I started working with this restaurant group here and the owners of the restaurant, their sons ⁓ are TM practitioners or whatever. ⁓ And again, like they're just, they had like similar cool kind of artsy vibe that I really liked. And I had heard enough people that had done it that I really enjoyed their art. And I could have certainly at that point, I also felt this like overwhelming desire to get some, get on a different path in my life. I just kind of felt like I didn't really know what the heck I was doing. And not that I do now, but I Do any of us. I know, right? But I certainly now, you know, on this side of, of, being a transgenital meditation practitioner, is that what we say? I don't even know, but I'm, so glad and grateful that I did find that or that it found me that way. But yeah, I think four years ago I was, I had left California and I was going through a divorce and, uh, just a lot of my life felt just very chaotic and I was having a really difficult time getting outside of my own way of like, is like, just everything felt so overwhelming and intense. And I also was drinking pretty heavily back then, like for work and just as part of my social, like I wrapped my identity in that ⁓ lifestyle pretty heavily. I was certainly ready for some change. I just didn't quite know where, how, and then TM just always kept kind of coming back. then when I was working with that restaurant group here, was like straight up, I was just like, all right, so how do I do it? Is it really crazy hard? they're just like, simple. They couldn't speak highly enough of it. When I learned, I went home and pretty much I half-assed it pretty hard for a couple of years. I had kind of recommitted myself to it before we reconnected at the sauna, but yeah, it took me a couple of years to find it, even after I found it officially. First, just because you talked about drinking and your shirt here says we literally drink all day. Yeah. And you mentioned it being connected to your work, but also personally, like, tell me what it is you were doing and then what it is you're doing now, maybe. Give us a little plug. on your shirt. was unintentional. I just was wearing this out today, wrapping my... Well, it is such a fun color. I love it. a color, ⁓ So I grew up ⁓ working in bars and restaurants. Like literally my first job, I was 13 years old. I was a busboy. ⁓ My dad got me a job at an Italian restaurant outside of Detroit that was owned by, I think it was owned by the mob. So... Yeah, I was very tall at that age. So I just looked maybe a little older, but I was just like a 13-year-old goofy kid. But yeah, I had literally worked in every part of a restaurant by the time I was 18. And then as soon as I was old enough to bartend, I wanted to do that. So I was doing that to pursue my, like to pay for, to fund my creative endeavors, which That's what took me out to LA. I wanted to pursue acting and music. And then I got really into the bar scene there. And it was really fun until it wasn't. that was a good 10. That was all my 30s, basically. It just was starting to get to this point where everything was too mixed up. And whether I... was controlling the drinking or not at that point, honestly, was just like such a, everything felt kind of messy. So I had to have a real kind of like moment of self-reflection and I was like, I don't think I can just drink alcohol anymore. Just don't want to. And literally like when I made that decision, you know, I support people in all walks of their sobriety and whatnot, but for me, it was just like, I'm done and I have no desire. to go back to drinking, but then. Where did that play into learning TM? What's interesting is I had learned TM before I quit drinking. Okay. Yeah. And I think it was all still like the TM practice, I said, I could half-assed it. But what was really kind of crazy was three months into not drinking alcohol, I was really kind of even more depressed than I thought I would be. Like I was just at a low point. And I think at that point it was mostly because I had, like I said, wrapped my identity so heavily into this, this is who I am, I'm this person and all my friends are like, everything was built around this lifestyle that included heavy drinking. And so three months in, like I said, I was at a pretty low point and I get a call from ⁓ this guy that I worked with. at a whiskey company. And then we worked together for several years and we were really good friends. And he just called out of the blue and I hadn't talked to him in probably a year or two. I just assumed he was calling to catch up. But he was just like, hey, ⁓ I know you're gonna say no to this. This is how he starts to call. He's like, I know you're gonna say no. He's like, but just hear me out. He's like, is there any chance you'd wanna come work with me on this like non-alcoholic spirit company? And I was like. Yes, yes. it was this very like, really kind of incredible. Again, another moment that just felt like, okay, yeah, that feels like the right path. And it gave me this opportunity to be back in the industry in a way that feels like instead of encouraging everyone to drink all they can all the time, it's like now I'm like, Well, we can drink all day, but it's a non-alcoholic spirit company. So now I'm just going around and doing kind of the similar role, but non-alcoholic. So it's like weird and cool. It sounds like an incredible synchronicity. Yes. I feel like that's sometimes something that people notice after they start practicing TM that ⁓ more and more of those things start to happen. Have you