Deirdre Parsons: Transcendental Meditation and the Human Side of Performance

Deirdre Parsons, Executive Director of the David Lynch Foundation, talks about stress, creativity and helping people think more clearly through Transcendental Meditation. We discuss how she has spent over 40 years practising and teaching TM, bringing it into businesses, healthcare, education, prisons and trauma environments, as the David Lynch Foundation helps people access deeper rest, greater clarity and more resilient ways of working and living.

Transcript

Welcome to the Whole Leader podcast. I'm Richard Britton. I've spent years building companies inside systems that rarely put people first. And one question keeps coming back to me. What would leading look like if people really mattered? Many of the systems we work in were never designed with that as the starting point. And the result is disconnection, loss of agency, and a sense that something isn't quite right. In this podcast, as I explore what this means in practice,

I talk with people who are trying to do things differently, reflecting on themselves, on leadership and on the systems they are creating.

Today's guest is Deidre Parsons, Executive Director of the David Lynch Foundation. She spent over 40 years practicing and teaching transcendental meditation and now works with organizations across business, healthcare and education, bringing that practice into real world environments. Her focus is on helping people manage stress, think more clearly and perform at their best, particularly in high pressure roles and leadership positions. Welcome Deidre. Thank you, Richard. It's lovely to be here. It really is.

I've had a wonderful time working with Powerverse. So it's just wonderful to of like wrap up the end of the course, the end of the TM course, speaking to you about it. And yeah, thank you very much for inviting me in. thank you very much for coming and thank you for the work you've been doing with the team as well. It's certainly when you're in the middle of a growing startup, some of those things about stress and pressure are right there in the middle of it. So great that the people are getting this tool set. Yeah. And I think they've sort of like...

taken on the program very seriously and they've you know, sort of like very sort of sincere and listening and just enjoying it actually and seeing the difference, seeing how I can help them. Fantastic. So we're looking forward to seeing the progress over a period of time. Yeah, absolutely. And for our listeners, maybe we can kind of go into it a bit more now. And for people who aren't familiar, what is the David Lynch Foundation and how would you describe Transcendental Meditation or TM in simple terms?

Okay, well, let's start with the David Lynch Foundation. The David Lynch Foundation was set up in 2005 by the filmmaker, which I'm sure we all know, David Lynch himself. Now, David had been practicing TM for about 40 years, actually, or maybe a little bit less than that when he actually started the foundation. And he'd been quietly sort of practicing, you know, on his own in his studio. Excuse me. And, but, you know, after a while he realized that this is something that he really wanted to share.

And there's actually more to the story than this, but I'm just going to tell you in brief. you know, there was, you know, a feeling that there was something more to share because he realized from his own experience that every, every person needed to experience this level of transcending. And, cause he could see how it was affecting his life, how is it, how it was helping him with his creativity process. And just sort of like, even in his sort of personal life, professional life, it was helping him in so many different ways.

So the idea was at the beginning for every child in America to learn transcendental meditation and that was our mission at the beginning. And what we found was that we were being so successful with teaching children and teachers especially because the school teachers would always learn as well as part of the program that other organizations were approaching us and asking us, look, can this work for our clients?

we've got a lot of people here that could do with something like that. And so we started to branch out and to work with the homeless, with veterans, and people really suffering from traumatic stress. And so the foundation started to grow. And as it was growing, I knew David and he asked me if, and the co-founder of the David Lynch Foundation in America, Bob Roth, if I would set up the David Lynch Foundation here in the UK.

So we set it up in 2012. So we've been going for a while and we follow the kind of very same mission as they do in the US. So we've been sort of raising awareness about trans and denomination fundraising and basically working with people who are suffering from traumatic stress, those kinds of groups. And at the moment we've been working or quite recently we've been working with ambulance service. so we're sort of helping them because as you know, that's a group of people who are very dedicated to their work, know, quite exhausted, experiencing a lot of stress every day and need some form of resilience or something to help them to recover from that stress so they can go in the next day and, you know, be there to rescue us all or to help us all. Yeah, they're first responders. So they're seeing very difficult things every day.

Exactly. you know, as we all know, I mean, quite often some of the things that they will see every day, even if we had one of those incidences in our life, we would be sort of taking a lot of time to recover and they don't have that opportunity. So we reached out to some ambulance personnel, ambulance service personnel, and they were very keen to get involved. And we did a sort of short evaluation on the program to see how it would work.

