Latest / The Inner Well Podcast / Up-Armoring the Mind: Jonny Mize on TM and the Resilient Warrior Program
Transcript
- The Inner Well Podcast: that are just looking for support. So I ⁓ yeah, that's kind of who I am in a nutshell. Awesome. Well, I would love to hear a bit more about your journey and kind of what got you to this place of where you are now in serving others. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I'm gonna try to keep it as short as as I can because it's there's a lot. But if I had to give it a title It would be a certified TM teacher with the David Lynch Foundation. But before that, I was on my own healing journey of trying to find a technique resource to really reconnect myself to peace. And I was trying everything I could, a lot of ⁓ holistic health modalities because I am a army combat veteran. I did a de a deployment in Afghanistan for a year. And before that, I grew up in a very traumatic childhood where there was a lot of abuse, a lot of homelessness, substance use. I was justice involved, so in and out of the court system. I had to actually be taken, removed out of my home in high school because it was so gnarly. So I've just kind of been born into ⁓ a lot of turbulent, volatile stress, which now I know is just Passed down intergenerational trauma that's unresolved. So I've kind of come at peace with myself in my past and have not, I'm not playing the victim card because I feel like that is a bit of a suffering as well, to play that victim card. But at the same time, I'm realizing that everything that I've been through ultimately has set me up for this job that I'm currently doing right now for the David Lynch Foundation. Which if you had told me this, Danielle. Like twenty years ago or ten years ago, I would have been like, No, my life is hell, my life is suffering. There's no point to this trauma. There's no point at all. But now I thankfully I've kind of made it through. So how was it that you came across TM? You said you were seeking out different practices to navigate that that moment where you were seeking peace and in a different way and a different path. How'd you come across TM there? Yeah, so I thankfully I forgot to mention I am a musician and I always tell folks that music was my first meditation. And I if it wasn't for music, if it wasn't for guitar during that very violent childhood in high school, I would have never been able to make it to TM because there's something so powerful about sound. Sound is healing. Of course we know that and it's such a beautiful form of healing. So I use music to kind of manage. And then I heard a musician talking about TM in an interview because I I gravitated towards the outliers when I was growing up. So I when I was in high school, I didn't fit in and I resonated with the people, you know, the freaks and the geeks. And I resonated with a a culture, you know, punk rock. I kind of grew up in the punk rock community because they accepted me for who I was. And it was a punk rock ⁓ musician talking about how TM makes you a better songwriter and it makes you more creative. And I was like, How could that be? How could like what is TM? How could that be? But I was a big fan of of the band and and him. And I you know how it goes when you hear it once. Another person a few weeks later talks about it and then another person a few so I like around the fifth time of people talking about TM, I was like, okay enough. I gotta I gotta do a a a TM intro and show up and listen to hear hear about this. And so yeah, if it wasn't for music, I wouldn't I wouldn't be alive and I wouldn't have learned TM. Wow. So where were you living at that time and what was that experience of going to learn TM like? And like is that something that you ever imagined? yourself doing? No, no, good question. Yeah, I think like a lot of people, especially guys, especially military first responder guys, we don't do holistic health. We don't do at least for me, I don't I never grew up in mental mental health was not even a thing. But I like I said, did a a year deployment in Afghanistan and had a some money saved up. From the year deployment. So I was able to get my own studio, a downtown Ventura next to the beach, which was very healing for me to be in nature on the hillside. I would just walk all the time and go to the beach as much must as I could. And I went to TM.org once I had the last person tell me about how good it is. I went to TN.org and ⁓ just put in my information. And I got a call back from my teacher. I think you might know him, Robert. Mm-hmm. Maloda, great teacher, great guy. And I remember even to this day him calling me after I submitted my information. And I was a little bit skeptical because it was some random guy off the internet that called me. But I remember feeling so so good about him talking with me. He seemed like he really cared. He seemed like he was really warm and he I could hear him smiling. ⁓ I could see him smiling through the phone and ⁓ then we scheduled the intro and sure enough, ⁓ showed up. He was super happy. He was laughing all the time and I didn't know what the hell he was talking about during the intro. But the whole time I was thinking if I do this technique and if if it's gonna make me as happy and as vital and as energetic as you are at you know, whatever age he was in his fifties or sixty, I'm like, I'm gonna do it. And I did it and never thought. That I would do something like that, but I was it's amazing what suffering, true