Latest / The Inner Well Podcast / The Ultimate Anxiety Hack: “From Barely Functioning to Dancing Around My Living Room”
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. Hi everyone, welcome back to the Inner Well. I'm Megan, and we are live in Austin, Texas this week. And my guest for this episode is Mia Turner. Mia is one of my students, and she's gonna talk to us about quite a few different things, actually. I know that the theme this month is mental health, and we kind of started out this month with The three of us host talking about mental health as it relates to the dopamine disaster is what we called it. And so there's a lot of underlays that go to this umbrella term, though. And one of the main ones is anxiety, you know, something that I have struggled with tremendously in the past. It's actually what brought me to TM. And Mia and I both share that common thread. And so There's a lot that we're gonna dive into and I think you guys are really gonna enjoy hearing her story. She is, you know, just an amazing person and she's got a very inspiring journey. And as, you know, humans trying to work through this human experience, we can never get enough inspiration for it. And so, but before we get started, as we always do, I'd like For you guys to get to know her a little better. And so the way that we do this is we always ask our guests to tell us about themselves without telling us what you do for a living. So what brings you passion in the human experience? Also, thank you for having me here. Mike, my passion in life is loving others and treating them, you know, the best I possibly can, whether that be in just, you know, small little ways, accepting you know, whoever they are truly and fully, you know, because there's plenty of hate in the world and why should I add to my exactly. And there's nothing that makes someone feel more safe than being accepted in their authenticity. It's a beautiful thing. Yes. So I, you know Told you guys she was an amazing person. Yeah. What keeps me going is just making sure that everybody else is good to keep going, pretty much. And, you know, spreading my love and even the s smallest of ways in art as well. That's that's one big thing. Yeah, Mia is a really very talented artist. In fact, when she learns he am, she actually drew didn't isn't it something you saw in your meditation? Can you tell us about that? So when I first started seeing things during my meditation, you know, it was just a plain static image of something like really colorful or something much different than I normally paint because I I did a lot of, you know, black and white static stuff growing up. You know, it wasn't the happiest, but when I started meditating, everything kind of gained some color and some whimsical aspect to it. So I started seeing these like beautiful carved like doorways and stairs, like and and outer space as well. It was pretty cool. And then I started seeing some beautiful like I mean, just colors that I've never like imagined before in my in my head, you know, like kind of flying over the water and like almost just barely, you know, hovering above the water and just seeing, you know, the water splash back up at me and all these beautiful colors of a the sunset behind me. It was very in inspiring in ways that I've never I've never thought to paint that way. Also my mind was like, How am I gonna paint that? I know. I don't really have much experience in like making things that, you know, cool is what's showing up in my mind. That's so amazing. And it's so interesting, right? Because, you know, for those of you that are meditators hearing this, you might think, well, that never happens in my meditation. But it shows up for every nervous system differently. And this is one of the cool things about this technique. It will meet you exactly where you are. I get a lot of visuals too. And so that's that's always been a fun thing for me as well. And the other, so Mia and I were just talking before we started the interview. And she just got asked to do a mural in Austin, which is like a big deal, you guys. For those of you that don't know Austin, Austin is famous for its murals. And so she's actually gonna be one of our local artists. And so you guys will have to look for it. Where's it gonna be? It's actually a little outside of us. It's an logo business sub you know, it's in a little card shop. If anybody plays Magic the Gathering, it's you know it's pretty much a card shop. And so I'm gonna be putting, you know, dragons and goblins and all that and putting it all together in one big cool mural. That's simple. I just feel like when you said that I mean, I don't know what Magic the Gathering is, but I'm sure there are a lot of people that are like, Yeah, that's cool. Okay, well awesome. So that's that's a lot to look forward to. And now tell us what you do for a living. What do you do so? I am in the film industry. I am pretty much a full time freelancer. and specifically what I do is craft service. So, you know, I make all these beautiful like arrangements of snacks and drinks and keeping people well fed, you know, during the long, long shoot days. And that can be, you know, I think my longest day was Twenty-one hours. My goodness. So that's, you know, 3 a.m. to like sometime late at night and, you know, kind of boosting morale at the same time, you know, since I'm not as like I mean, I I'm very involved in, you know, the filming, but everybody's focused on their own thing. So when they come to my table and, you know, I