And we got such great results from that, that we've decided to go on and do a randomized control trial, which we're hoping to start later this year. bringing the science to it as well, so you can show it in the data. Very interesting. And for the listeners who maybe don't know what transcending is and don't know what TM means actually, maybe it would be helpful to speak about that as Put it into context. So transcendental meditation.

I mean, it's there, the word is there in the words because transcendental meditation is quite different than other meditation techniques where we're using a mantra and the mantra we describe as being like a vehicle to help the mind to settle down. A mantra? Being like a word or a sound. Some other meditation techniques might involve more mindfulness practices where you're scanning the body or focused on your breathing, which are great, you know, because anything that's helping you to put your attention back on yourself is always nourishing. It's always sort of self-healing. with transcendental meditation, we're going deeper than that. The mind is able to, just in a very easy, natural, effortless way, to transcend, go beyond the surface level of thinking where it's very chaotic, very, very noisy, and to experience finer and finer levels of thinking. And what's happening is, and the way that we describe this is if you think about the ocean and the...

the surface of the ocean and it's very choppy. It's sort of, you know, the waves are sort of constantly moving and it's very similar to the thinking process. It's constantly moving, never stops, always thinking, thinking, thinking about the next thing. But what we do know about the mind is that it can't shut down completely. We can't control it for any length of time, no matter how disciplined you are. what we do know is that it can operate at different levels. So for instance, when you're awake,

you know, the mind is very focused, it's gathering lots of information. When you're asleep, it's in a more restful state, it's more the body's being restored during that sleeping process. Also when you're dreaming, it's gone into another state. So we know that it can experience different states of consciousness. So what we're doing is that when we're meditating, doing transcendental meditation, it's very sort of systematic, it's quite automatic really. The mind is able to

go into a sort of state of rest, more refined levels of thinking. So going beyond that surface level, like the, you know, I was describing the ocean, it's almost like as if you're taking a dive from the surface of the ocean towards the silent bed of the ocean. Because we know that every active state has a least active state. So that's true. Yeah. So even if like, if you consider if you can run, you can walk and if you can walk, can stand still. So we know that there is, there can be stillness within the mind.

But everyone's always so caught up with the mind being stimulated outside or motivated that, you know, they don't take the opportunity to experience that sort of more inward journey to experience those more quieter levels within them. I think we all have glimpses of it and we know intuitively that it exists. But when we're meditating, we're naturally going into it in a very, as I said, a very automatic way. Just through 20 minutes, twice a day, once in the morning, once later on in the day.

you know, we're experiencing that level of transcending where the mind is experiencing more refined levels of thinking, quieter levels of thinking. And of course, as the mind settles down, the body settles down and the rest, which we call, it's a unique state of rest, we call it restful alertness because even though the mind and body are very settled, the mind is still fully alert. So, and

TM is very practical. So if you were doing this on a bus or a train, which a lot of people do going to work even, you could hear your stop being called and you would just stop meditating and be able to get off. So when we're in that state of restful alertness, the rest is profound enough that we can actually dissolve stress and fatigue. Now that's the main aim of actually doing the meditation because what we want to do is meditate so we can come out of our meditation and enjoy our activity, enjoy life.

And by getting rid of stress and fatigue, that's exactly what we're doing. The words I'm hooked on is when you said that everything has an opposite state and that if we can run, we can stand still. Because I think we're all so busy, and I know this from my own work. I've got 100 things I need to do today and 100 things I'm thinking about. Do people know that they can actually access this sort of level of calmness, I guess? Or is that something that's an aha moment when you tell them? Well, I think intuitively they do because they have moments.

Everybody has moments of it where somebody might say, well, I, you know, I do something creative like drawing or painting and they kind of go into a zone where they feel that they're just purely present and in that sort of a peaceful state, you know, somebody might be walking or they might see something that's beautiful and get kind of captivated by that. So the mind does kind of know that it can settle down. think so intuitively, we do know we can, but what's happening with transcendental meditation, it's giving you a kind of

a tool or an automatic way to be able to, or an approach to be able to do that. So it's not just by chance, you know, and we can do it just by being in a room, being in a room like this, or as I was saying, even going to work on the train, we get that opportunity to go on this more inward journey and, you know, and experience that and take, even though, as I said, the mind hasn't shut down at all, the mind's still fully alert.

But it's just that the attention has gone inward rather than being drawn outward all the time. And for you personally, Deirdre, you've been committed to this for a long time. How did that start and what's kept you in it? That's a great question. It's been a long time. So I learnt TM 40 years ago. And it really is actually 40 years ago. And I've been a TM teacher for 30 years, 30, 30 this year actually, 30 years this year.