suffering, can make people do. It's it's like in times of desperation, w we're really willing to try anything that might work. And thankfully it worked. And I loved it. And I kept doing it. And it just got better and better. And I told everybody about it. And I had like my friends learn TN and ⁓ and yeah, yeah. So ⁓ I'll stop. Right there. What did you love most about it? It calmed me down. It calmed me down. I could actually be peaceful. And as someone that not only served in combat and war, but also had kind of a horrific warlike childhood, that was really the first time where I could really be at peace and feel content with myself with just myself and not with any other person or other thing, it just calmed me down. I used to have really bad social anxiety. I know it may not seem like it right now, but I couldn't look people in the eye. When I would go to the store and buy things at like at the grocery market or the I would had my head down the whole time. I couldn't talk to the the cashier. And I would self-isolate. And one thing that I noticed after, you know, maybe a few weeks or a month or so, I would go out with my friends and I wouldn't have this anxiety. And I would be tripping out because I'm in this usually anxiety inducing environment, but I was calm. So it was kind of like I I would I would just bring the calm with me into the storm. And I liked that. I liked how I could do it on my own and I didn't have to rely on any anybody else. That is one thing that is so profound about this technique is that once you've got it, you've got it. And you can take it with you wherever you go. It doesn't, like you said, doesn't require anything external. Whether that's being guided through it or a particular cushion or room or any kind of gear or paraphernalia, you can just sit down and do it wherever you find yourself. Yeah. Yeah, I love that too. So how long ago was that that you learned? I was thinking about it. I think a couple of weeks ago or maybe almost a month ago is my s I'm terrible at math. It was two thousand and nine. So I think is that is that seventeen years? Something like that. Wild, yes. That's when I first learned. Yeah. So I was twenty-five and ⁓ still a kid, still trying to figure it out. Brain was still developing and I'm I wish I had it when I was younger. I wish I had TM when I was ideally you know, in elementary school, but ⁓ I'm still grateful that I had it while my brain was still developing at twenty-five. And then what prompted you to want to become a teacher of it? Yeah, it was pretty impressive. I'm sure you hear that a lot from your students. It's just ⁓ so impressive how quickly the technique works and how much benefit just holistically, you know, it provides. So I was using the GI Bill. I learned TM and I started to feel whole again. And then I said, Well, let me go let me go to the school and try to figure out what it is I want to do with my life. And I was thinking social work. I took their quiz and it told me, you know, ⁓ based off my answers what kind of Career and it said social work might be good. But then halfway through college, I was like, no, I want to become a TM teacher. This is the technique that gave me my life back. So I want to pay it forward. I want to come back to my brothers and sisters and just bring them forward with this technique. And nothing wrong with social work. I love social workers, but for me, I wanted to work more on a deeper level, on the level of consciousness that I feel is primary, is foundational. And it just seemed to make sense because I've come to realize that this technique is so ancient and it was connected to the warrior class. ⁓ you know, many thousands of years ago. So I'm kind of realizing in a lot of ways the work that the David Lynch Foundation is doing is just getting back to the roots of having an empowered, conscious, connected, resilient warrior class here. I it's my life's mission and vision to allow TM to be introduced into basic combat training. That's what I'm gonna dedicate the next 40, 50, 60 years, however long I can live, to make sure that every warrior at least has the option to learn this tech technique. And and prevention is so much more valuable than a cure. So I I really, really am passionate about it because I've seen the results in myself. And I've seen the results time and time again with these warriors. Thank you for all that you are continuing to do to serve your brothers and sisters in this community. I feel really lucky to be one of the few civilians who has gotten to teach TM in some of these programs with veterans and first responders. And it has just brought me such a a ⁓ deep appreciation and love and connection to that community. You all just have such a special place should. place in my heart as, you know, I see the just the down to earth, real, service oriented nature that almost everyone in your community shares. And it's something that I really admire and respect and feel lucky to have had the opportunity to spend time in in the veteran and first responder community through teaching TM in it over the last few years. Yeah. Well thank you for what you What you do and have done, you've I'm sure have impacted so many lives by the work that you've you've ⁓ facilitated. So thank you. I'm sure your your students consider you part of the family just because I can tell how much you care. And you're one of the really good TM teachers that I love working with because you you have so much capacity to relate to