noticed that? ⁓ yeah, it's insane. It's like I literally feel like every day is just like full of. I don't like magic. It's like it's weird. just like I'm like I have like friends that are just like waiting for how long it's going to take for I say that's magical or something. Well, you know, like, ⁓ you made it 20 minutes without saying magic ⁓ or something. And it's so yeah, literally ⁓ it. really is literally every day that I feel like something really profoundly beautiful or magical or nice or sweet or serendipitous or cool synchronicities. Yeah, but they're happening all the time. Why do think that is? I think about that quite a bit. And I think it's really about awareness and presence. And I think I just, you know, I was living my life kind of like, just with blinders on ⁓ and so in tune to that, the monkey mind thing that was just like, that was the world I lived in was the, what I was constantly ⁓ playing inside. It was just not, it would never turn off. And so you miss everything because you're just constantly. just buzzing around with like unimportant shit. So like when you actually just stopped to like, be present, I think you just notice things and it just magically happens. There's a term that Maharishi would sometimes use ⁓ to describe this, he called support of nature. Yeah. That, you know, those... laws of nature that are governing life and our experience and kind of unseen, unknown when we're up here, but they're always there and always present that when we start to take the time through this practice to bring our attention to that level more and more, then it just become, like you said, we become more aware of that and more conscious of the things that. Maybe we're always there. Yeah. We've just hadn't been tuned into. So you said you learned, then there were a couple of years you were kind of half-assing it, to use your words. Yeah. What was it that then led you to decide you were really going to commit to doing the practice consistently? Well, I think the big thing for me was just stopping drinking. so at that three-month mark, too, like I said, I was just kind of like, oh, shit. and we'll know what I'm doing. But I had not really at that point still not committed to the meditation practice. I think I was just kind of just grasping, know, I was just like, you know, kind of, I don't know what I was doing, but the job came and that came kind of simultaneously with me getting back. So it was all kind of like strangely happening together. not strangely, just like perfectly happening. It always does. And so it just feels like it just happened. And once I... once I had been doing it for, don't even know, maybe it was just a couple of weeks where I consistently meditated twice a day. It was like I couldn't miss and it wasn't, and it wasn't like a burden or a chore. It was genuinely like the most, like the part of the day I looked forward to the most. And it still is that way. And like, if I am even like, if I'm missing, like I usually, do my, like I wake up at 5 a.m. and I meditate first thing and I've been doing that for over a year now. And I've like maybe missed a couple of times. And I know that's not for everybody, but that's just really works well for me. And then the evening when I give myself like a good big five hour window, usually that I'll kind of fit it into my day. Cause it's kind of, all over the place most of the time. But if I miss like, you know, whatever. I just, I always find the time for it and there's never not time for it, which is cool. And that's another thing, like time is just so different as the meditation practice just kind of became more naturally a part of life. It also like just helped to. I don't know, there's something about slowing down and being aware in that awareness and that presence that it just kind of makes time feel less rushed. So prior to starting learning TM, had you ever tried any other forms of meditation? I ran a lot, like a lot, a lot. And I feel like that was... I was running, I realized now I was running to achieve that kind of like that runner's high, which is just kind of like very meditative state. ⁓ and then other than that, I had done like a few, like very simple kind of like guided walking meditations and things like that, but never really had any sort of, ⁓ formal training or never really actually sat down to just, just to meditate. Did you imagine or did you think of yourself as someone who was into meditation? Not at all. like honestly, you know, sadly, I think I was kind of averse to it. Grew up in a very religious, like very evangelical kind of Christian box. unfortunately, the way that I was raised in that was that everything outside of that was like, No, no. Like, and so it was, you know, for whatever reason, ridiculous reason, it was like a anti-God type of thing, which is so ridiculous. Well, I'm curious, because I was not raised in that world. Can you explain that to me a little more? Just because I want to understand more like what that world kind of perceives about meditation and then what your experience has been. the way that Christianity was presented to me growing up. the problem with meditation or other religions or anything else outside of that one kind of doctrine was there was a very clear ⁓ expectation that this story of Christianity is the only thing. Like that's the only truth. so like it literally, it just did not be room for anything else. And to... invite anything else is to invite like blasphemy. ⁓ So it's just very rigid. And it's very misconstrued too, because, you know, at my age now, looking at the