What led me into it? I come from a small town just outside London in Surrey. And I met up with a group of people who were slightly older than me who were practicing transcendental meditation. So I'm going back into the 70s. Sorry, this is showing my age now. I'm going back into the 70s when I was about 16, 17 years old. And I just happened to meet up with these people and they started talking about TM and meditation. And that wasn't that well known at that point.

point, know, people weren't weren't really practicing meditation. And if they were, they were kind of, maybe it's a kind of like a Buddhist meditation, if anything, maybe something simple after yoga, but it wasn't really that in the mainstream, it wasn't that available. So it was kind of, it was very interesting. And I, I was interested about it, actually. And I just felt that this is something that feels, it was like hearing the truth.

something that you know exists within you. And it's like hearing something, yeah, that makes sense. That all makes sense. But at the time, I have to say, you know, being young, 16, 17, I had a plan and I wanted to follow my plan. I wanted to go to art school and enjoy myself and do that. Cause maybe I had an innocence that I would, this was something of meaning, you know, that was going to be a journey that I would take at some point in my life. And after I graduated, I was a little bit lost.

Most people I think when they graduate and they're like, what am I going to do? And, you know, after a short period of going through that, someone suggested, why don't you learn TM? know, we call Transcendental Meditation TM for short. And, and I thought, okay, this is my time. This is my time. I'm going to go and see what this is about. Because I really felt at that time in my life that I could see, you know, as I was coming out into life, into the real world, that

every decision I was making had a kind of consequence really. It was leading me onto a path. I thought I really don't, I don't seem to know myself. I don't, it didn't feel like I knew myself very well. And, you know, I was listening to a lot of people and stuff and I thought, no, nothing really seems to stick. So anyway, I went off to learn TM and I can still remember today my first session where I was given my mantra and then, you know, taught how to use it and had my first experience of transcending. I have to say, you know, I'm putting my hand on my heart here now because I still have that same experience. It's that feeling of like, gosh, there I am. There's that feeling I knew existed and all it is is me. But it felt like I was accessing something that was connecting me more with myself, less sort of, you know, fluctuating on the surface level and much more steadfast, more settled.

And from that first experience, I thought, I never want to let that go. So I decided to explore it further. learned to meditate. I was meditating regularly because I realized also from my first experience that, you know, if I was doing it twice a day, which I was, and I remember David Lynch, I'm just going back to David actually, because I remember David Lynch always did it every day, no matter where he was.

you know, what he was working on, he would just leave the room and go and find somewhere quiet to meditate. And I hadn't met David at this point, but you know, I felt the same that this is really supporting me throughout the day. I can see how I feel much more connected. I can see how it was almost like I was growing, you know, I was finding something more inside of myself than I'd even realized that was there.

So I was doing more, I was sort of like going on retreats, learning more about it. And then after a while, and I was following my career at that point as well, because there was greater clarity there as well. And I, yeah, I decided like, I like this so much. I think I'd like to become a TM teacher.

And here I am now. And I have to say that over the decades of being a TM teacher, it's very interesting because now we're talking about the 90s. I'm still showing my age, but we're going back to the 90s when I became a TM teacher. And I have to say when people would come and learn TM, would be very interesting because some people were curious. Some people were coming for health benefits and sort of

So everyone had a kind of a different reason for coming, but it wasn't very mainstream to do meditation at all at that time. And even though it was popular, TM was quite popular, but it wasn't as well accepted as it is now to be practicing in meditation. Because I think, you know, everyone I meet these days, you know, and I ask them, have you done any form of meditation or, you know, are you practicing anything? And everybody's...

dabbled in something, whether it's been on something online or an app or mindfulness is a big business now, isn't it? Yeah, exactly. so on. Yeah, exactly. And it's so so things have really changed over these decades, you know, sort of especially, probably, I don't know, probably in the last 10 years, or even less, or something I noticed when I was researching TM. And this might have something to do with David, they seem to be on on YouTube, just lots and lots of very well known people.

Americans particularly, know, giving testimonials for how their energy levels have gone from being, you know, not great to extremely good and their creativity had gone up. So there's something going on there as well, maybe with the work he was doing. Yeah, I think so. mean, I think it might be a bit of a cultural difference, but sort of like, you know, the very expressive Americans about when they find something good, they really want to share it. And I think over here in the UK, what I found is that

people share it amongst their friends and their family, you know, and which is good because we get a lot of people coming to us who have been on personal recommendations, you know, but yes, I mean, I think that it kind of shows you actually the people that, you know, you're, describing that they're at the top of their profession and, still then they know that something needs, there's something more that they could have and to feel more complete. was gonna say top of the profession.