those that you teach. And that, in my opinion, is a sign of a great teacher. You know, not necessarily how much knowledge you know of all this ancient technique, but ⁓ that's important. But how well can you really allow those that you serve be seen and heard by your presence and your consciousness? So yeah. So thank you. Thank you. I want to come back to this piece that you were saying about this being, you know, coming from an ancient tradition and being connected to the warrior class. I think that's such an important piece, especially in this modern era where we have access to so much. You know, there are so many different types of meditation. I think that this often gets lumped in with ⁓ meditation. You know, I've tried some kind of meditation, I've tried them all. When in reality, you know, what I think sets this one apart so much is this connection that has been maintained very intentionally to the ancient tradition that it comes from. And the fact that it's taught one-on-one teacher to student in the same oral tradition that has handed it down for thousands of years. I'd love to hear you just talk a little bit more about that and the connection to the warrior tradition specifically. I love this topic. And I when I tell warriors this at Intro Talks, you see them light up. You see them open more to the idea of learning because they know the value of honor and tradition. And on some unconscious level, they get it. They understand that a warrior who is burnt out, stressed, can't perform well. But a warrior that is established within themselves and has equanimity on the battlefield, you know, and I tell them that this technique makes you a better warrior. It prepares your system to have equanimity on the battlefield. So it just makes you more effective, more efficient. So it really is a technique that is rooted in service to others. And not on the level of talking, not on the level of the mind, but the level of the nervous system. It's an embodiment form of meditation that just your presence alone, just your nervous system integrated into the society, into the culture, or in ancient times, the village, just the presence of a warrior would create coherence out of incoherence. It would create order out of disorder. And that unfortunately has Been forgotten because of the stress that these first responders and these warriors have to bear. It's almost it's crazy that we're sending our men and women into these traumatic situations and just expecting them to be like everybody else. So this technique was only given to the warrior class because they had the responsibility to be the living embodiment. Of a fully integrated human being. The warrior class was the protector of this field, you know. So I think it really is exciting with so much research that has been done with veterans at the San Diego VA just down the street, the DOD $2.4 million study that compared TM with prolonged exposure, the first-line intervention. There's so much research showing TM compared to mindfulness. TM is usually twice as effective compared to mindfulness at reducing high blood pressure. And so it's not that other meditations are bad. It's that we need rest. And what gives us rest? Transcending, transcending. And rest is going to build us up as a society. And a foundation in rest makes a better warrior. Which is which is kind of a ⁓ mind trick for a lot of guys because we've been trained. To not do that. We've been trained to do the complete opposite. Just function on burnout, function on complete exhaustion. But meanwhile, you see it on their face. They come into these intro talks. They're they're tired. They're stressed. They can't sleep. They can't relate to their wife. So is what we're doing working? We need we need something new, but also not new. Something very, very ancient. You said that all so well. Just just brilliant. Now you've been Teaching for about 10 years. And I'd love to hear a little bit more about what that journey has looked like for you and what you're up to now. Yeah, I ⁓ had the intention of, like I mentioned, graduating teacher training from the TM course and working with warriors, because that's what I wanted to do. But as life does, life put me in a different position, which was actually very beneficial to me. I was stationed and working with inner city school kids and ⁓ different major cities serving them and learned a lot about myself during the process. These children ⁓ definitely taught me about what it is to be a human, what it is to be alive and ⁓ grateful. ⁓ I got so much out of working with them. And then the pandemic hit and then all the schools got shut down. I got furloughed. Didn't know what to do, but I knew that I needed to get to nature because I was living in LA and I didn't like LA. So I said, Well, I'm from Ventura. I don't want to go back home. Let me go to somewhere else that's close to the beach. So I went just on a whim. Just on a whim, moved to San Diego, no friends, no family, and kind of did other ⁓ certifications with other holistic health modalities, seeing what I could do to heal myself. And then I got a phone call from our buddy Vin, who I think you in ⁓ interviewed a couple of weeks ago. And he said, Hey, hey John, we have a position teaching ⁓ warriors in San Diego TM. ⁓ where are you? And and would you be interested in doing that? And I said, ⁓ I'm actually in San Diego, and yes, I've been waiting for this phone call ever since I graduated teacher training ⁓ 10 years ago. So it