Katy Perry is so psyched about transcendental meditation (TM) that she Tweets about it on her birthday. She says TM is the “the best thing she’s ever done to bring more creativity, positive energy and peace into her life.” And she is not alone. “Club Med” has tons of famous fans (Gisele and Cameron Diaz, just to name a few) and companies like Google are even encouraging their employees to meditate at work. Yet, you still may not be convinced.
1. Your Creativity Will Go Over the Rainbow
One of the challenges of working as a lifestyle editor is how to come up with interesting ways to tell the same story every season, year, month. Before my first meeting with the person who taught me TM (my TM teacher, the amazing Paul Brown, who has taught everyone from Donna Karan to Karen O to the founder of the Troll doll) I would sometimes sit and stare at the screen for hours agonizing over my stories. I would get distracted by dumb emails or tons of chats and get nothing done. Then, I started meditating and ideas started to come out of nowhere. It was like I had been working so hard for them before and now it felt like they were suddenly dropping into my brain.
Walt Disney agrees. When they hit a creative block, the company hired a meditation teacher. In a short time, they noticed a spike in big-picture ideas.
2. You’ll Get Cosplay Superhero Powers
According to Paul, “meditation is like having the force of the Universe on your side.” Let me explain it in terms you’ll definitely be on board with. You know when you go to text your friend and they text you at the same time? That started happening to me, but with everything. It was wild. I would think of someone or something and five seconds later that person would contact me or that idea would somehow come to life. Sometimes it would be silly things (texting a boyfriend a peach emoji at the exact time he was buying one) and other times it would be really helpful (writing a story about a health trend and having an expert related to that topic email out of the blue).
3. Your Life Gets Easier and Breezier
Sometimes there is just no way around a 12-hour work day. We live in a crazy busy world and it’s not unusual that you’ll be eating breakfast, lunch and dinner at the office. Meditation will help you cope. You wouldn’t wear sweaty workout clothes all day long, right? You would most likely want to take a shower and change your clothes. Well, it’s the same thing for your mind. After brainstorming, GChatting, Pinning and all the mental obstacles you face in any given day, you have to give your brain a good cleansing. Trust me, just like when you force yourself to go to the gym before work, you will never regret taking the time to meditate. “You just won’t give any mind to those negative thoughts,” says Paul.
4. You Will Become More You
Who are you, really? This sounds like some sort of crazy line out of Alice in Wonderland, but meditation has this wild and wonderful way of reconnecting you to your purest, truest self. Studies have shown that your vices will fall to the wayside and you’ll start to discover the confidence and desire to pursue things that really resonate with your most authentic self. And out of nowhere, opportunities will began to find you. As Paul says, “Keep meditating and you can do whatever you want!” You’ve most likely read studies about how TM helps to eliminate worry and clear space in the mind, but it wasn’t until I started a regular practice that I begin to notice these changes for myself. Worry seemed to evaporate, even when the company I was working for closed down unexpectedly one day. Instead of freaking out, I continued to meditate and was pleased see that a wild fantasy (moving to Hawaii to be with a boyfriend and write a book) I had three months back (when my life at the time was literally the complete opposite) began to naturally unfold.
What amazing changes have you noticed in your life since starting to meditate? Share your stories in the comment section below!
(Photos via Getty/Tasso Marcelo and Getty iStock)