The Beatles are the ones that made it famous in the first place. I think when it was Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, I have to say, who working with the Beatles, well, the Beatles came to learn we were Maharishi at that point. And obviously it created a lot of publicity because the Beatles were very famous at that time. And of course, yes, it became very popular. People got to hear about it a lot from in that period of time. And some of the work you're doing now is sort of very different to that glamorous world. 

You've taken TM into businesses, but also into the NHS, prisons and trauma environments. What happens when this kind of inner practice is taken into these kind of demanding environments? How does it get taken on by those those organizations? Yeah, it's interesting. And it's usually I have to say it's quite often someone like yourself, who's learned TM and felt like they want to share this with their team members, their colleagues or their employees.

And, you know, because they feel that this is something that could really enhance the productivity within the business or the company, or for instance, within a prison. mean, there's obviously a completely different sort of scope there of what you're doing, you know, because prisoners are sort of like wanting to break a cycle. Perhaps quite often that's what we found, you know, that they don't want to keep falling into the same pattern and they're looking for help for...

anything that can, you know, sort of change that way of thinking, their behavioral way of thinking. Now, if we're looking at someone else who's kind of working in a company, obviously, you know, that's a different situation than what a lot of people are. They're tired, actually. mean, most people are very tired and they're tired by the time they get to work. so, you know, and they're feeling the stress and every, you know, most people are very conscientious. They want to do their best.

think they're very kind of driven by ambition and sort of wanting to be successful, but wanting to contribute. when there's a lot of stress within the nervous system, which we're all accumulating every day, then we need a form of resilience. We need a form at all that we can easily access, that's there, that will help us get rid of stress and fatigue. Do you see that supported by the organizations at the prison services?

Sounds like a really interesting example of a place which is a very difficult environment and people, from what you're saying, are kind of asking for something to change. Do you find that those organizations then go on to support it and put it into programs or is it always on an individual level? Well, what we found was that we've worked in about three or four prisons, I think, and the governor of the prison was always very helpful and very supportive.

And again, what happened was we might've had an introduction to a prison, either through a prisoner writing to us, and if we get time, I've got a nice story to tell you about that, writing to us and asking, you know, like I've been researching meditation and I see the David Lynch Foundation and I would love for you to help me, you know, can I learn? How can I do this? And then us making contact with either, you know, the health and wellbeing departments there or even the government themselves. And of course, in the prison environment, they are very open to finding solutions for rehabilitation and supporting because that's obviously a national problem in a way that we need to address. And so when we've been invited to enter prison, we've had so, the prison staff, everyone's been so cooperative and helped us.

At the end of the day, the David Lynch Foundation runs, you know, we're a charity. We have to raise funds to be able to go and teach, you even just to cover expenses, you know, we have to be able to do that. And so if we find that we've had a grant, which has covered us to work in the prison, then, you know, the grant has ended. unless we can find more funds, we can't continue the project. And so that's been quite restrictive in that way where

you know, we've been willing to continue, but the funds haven't been there. And for those people who are in prison that you said are looking to change the script for themselves, what is it about this that is different to all of the other things that they might be trying to do to change that script? Yeah, well, I think that they've tried a lot of things quite often before they've come to us and...

One thing that I felt when we've been playing like an introductory video, maybe an introductory video and going back to that point that you made, know, there's lot, especially in America, there's a lot of Hollywood stars that have sort of promoted TM and said how the benefits they've got and also other people in prisons and veterans. And I think that when we've shown those promotional tapes to the prisoners, one thing that I think has really stuck with them is the fact that

This isn't a program just for people in that situation. They can see that everyone from all walks of life can be practicing this, you know, no matter what religion, no matter what background, philosophy they have, can, everyone can practice this. And I think that's kind of made them feel very enthusiastic to do it or keen to do it because, you know, it's, as I said, it's not a program that's set, especially set up just for prisoners.

This is about the human being. This is about the human condition, us, and sort of trying to improve ourselves or enhance our lives. And I think that's one of the things that's really stuck with them. And so then for other organisations as well, you mentioned you've been having success rates, so the ambulance service. And will any of these businesses then decide for themselves, or will the ambulance service as an example, look to invest in helping put this in place for their people so that they don't suffer from the same levels of stress?