help them out and get what they want and like. Ask if they want me coffee or you know, your mamate that I grew myself. I'll kind of if I see that they're looking a little bit down, I'll just try to make feel a little bit pumped up. Such a sweet darling. I love that. So amazing. And so yes, we're very lucky to have Mia join us because she very rarely has any time in her busy schedule. So now let's get into some of the journey. So would you feel comfortable telling us what brought you to TM. Thus everyone always has a catalyst when they decide, okay, it's time for me to actually pay to learn how to meditate, go through a four-day course and all the things. And so Mia learned how long ago now? It was almost a year to the day. It was at the very end of July 2025. And I had a friend that came over to my place and She had just learned TM and she was super excited. She was telling me all about it. She's like, You're not gonna believe me, but this is what I'm Who was this? Okay. And I thought yes. Okay, great. That's right. Yeah. She was she was kind of going through some mental health struggles. And, you know, this was kind of in her mind, it it felt like a last resort and a way to try to help her, you know, get through her struggles a little bit. And she's like, I know this sounds kind of Good too good to be true. And she's a skeptic herself. She really told me this is gonna help me a lot because I had just, you know, I was in the midst of going through some pretty heavy grief. I I lost my brother to suicide just a few months before then. So I was a complete wreck and you know, I kinda felt bad having her over anyways, because it's like I was just not fun to be around and It kind of I thought about it for a long time and it it it did take me a few months, maybe like six or seven, to finally say, Okay, I've had enough, you know, like let's you know, any help is good help, you know. I don't care how little it is, I need some relief because it's kinda th that that feeling of, you know, grief is it's it's just I I didn't know that I could feel that much pain. And it's kinda like you You're surprised that you're still breathing because, you know, you f you feel like this is like so overwhelming. I feel like this should be like shutting my body down. Yeah. So I finally booked an appointment to start, you know, learning from you. And I mean, I so my friend Kenzie, she she's sort of feeling the effects. Pretty fast. You know, she said, This is not normal, you know. Most people it takes a little bit more time before they start seeing those, you know, changes in their life, or even if they're real small. But it turned out to be true for me as well that, you know, within the first week or so I was noticing things change. Like I just felt like little bits were getting lifted off my shoulders and I started to kind of en enjoy life a little bit more. I mean, there was some, you know. I listened to music and I just felt a little bit more sensitive to it and like I can like listen to it, I mean, in on a deeper way than I would be able to normally. And I remember this was like, you know, not even very long after I finished my course. I remember I had just finished meditating and I started dancing around my living room. I felt like I was quite literally like 20 pounds less. Yeah. It's an emotional burden. Yeah. And it was the strangest thing. You know. I I thought for quite a while, like, okay, this there has to be like an end to this. When is the pain gonna come back in? When am I gonna be trapped in this deep hole again? And it just never went. I mean, it it kind of seemed to be a little bit permanent, as well as my anxiety. My anxiety started to become a lot easier to manage and I had, you know, pretty major anxiety, like hated leaving the house. I I would go to work still, but it's like talking to people, I would try to avoid doing that because it's just it was kind of painful. And it's like I love these people and you know, I love talking and helping people. That's what I do. But it was just kinda I I wanted to avoid it. So especially going to the the grocery stores, that was really hard for me to just force myself to get out of the car and go in. I've I found myself actually getting back into my car and just driving home before team. And, you know, I started to be able to handle those social situations. And once the anxiety started to fade, these little mistakes I would make started to also go away. I started realizing a lot of the issues in my life stem from this anxiety and they didn't quite even realize the magnitude of it. No, I can I can definitely relate. It's anxiety can very much be a debate. experience on so many levels. And it bleeds into everything, every aspect of your life. There's nothing that's untouched or unscathed by it when it gets to an unmanageable space like that. So I'm so happy to hear that it's been helpful. And I think that, you know, one of the things that is also really relatable being and I'm sure we've got a lot of viewers that are in the same scenario and if you're such an empathic soul and you pick up on other people's feelings and emotions so easily and you know that works for you and it works against you, right? It makes you able to do this amazing thing that you do where you just bring light and sparkles to all those that need it. And it also can be challenging because you're also feeling what they're feeling. You know, you're feeling that heaviness, that grief, that drain, that darkness. And I can speak from my own personal