really is a joy to be able to finally be able to do what I feel I was born to do and why I was put here on this earth. So I teach primarily exclusively almost ⁓ veterans, military and first responders. And it's amazing how this culture here in San Diego, this community is so integrated with ⁓ the the veteran and military. I mean, you know, Top Gun was filmed here. So this is Fighter Town, USA. There's there are so many military bases. There are ⁓ I think over a hundred thousand active duty members, over two hundred thousand veterans just in this county alone. So th there's there's plenty of work for for us ⁓ in this county and I I love it. It really is yeah, it really is a gift. That's awesome. If there is a veteran that hears this and is interested in learning TM, is there a way for them to kind of get connected with you and and what you're offering through the David Lynch Foundation right now? Yeah, absolutely. A few different options. They can go to the main website, david lynch foundation.org, and then you'll see the various programs which you've been highlighting the past few episodes. And then there's the veteran. The direct link is resilient-warriors.org. Resilient-warriors.org. And there's Some good videos of a few veterans talking about how TM has helped. There's some scientific literature. It kind of talks about how you learn TM. And then there's the application to apply. So just click on that. It's like five or seven basic questions, nothing crazy. DLF really understands how difficult it is for guys to ask for help. So we want to minimize as many barriers for support as possible. We made it very easy, very streamlined. Submit your contact information. ⁓ you'll get routed to your nearest TM teacher and And if you're in San Diego, you're more than more than welcome to reach out to me directly. My email is Jonathan at David Lynch Foundation.org. And yeah, I'm I have an office here. And the great news is that we have scholarships available not only for the warrior and the first responder, but the spouse and the and the children, you know, which I love. I love serving the whole family because it's not just about the warrior and the first responder, it's really the whole family. Awesome. And is that mostly in the San Diego area that the scholarships are available for families and clinicians? Yeah, for San Diego, since ⁓ DLF kind of sees how passionate I am about this and they see how much great progress I'm making by building community with the organizations here, they've kind of made a special situation available, thankfully, to the Dave Lynch Foundation and thankful for all the donors that have supported me to be able to do this. But as far as let's say you're just living in some Other states in the country, I I can't say for certain, but I'm pretty sure, at least for the veteran and the first responder, that they should be able to learn for free. Is there a story of a student of yours that has most impacted you? Man, there are there are so I'm sure you can say the same. There are so many. It's so beautiful to have this treasury of life transformation stories that we ⁓ get to witness during some days through. just a few days. The one that comes to mind is just because it is recent. I taught a warrior who she's young. She's very young. She's like young thirties and she is getting medically discharged because of a traumatic, physiological traumatic event. I I don't know the details off hand, but it it was some neurological damage that is kind of stripped her ability to do what she loves and she has to be discharged. And she showed up To the intro in so much pain. So much pain. She was using a cane. Young, young, using a cane. And couldn't sit for five minutes without having to readjust and move because she was in so much pain and taught her. And you know, on the third day, she showed up with no cane. She no longer needed a cane and she was walking. And ⁓ just checked in with her a couple weeks ago. She no longer is no no longer needing a cane, but her whole b ⁓ her whole b biomechanics are becoming more natural, more fluid. And she just shared with the group that she's she's tried everything. She was trying everything, nothing has worked. She said nothing has worked. She said TM is the only thing that has worked, and she's able to do things that she used to do that she used to love. She said, I'm doing yoga again. I'm doing this, I'm doing that. Made such an impression because I as someone that knows firsthand what it's like to struggle with back pain and not being able to walk. I think when you and I met in Chicago, I had the weirdest thing where I just had the the ability to walk was stripped from me. It's a a story for another day, but I was suffering so much and I know how much pain someone can be in. So TM not only helps with mental pain, but it also helps improve the physical symptoms, the psychosomatic so it just really is ⁓ I'm just blown away every time that I teach these ⁓ these warriors, you know, how much good can come from this simple natural technique. Absolutely. Wow. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here with us, Johnny, and sharing your story. And I just so admire and appreciate and respect your passion and your commitment to continuing to make this technique available to. Your veteran and first responder community. You are an inspiration and looking forward to continuing to see all the amazing work you continue to do. 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.