We do hope so, yeah, because that's why the research is so important. I mean, we've got a large body of research because people like to see research because it's great having testimonials, but the research as much as possible shows, gives the evidence that this is actually working and over a large, kind quite often over a large population as well. So, you know, with the new study that we're doing, we're working with the University of Westminster and they're going to be

working on a project with us where we're just going through the approval stages at the moment, where we're hoping that 350 ambulance service personnel actually are going to be paramedics and call handlers. We're working with some ambulance trusts, all going well. As I said, it's all pending at the moment, but I don't mind sharing it. That later on this year, we should be starting this project. And it will have, we'll start with the...

The 350 will be divided into a treatment group and a control group. at the beginning, there'll be a number of, what is that, 175 people sort of learning TM at the beginning. And they will be monitored over a period of time and answering surveys and whilst they're practicing TM to let us know how they're doing. And then the other group are on a wait list to learn afterwards. we're...

By having that control group and the treatment group, the ones that have learnt TM, we can see the difference. I mean, it's obvious. mean, it really is, you know, even if you're not a scientist or a researcher, it's very, very clearly there, you know, where we see reductions in anxiety, depression. We see sort of a general sort of mental health and wellbeing improve. We see sleep improve. even that feeling of professional fulfilment.

Yeah. Actually people feeling like, you know, when they meditate and they go back into, into work the next day, they feel ready for it. is interesting though, that organizations sort of still probably won't often take that at face value as a benefit and they want to see the data. But one thing that I found interesting when I was looking into TM is that there is quite a lot of data out there. And you've already mentioned Maharishi Mahasaya and

as I understood it, he was a scientist himself and there have been lots of scientific studies and comparing this. We're talking about Norman Rosenthal before this and he's put together some books where he's pulled together lots of those scientific studies, which is really interesting because what you're doing will contribute to a bigger body of work. that right? Yes, exactly. And we've been working with the University of Cambridge as well. And that study is actually just pending publication and it's

they've been absolutely fabulous, you know, because we had, again, we had a group of 40 people practicing transcendental meditation and they'd been practicing for three years or more. Most of them were about five years, you know, they'd been practicing and compared to a group that hadn't been practicing. And what they were doing at the University of Cambridge was to try and understanding more about on the EEG level, on sort of brain activity level.

how transcending, that experience of transcending, going, as I was saying earlier on, going beyond that surface level of thinking and experiencing quieter levels of thinking, actually more unbounded levels of thinking, just to see how it measures. again, they were, you I remember like I was there observing while people were kind of like connected to these devices, you they had a heart rate.

variability being measured and the breath meditating whilst they were connected to all of this stuff. know, we were, because that's why we chose a little bit more experienced medicine so that, you know, they weren't bothered by, you know, having a cap on and everything with a census on it. And I remember, I'm going to mention his name, Dr. Andreas Canales-Johnson, who was the principal investigator. And he was astounded by what he could see.

The brainwaves activity, I mean, for me, as I'm not an expert, I'm not a neuroscientist, know, there were just lies fluctuating, but you know, he was explaining, he said, this is just phenomenal what's happening here. Absolutely phenomenal. And from his point of view as a neuroscientist, it was like seeing uncharted territory basically, because you know, we know that when someone's meditating, that alpha brainwaves are very prominently there.

especially in TM compared to other forms of meditation, where mindfulness, remember I saying at the beginning, you're kind of more engaged with an activity, like scanning your body or even your breathing. But when you're transcending, the brainwaves are showing very increased levels of alpha brainwaves. And so what Andreas was seeing was that, yes, this is exciting, because yes, we know this, we know this. But what we see is, we see an increase in activity of brainwaves.

way beyond that, that we need to understand more about, you know, because this is where that untapped potential is. Because we know that I think it's psychologists say we only use about, is it five, 10 % of? It's something like that. Yeah, it's kind of quite small, isn't it? Compared to the, you know, what we could have there. And so that's what's exciting for neuroscientists because they think, wow, this is

This is phenomenal. We're going to find out what's in there. So we're hoping to do more studies with the University of Cambridge because even on sleep and creativity as well, because what we have to understand is that that level, when you go beyond that surface level of thinking, where you've got the intellect driving everything, where the mind's very focused, you find that beyond that level, and it's more unbounded, it's more limitless.