things that was taught, it's just taught out of fear. You know, these things are kind of control manipulation devices and whether or not they eventually lead to good or bad or whatever, you know, it's just, it adds a lot of, ⁓ and a lot of shame and guilt. When I was 18, basically, I started to really question a lot of things. And then I started to do a lot of, like, digging on my own. And, you know, I went through your typical kind of angsty years of really angry at all of that stuff and, like, feeling, like, know, betrayed by all these religious figures in my life and realities. They're just people like everyone else. And I look at... Meditation, Transdental Meditation in particular is just like this excellent add-on to anything. It's so inclusive of everything. Like there's literally nothing, you know, it's not offensive in any way to anything, you know? So anyway, yeah, I'm very glad I found it. Or it found me. Yeah. Yeah. And there's no, you know, there's no conflict. Like it is a technique. for you to be with yourself and experience these deeper levels of yourself and that settled place inside where like you've said, you have more clarity, you have more presence to bring to whatever else is important to you in your life. And if that's religion or beliefs, beautiful. If that's your family, if that's a creative project, if that's working out, if that's going for a run, whatever it might be, that there's just more. and more presence and more capacity to bring to anything else that we get to do. The word meditation simply means to think deeply. And transcendental, I know sometimes that it's like, ooh, transcendental, it's a big word. What does it mean? It means to go beyond. So we're going beyond that active thinking level you've kind of described as that monkey mind or the gada gada gada level and experiencing these quieter levels that are already there. We've just... lost access to for the most part when we're caught up on that racing level of life and that outward focused kind of direction of life that we're typically taught. That's really where the name for this podcast came from is the inner well. What does that mean to you? I think what I experienced when I meditate is just this depth of peace that just continues to grow. And so the deep well is just. It's vast and it's peaceful and it's wonderful. yeah. Love it. You said over now the last couple of years, you've been super consistent and you always find time to do it and make time to do it. What has helped you with that? The morning portion for me was the easier part to figure out because that Once I started to get regular with the practice, I noticed the first thing I did every day was to wake up and meditate basically. So I think once I had made ⁓ just a commitment to myself to give it a shot, things slowed down. That monkey mind thing, is that what we call it? That's a good name for it, because that's what it felt like. It's just there was a crazy monkey going in my brain all the time. But when that's kind of turned off, it opened up. So much more peace. And then from that place of peace, you're designing your day, not from chaos and not out of like, it's not like every moment you're like reacting to something. It's, things come up and it's like, okay, just like in meditation, like life becomes more like meditation, kind of handle things more peacefully in your life and make time because it's there, it's always been there. And so... and not be judgmental about it either. Like if things don't go the way I want, I certainly do have times where I react horribly. Like that's just part of life. And so I, know, I'm gracious with myself in those times, but then I, you know, I realized I have this practice that keeps me grounded in it, you know? And so for me, it's just become this invaluable tool that... literally is the most ⁓ sacred thing to me personally. Like it is the one thing that I won't, like the one thing that I won't ⁓ compromise on. Beautiful. And when I hear that, like what I hear is that the connection with yourself is the most important thing. This is simply a technique that allows you to access that and kind of a structure to. give yourself the time to connect with that deepest part of yourself. Absolutely. And like, it's like, yes, that connection to myself. And I realize how important that connection to myself is so that I can be in the world. It's not only do I need the meditation, but it's that connection to myself leads me to other things, like physically, just like taking care of my body better than I did before and showing up in the world as myself and more joyful. And so that like... And then I have these better interactions with people that I work with and people that are my friends and like, and that again, back to the weird synchronicities in magic. if you're genuinely, you know, connected to yourself, rooted, grounded in your spiritual practice or just in life, like then it just seems like all these wonderful things just start to happen. I love it. I think that's a perfect place to wrap up because really, like that's what this is all about just living more full lives. There's one kind of principle that Marishi talked about that we start to live 200 % of life, 100 % of that inner fulfillment and kind of fullness as the foundation for achieving and experiencing and being able to actually enjoy fulfillment on all those outer values of our life as well. Thank you. Awesome. Yes. Well, thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you. Thanks for everything. 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.