experience being very much the same way. When I've had to go through my dark spaces in life, there's there's nothing like holding that level of darkness when your nervous system is not. used to it. The human experience shows up differently for everyone. And there's some nervous systems out there that do do that better than others. I mean no one does it good. No one loves hitting rock bottom. No one's like, yeah, let's go do this. Sign me up for all that darkness. But there's some nervous systems, I think those more ORCID tight, delicate, refined nervous systems, it can be it it's Like what you said where you you just don't know how your body is surviving it. Like there is it's the contrast. The contrast can be just so challenging to manage. And so, you know, that's where I think that when you find a technique like this where, you know, when you're dealing with so much contraction, you know, being able to have that expansion, then that provides a much needed reset to your nervous system. In so many ways. I I honestly never knew that I could feel like this. And you know, the anxiety's not completely gone, but it's at a a minimum. I'm able to function finally. I'm able to have a connection with friends that I never been able to before. Because it's like I was focused on, you know, what they were thinking all the time and like just making sure I was not boring them or anything. There was just a lot running through my brain and they can tell that I was visibly uncomfortable yeah talking to them and I wanted them to know it's not there. It's just my my own mind is eating itself up, you know. Yeah. So you know, I didn't know a world like this was out there. I had a similar experience. My version of grocery stores was because I worked in corporate America and going to work every day was really hard. For me. And you know, that type of environment is a really challenging space for sensitive nervous systems. And I was doing the exact same thing. I was so other focused and I'm worrying about how I'm showing up for everyone else and what their perception of me is and blah, blah, blah. And then when I started this technique, I'm wondering if it's the same for you. I actually started to be able to hold my own space, like actually some self-referral. where that lens always focused on others actually started to turn inward. And when that happened, then I just naturally became more I would imagine, more pleasant to be around because my s nervous system wasn't vibrating. All the time, you know, because I was actually sustaining a center point within myself. Do you feel like it was the same for you? I definitely feel like it was the same for me. And with my job as well. But when I first started doing TM, I wasn't doing craft service. I was doing more of like a production assistant, you know. So we were on the streets of downtown Austin, you know, having to deal with pedestrians and explaining to them like Why the road is closed down. it will be opened back up. Just give us a few minutes to like take this shot and you know, we'll you'll be able to cross. So we had to deal with a lot of angry people that would just throw little hissy fits at us. And I I would always be very understanding. But with the more aggressive people that you you could tell that they just wanted to cause some sort of stir. Yeah. For no reason other than that, the the ones that would just, you know. come back and forth and just like peer in at what we're doing and then cause a stir. You could tell that they were just there, some of them were just there to kind of get in our business. And I was able to stand my ground against them, not give them too much of my energy, really, you know, give their explanation and that's it, not feel like I've done something wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and that's hard because I feel like just, you know, the human condition in general Being humans are right. And our nervous systems can only handle so much charge before they get full. And when they get full, then people just become so reactive. And so when you're in situations like this where you're dealing with people who are in a reactive head space, you know, a lot of times you're taking the brunt of what really upset them like five hours ago. Yes. You know, it doesn't even have anything to do with you, right? But it sure does feel personal when they're yelling at you. Right. Right. So maybe somebody put some olives on their sandwich. If you didn't want olives. Yeah. And it's so I can I can only imagine that I feel like it should be a prerequisite for life. Everyone should have to work in the service industry. Or retail. One of the two where you just have to deal with people on the regular. Yeah. Or they're verating other people about, you know. And and making it their problem. Yeah. Yeah. We're all human here. So yeah. I think let's just try our best to show up for each other as best as we can. Right. And so how's your experience with grief now on the other side of learning TN? So grief now to me, I can put my distance between it and I can deal with it when I want to, but it's not every second of the day, you know, you find like Back then I would end up kind of in a what just felt like a pit that I couldn't crawl out of, you know. It was just it came with such strong emotions. Even after like a whole year had passed and this was just every day just dwelling, line racing about just only that. There was no other part of my life that was happening in my own mind. Nothing else really