There's your creativity. That's where your ideas are coming from. Because quite often people say, you know, if you ask someone, where do your ideas come from? Or what's happening? What are you doing? You know, and they'll say, I might be in the shower. I might be out walking. So true. it is, isn't it? When the mind's not sort of like trying to force something. Solve a problem. the idea just pops in, you know, or you have clarity or something, you know, and

And then maybe you've got to use your intellect to kind of form it, put some structure to it, to make it practical. But the idea is always coming back. I I remember David always speaking about that. Well, I was going to say that when I was doing my research for this podcast, I watched something on LinkedIn with David Lynch talking to a theater audience. And it must have been a thousand people in there. And he was talking about something called creative intelligence. what does that mean?

What does that mean? That means it's a term that we've sort of coined because it's like, or I'm sure researchers and psychologists would understand that term anyway. But we use it a lot because what we're trying to explain there is that when you go beyond this sort of surface level of the mind, this kind of intellectual part of the brain, the mind can very easily drop into these more unbounded, as I was saying, limitless sort of areas.

where the creative process is starting is in those quieter levels and then sort of coming up to the surface. And that's why, you know, we were just saying a moment ago, when the mind isn't focused, like hard focused or thinking about something and the mind is let loose and wandering a little bit, those ideas will come in because, quite often when you are too focused,

It's detrimental. It stops you from being more creative. So when you go into that level and you're experiencing, because it's still, it's intelligence itself. And I think that's what Andreas is finding when we're transcending is because he's seeing, you know, in those EEG, the brain wave patterns, there is intelligence because the brain is going into the mind and body have gone into a state of rest. but the brain is still intelligent and it's gathering information. So, then.

Interestingly, I thought this is even more interesting, I think that when you come out of your meditation, it's active still. it's with you throughout That's what the data is showing, it? It's showing, yes, because he took people in and out of meditation and then got them to do tasks. know, I mean, you'll see this, I'll send you the study so you can see it. And it just shows that, you know, what we can see is outside the meditation. So that's phenomenal now because

It's not just that when you're meditating that you're getting a level of rest and feeling calmness and settledness. But the important part is when you come out, you're bringing it out with you and it's staying with you throughout the day. then what we do is we start the day like that. So you can imagine you're starting the day in a very orderly and settled way, where the mind is alert, creative. then as we get tired,

Cause we know this, we all get tired later on in the afternoon, you know, where we start putting water in or some kind of fuel to keep us going. If you can't have a nap and we meditate again and then the whole process starts again. So you're getting in the second meditation in the day, you're getting rid of stress and fatigue. second wave. Yeah, it is. like another boost. You get rid of the stress and fatigue that you've accumulated throughout the day. And then, you know, it's like resetting. It's like you're starting the day again.

when you're in the evening. And I think that's really helpful for people when they're at work as well, because when you finish work, you want to be able to, that's it, I'm at home now, you know, you've got your family to look after. Switch off. Yeah. You want to be able to let your mind rest to a certain extent, you know, let go. And I think the meditation really helps to do that. It's almost like it separates the, you know, the business part, the professional part of the day from the personal part in a way, because you're putting your attention back on yourself. You're nourishing yourself.

on a very deep level. And I think that's how we need to look at it. It's nourishment because just in the same way we drink water and we know we should eat good food and we do our best and we exercise and we're kind of looking after this whole machine, you this whole physiology. But when we're meditating, it's like you're addressing a deeper part of you actually, the essence, you know, that's keeping it all going. Certainly it sounds like the data is supporting that and the experience is supporting that.

and lots of people are getting a lot from this. I imagine that there are people where it just doesn't really land or they struggle to stick with it. What tends to go on there? What gets in the way when it doesn't work for people? Well, I think what happens sometimes is that when we're describing TM and when we're instructing, we always say, look, this is really simple, it's natural, and it's effortless. where people quite often, when they're learning in a sort of meditation,

know, we mentioned this before, it's sort of scanning the body or focused on the breathing. People often get restless because they're not experiencing what they hope they would from a meditation. Also the mind can't settle. can't, it gets, yeah, it just gets, I suppose, bored in a way. and I mean, this isn't everyone's experience, but some people's experience. I mean, some people get on very well with those meditations and they, they, they feel benefits. Um, but with TM, what people find is that in this very

easy way. They're experiencing these deeper levels of consciousness or thinking, as I was saying, you because the mind can't shut down. We were saying, I was saying earlier on, you can operate at different levels. And, and I think that so people can naturally access that. And when anything feels natural, you kind of tend to keep it going, you know, because it's easy. And when you start to see the benefits very easily as well.

then again, it sort of reminds you or makes you feel encouraged to do it. I think a lot of time, just to answer your question more directly, that people struggle with time and finding 20 minutes, you know, twice a day. But once they've experienced that level and they see how actually it makes them more productive, it makes life even feels even smoother. Can people do it for less time? Five minutes, 10 minutes? Well, I'm as a TM teacher.

