By: Juliana Pires Johnson
It’s taken me a few months since learning and completing my Transcendental Meditation (TM) course to be able to dig deep and get started on this story since learning (receiving information) and learning (understanding and putting it into action) can so often be misunderstood and one is not like the other.
At the end of 2020, my husband and I decided that there would be no better way to start 2021 than actually committing to learning TM. We heard about it for years, in such mysterious ways, and were never really able to find step-by-steps, tell-alls or ways to do it at home. We’d been long-time practitioners of what we thought was meditation thru way of Headspace, Calm and my favorite, the Chopra app. Any meditation with Deepak and Oprah was good enough for me, and a perfect entry-point to the practice of mindfulness. We signed up, paid the tuition and set the date to begin – January 4th. We heard from so many that it was the Holy Grail of calm and had transformed so many lives. After the year of 2020, it sounded like something to prioritize.
Given COVID restrictions, what would have been daily in-person group meetings became a socially distanced in-person one-on-one meeting on the first day and Zoom group meetings the days thereafter. It became clear that the reason you can’t just google TM and virtually learn it is because it’s personal. As you arrive for your first meeting, you’re told that what you learn is for you to keep, it’s an intimate, sacred experience strengthened by maintaining it that way.
During the first meeting, thorough expression and exploration, techniques are taught, and a personal mantra assigned. One that you should not repeat or say out loud – it’s your tool to go inwards. For this additional reason, one can’t just start practicing TM or teaching it without the proper course. As I then applied the technique, I recognized how different it was to everything I had previously been perceiving as “meditation.” I realized what I had been doing wasn’t meditation, they were mindfulness practices, valuable in their own right, but not to be confused.
In fact, when you meditate vs practice mindfulness, very different brain waves are activated and are measurable. When you are focusing on someone’s voice, being given instructions on what to think about, how to breathe, etc, you are just taking your attention inwards, still “trying”, just shifting focus. Many scientists who study meditation call this “focused attention.” Almost like your mind turning inwards to solve a math problem. That doesn’t mean that you are relaxed or in bliss, but that you’ve focused effort and thought internally to that one thing, zoning everything else out.
When you are meditating in the TM way, you aren’t trying at all – you aren’t being forced to focus – your mind is free and going where it needs to go. Trust me, it’s so different and I’d never realized it. Not to get all geeky on you but when you practice mindfulness – i.e. guided meditations or daily practices to calm the mind (consciously taking deep breaths, visualization practices, manifestation practices) your brain produces high-frequency EEG brain waves called gamma (20–50 Hz). Alternately, when you are in a state of “restful alertness” i.e. TM/ truly meditating, your brain registers the production of alpha brain waves (8–10 Hz). Though alert, the mind is relaxed and producing totally different results. Alpha, rather than beta or gamma waves prove that the subject is not focused, but restfully alert. From this standpoint, it’s obvious to see what each technique is doing and how they are producing great, but different results. One piece of information I should share, from my TM app is that “a meta-analysis of 42 studies published by the Journal of Social Behavior and Personality reported that TM was many times more effective at developing self-actualization than other forms of meditation and relaxation.”
Having said all of this you can ask me, 4 months later, how it’s going. I practice TM, twice a day, almost every day, for 20 minutes. Sometimes, mid-day, I still listen to some mindful Chopra app practice, which I still love. I don’t ace it every single day and there have been a handful of those in which I am only able to practice once a day or cut the time a bit short but every time I do that, I am reminded that’s a decision I made, to not prioritize my commitment to meditation and one that I always should. I could have always found the time, honestly, I just made different decisions which I can never justify being more important than the one to center my mind, spirit and energy. We spend so much time watching TV, scrolling on Instagram, even working on our bodies (finding those extra 15 mins for that extra cardio) but for whatever reason, 20 minutes to sit still and connect with your true self is too much? I am then reminded how almost every bad decision in the universe however micro, or macro comes from weak minds (those reactive to exterior cues vs internal calm). Just remember that changing the world starts with changing yourself. Changing your mind, changing your responses, changing your energy. Strengthening, calm, practicing non-reactivity. These are all gifts that I continue to receive from my daily practice. It sounds strange but things really started turning around in my life after a couple of weeks with TM. Things that I’d been chasing started easily coming to me. The right people, the right jobs, the right instincts and opportunities. I believe that energy looks for its soulmates and if you’re vibrating at a low frequency that’s what you are attracting and vice-versa. I am happy to report that over here – starting in 2021 – it’s been good vibes only and we’re staying this way.
For more info on TM, and how to find a center close to you visit www.tm.org.