mattered. Yeah. But nowadays it's like I can peer into it and I can, you know, deal with it. I mean, I feel like it it is healthy to deal with grief every once. I have to process it. Yeah. But then there's a time and place where you just need to put it to the side and I can finally have that separation and focus on what I want to do and not take on the full brunt of the the emotions while I'm trying to, you know, help others feel better. I mean, there's plenty of sensitive people out there that I know can feel what I'm feeling and take it on themselves. And that's that's the last thing that I want. I mean, just my my friends around me, they were kinda in the crossfire of just interacting with me beforehand, just kind of having to take that on. I I didn't think that that was fair. Well, and I also think that there's something for, you know, and my girlfriends and I talk about this all the time. If you have the space, right, we'll always say, Okay, I got I got some stuff. Do you have some space? Because there is something with co-regulation where it it's actually a beautiful thing to have someone who's willing to hold space for you and then, you know, running your experience through their nervous system willingly. takes a load off of yours. And that's part of how we co-regulate as a species. And so, you know, it is actually, it's a, it's a beautiful thing to have someone or multiple people in your world that you can have that kind of vulnerability and connection with because being human is hard. And what you went through, you know, that kind of loss, there's there are a few things in life that are harder than that. And having people in your world to have help you hold that when they have the space to help you is I think something with that's okay to leave into. You don't need to hold it all by yourself all the time. It's it's a lot to hold. But at the same time, it I feel like grief is the most common thing for people. I mean living people, I I believe every single person will experience grief in one form or another. So I mean that's why I think it's very important to spread the good word of T Yeah. You know, because I mean if it helps me to a a point where I didn't think that it would. I never thought that it would help me in this way. It can help thousands of other people, you know? I'm not the only one. Yeah. Yeah, I know it's and thank you for saying that. It's it is. It's an amazing technique and it really does help with the human experience because you know our human tendency is to attach. And when we get into experiences of really heavy grief like that, we get so drawn into the contraction, we forget what it feels like to be expanded. And that just becomes all we know at that moment in time. And it can be a very lonely very destructive, very desolate place. And so I'm so happy that you found this at the time when you needed it most. And I'm so happy that I could help facilitate that for you. And I just think you're such a sweet, amazing, beautiful soul. And you know, I'm just I'm sorry you had to have experience. But thank you so much, Megan, because yeah I feel like I've I'm kind of after going through all this pain, I'm I It's weird to say that I feel like I'm in the best place that I've ever been. That's not weird at all. It's a rite of passage. That kind of pain usually comes as a rite of passage like that. Yeah. I mean, I you know, that's a whole other conversation, but it it changes you as a person. It's like it's sort of like dying into life. You know, we call it evolutionary momentum where you're that version of you that you were before your brother. moved on is no longer you actually outgrew that and became a different version of yourself because of everything that you were forced to go through to get on the other side of it. I mean that take that's like it's like a spiritual warrior. It takes so much to be able to pull yourself out of a hole like that. And it's a really admirable journey. Well it definitely feels like all the smaller inconveniences in my life are just a singular drop of water in the cup in comparison to the whole ocean. Right. The white sphere's perspective. Yeah. Makes everything a lot easier. You're like, well, if I've done this, pretty sure I can do this. It's gonna be okay. Yeah. those points of reference are always helpful. Right. Well, is there anything that you would like to say to our viewers before we wrap it up? If you are going through something very hard, you know, and it feels like there's no way out. I mean, it's not gonna hurt to try TM. It's not. Even though I didn't, you know, expect a whole ton to come out of it. I mean, I was pleasantly surprised that, you know, this is this was such a life changing experience for me. So there's always gonna be a way out of the darkness. Well said. Okay, so we're gonna close out with our favorite question. What does the inner well mean to you? The inner well is unlimited peace. Away from the disaster, away from the fear. It's a safe space. And it's the most beautiful safe space I have. Me too. Yeah. I always say that too. It's my safe space also. Well, thank you so much for being here, Darlene. It was so great to see you again. And I just absolutely adore all the things about you and I'm glad that you got to share your story with the audience and they got to see how amazing you are too. So thanks so much for tuning in, you guys. I hope you have a great rest of your week and we will see you next week on the inner well. That's a wrap on today's episode of The Inner Well.