And as we're on the podcast, I was going to ideally 20 minutes twice a day. That's when you're going to see the maximum benefits. that's, cause that really is because it does give you time in that 20 minutes to get rid of some superficial stress and fatigue. then you kind of people quite surprised actually they go in quite deep and by that time 20 minutes has gone by quite quickly. Okay. But I think, I think that's one of the things is that yeah, it's time people, but then

I have to when they start seeing the benefits they realize and we often get people who, who learn TM and then they get distracted. You know, they start missing a few meditations. Then, then maybe a week's gone by, you know, it's gone for a few days to a week or maybe even longer sometimes. But you know, as T as, as an organization, you know, not just the David Lynch foundation, but there are TM centers all around this country and all around the world. Actually the TM teachers are always encouraging people to.

Come in, have their meditation checked, come in and let's have a chat about it. Let's get you back on track. So giving refresher sessions as well, because people are coping with all sorts of things in their lives. And sometimes even the best things that you'd hope to look after, I suppose it's like going to the gym or something, isn't it? You start off well and then something starts creeping in. Then they realize that something is missing.

we're feeling a more tired or maybe, you know, they just feel kind of burdened more by life itself. And they think, no, hang on, I wasn't feeling like that six months ago or a month ago or a few days ago. And then they realized, actually, it was the meditation that was really supporting me. So, you know, we're always open to welcoming people and helping them. that's what we're here for. And maybe they come back at that point. So bring it back around to leadership, which is one of the kind of the

earlier parts of the conversation. If somebody who's a leader does stick to their 20 minutes and they practice, what sort of things would be different about the way they operate? you think? think as a leader, you've got to have a number of qualities, haven't you, to manage a team? Or maybe it's not a team, maybe it's a whole company being creative, knowing how to steer or lead your, know, setting a good example, knowing how to lead your

people around you, being patient, listening, you know, making decisions. Yeah. So there's, there's a part of you that's got to be really switched on. That's quite stressful. And we find that a lot of people who are running companies, to say, quite stressed and they feel it physically. Yes. They really do feel it physically. And, know, and they, and they come to us because they know that, you know, they want to carry on. They want to do their best.

I think that's in every leader. really do want to do their best. You learn a technique like transcendental meditation and it's there supporting you. It's giving you that boost. It's enhancing your clarity, that level of patience, tolerance, settleness even, to be able to see things clearly to an interestingly, the CEO of the brain for instance, is here in the prefrontal cortex. Now when we get stressed, that starts closing down.

And so, and we need this part of the brain because like any CEO of the company, it's sending messages back to the rest of the brain. So we need that switched on because, then, you know, then you're making good decisions or as best as anyone can. we want to be able to manage stress, you know, and fatigue because, you know, as we know, it doesn't take much to feel stressed because stress doesn't need to be traumatic.

It's just an accumulation of lots of experiences that the body can't process. And we're doing that every day because we're driving ourselves quite hard. And so what we need to do is be able to bring the body back into balance. Bring the body back into balance. You start finding that your mind is thinking in a healthy way as well. But just on that physical level, going back to that, you know, it is, this is the CEO of the brain.

Yes. You've to keep that switched on. Yes. You do trans and denominator meditation, it's helping you keep that switched on because it's getting rid of the stress and fatigue in the nervous system. So as a leader, potentially then you're saying able to perform to a better level with the things that are being juggled and the stresses and strains on the day. Yeah. Because I think also creativity, clarity, you know, amongst the other things like, you know, patience, tolerance, know, sort of like just sort of

being flexible actually. I that's really important as well, isn't it? Being very flexible. I think especially in businesses these days, know, the world keeps changing very, very fast and, you know, big kind of set structures of doing things are kind of disappearing. Yeah, I think so, you know, and people are much more aware. You're working as a team because that's where how you get the best out of your employees or the people that you're working with is that feeling of collaboration.

and being heard and sharing. And I think that's very much today's type of thinking, which is brilliant. And trying to get the best out of people, giving them a situation. And I know you do this at Powerverse, because I've seen it. you're taking, it's sort of like the welfare of the person as well. So they're not just coming in nine to five. And quite often,

teams when they're working together, they kind of know each other and they're supporting each other. And so it's important that, you know, as a leader, that you can encompass all of that. So you're nourishing your whole sort of the whole, all of the people around you. And then, you know, you've got your family on top of that. experience.

of understanding that more has been a learning journey and getting to a point of realization that, for me at least, the more I can do to help the people around me sort of feel comfortable in what they're doing and unburdened as far as possible, they will be more creative, more productive. So I can resonate, what you're saying resonates for me. Deirdre, I've also come across the idea, this idea that if enough people are practicing, it can reduce stress and conflict more broadly.

than the individual. Is that something you've seen or that you believe holds true? Yeah, I mean, again, there's been research on that, you know, where the square root or 1 % of the square root of the population, practicing transcendental meditation and advanced programs as well, kind of have shown that, you know, it can have a broader effect. And interestingly, even if you and I were to meditate together here right now, you know, you would you would feel

you know, that that the radiance of what's coming out of, you know, both of us is, it's kind of helping you to transcend even more deeply. So when the group starts building up, you start to experience that and another level of transcending actually, I feel. And so you can imagine when that starts sort of like growing, like a network effect. exactly. You know, because it's almost like radio wave signals, isn't it? You know, it's kind of like people are sort of sending out signals all the time. I think that's exactly what's happened. when the scientists looked at it, when the researchers have looked at it, they can see how it's affecting you now. They can actually work it out as a mathematical formula, almost. Is that right? Yeah. So when you're talking about these alpha waves and how those patterns are changing when people are meditating, you...

I'm now imagining you're talking about those alpha waves going beyond the individual and that collective thing. mean, it's an interesting concept really, because I think it is. It's not just sort of people how they behave, you know, when they're out in the world. It's actually during that practice of meditation that there's some, you know, those brainwaves, the signals are going out, they're spreading out. And whilst we're talking about EEGs and, you know,

wave technologies and so on. It strikes me that this is quite a traditional practice being applied in a very modern context. Do you think we're actually open as a society to kind of applying these traditional practices? Much more now than when I was sort started out 30 years ago teaching TM. Now it's much more mainstream. mean, you were saying that it's sort of like, it's just more acceptable, isn't it? People understand more people are

Experiencing her practice meditation. What's changed? Why is that different now to how it was 30 years ago? It's a shift I suppose new generations coming up people wanting to realizing that they live living longer Lives they want to live healthier lives they What else would that be? mean it's something you said earlier about people getting in touch with you know feeling like this actually feels quite me this feels like something that I

What did you say? People that, yes, your own story at the start, you were looking for something else and maybe people are doing, have more access to that now. Yeah, I think so. I think people are much more self-aware. You know, they need to know they want to stay healthy. They also want to enjoy life. They don't want it just to be about work and know, nine to five and they want something that's there, something that's fulfilling them on all levels.

And I, you know, and I, you know, just as, as like now you see people eating more healthily, they're much more aware of nutrition and, and, you know, sleep patterns, you know, we've got all sorts of devices to tell us how our body's operating. so I think that once you start to become aware like that, then you think, well, how can I increase that? What else can I do? And I think that's where over the last few years, you know, we're more leading it more in that direction.

of wanting to have, especially holistic approaches, anything that's kind of simple to introduce as well. I think that's important. You know, it's not over complicating anything. This is something also that once you've learned TM, you know, you might have a period of instruction of four sessions over consecutive days. But, you know, once you've got that instruction, because you've got the experience of the subjective experience of meditating, but you also get kind of an intellectual experience of knowledge.

component of the course. So you feel like you feel very competent that you're meditating correctly. You you know that you can kind of, you can go off and meditate on your own. course, we always encourage people to come meditate with us and you know, but you actually can do it on your own and, and you don't need anyone else because all the resources are within you. We just need to tap into them. It's a really good kind of takeaway for everybody that all the resources we need are within us. I've got one more.

question for you Deidre and thank you so much for the conversation. My last question is this, if someone listens to this podcast in five years time, what's the one thing you'd want them to take away? Learn to transcend. Experience that level of transcendental consciousness because it's all there. Your creativity is there, clarity is there. Everything that you need is coming from that level. And once you have access to that, life can be very enjoyable.

matter what you're going through, whatever challenges are there in life, you have something that can help support you, can help you navigate through any challenges, anything that you need. Having that experience of transcending is key. Thank you so much. Thank you, Richard. It's been very enjoyable. Thank you for listening.