Many children who run away from violence and abuse at home end up living on the streets. In the U.S., over 300,000 such children are involved in sex trafficking. For some of the lucky ones who have been rescued, in this country and abroad, meditation is a vital part of their healing and recovery.
"Children of the Night," a highly regarded youth shelter in Southern California, has teamed up with the David Lynch Foundation to offer the Transcendental Meditation technique as part of its program to help child prostitutes overcome trauma and build a positive, productive life.
"I never thought I could do it," says one of the teens, speaking of meditation. "Before I started TM, I had a really negative energy -- I had to have that vibe to survive. The first time I meditated, it was the most calming experience I ever had in my life. I started to become happier. I felt, like, human. When I do it, my anxiety goes away completely."
Puki Freeberg teaches Transcendental Meditation classes at the shelter in Los Angeles. "As everyone knows, abused kids are often shut down emotionally," she told me. "Trauma is stored in the nervous system. TM is known to provide physiological relaxation -- deeper than ordinary rest or sleep, studies show. Through the deep rest, knots of emotional stress just melt away."
To many, meditation suggests mental control, contemplation, or striving to become more aware of one's thoughts or feelings. Fortunately, this meditation technique involves no effort, no rehashing the past, and is easy to practice -- even for turbulent teens.
"You don't have to control the mind or sort through negative emotions to meditate," says Puki. "TM allows these kids to transcend or get beyond their busy, agitated minds and quickly settle into a state of comfort. They take to it pretty easily and love meditating because they get immediate relief."
No one can change what's happened to these children in the past, but the human spirit is so infinitely flexible that with proper care it can rebound -- especially when we're young.
Meditation as a tool for healing and transformation
But can a simple, gentle meditation technique transform the crippling effects of trauma and abuse?
Renowned psychiatrist Norman E. Rosenthal says yes: "And I mean transform as in, 'He or she is a different person.'"
A senior researcher for 20 years at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Rosenthal is famous for pioneering the treatment of Seasonal Affective Disorder. After delving into the hundreds of scientific studies on the Transcendental Meditation technique, he concluded: "If TM were a new prescription drug, conferring this many benefits, it would be a billion-dollar blockbuster."
In his new book, "Transcendence," Rosenthal documents the effect of this meditation on a range of people -- including his own patients -- suffering from severe anxiety, depression, and other disorders caused by trauma and stress. He identifies transcending during meditation as the natural, innate mechanism responsible for the healing breakthroughs brought on by twice-daily TM practice.
How does a meditation technique help a child or anyone get beyond the inner tumult and negative impressions caused by trauma and abuse?
The power of transcendence
Tensions and fear lose their hold as the mind effortlessly turns inward and transcends mental activity, going beyond thought to settle into a silent field of clarity and inner peace.
This experience has been shown to bring about an immediate, positive shift in brain function and metabolic rate. Brain research on subjects practicing the TM technique shows the onset of widespread EEG coherence in the alpha range, indicating not only relaxed inner wakefulness but also expanded awareness -- one's consciousness becomes more whole.1 Simultaneously, the physiology gains deep relaxation, as indicated by decreased breath rate, increased skin resistance, reduced cortisol and other factors.2
The neurophysiology of this meditative state clearly distinguishes it from ordinary, eyes-closed rest, and the benefits of experiencing it twice a day far exceed what one might expect from mere relaxation.3
A global initiative
Father Gabriel Mejia, a Catholic priest, has been sheltering street children in Columbia, South America, for over 25 years. From small beginnings, his project has grown to 52 centers throughout Latin America, serving more than 3,500 children at any given time. Some of the homeless children are as young as six. Their stories range from heartrending to horrifying. Many had resorted to sniffing glue to escape the torment of life on the streets.
At the shelter they are given food, a safe place to sleep, and a hospitable environment. They can stay and learn vocations and become part of a close-knit, supportive community. Finally, they have a family. But to overcome the trauma -- the fight-or-flight way of life that becomes baseline for such children -- even all this isn't enough.
As part of their rehabilitation, the children learn the Transcendental Meditation technique. Father Mejia: "When a child closes their eyes and begins to meditate, they open themselves to a field of all possibilities. The world opens for the child, and then the child discovers their essential nature, which is love."
Over the past five years, more than 150,000 at-risk youth around the world have learned this meditation technique through personal, one-on-one instruction and a series of ongoing classes. Meditation comes to these children as a gift.
A teenage girl diagnosed with ADHD recently signed up to learn meditation at the TM center where I teach. She happened to see a video of children being rescued by Father Mejia's helpers on the streets of Columbia. In comparison, her world didn't seem so bad, she said. "If these kids can learn meditation and overcome their problems, so can I."
VIDEO: "Children of the Night" -- Child Prostitutes Learn Transcendental Meditation
VIDEO: "Saving the Disposable Ones" -- Father Gabriel Mejia Gives Food, Shelter, Kindness and Transcendental Meditation To Homeless Children
Scientific references:
1. Cognitive Processing, 11:1, 2010; Consciousness and Cognition, 8, 302-318, 1999;
International Journal of Neuroscience, 14: 147-151, 1981
2. International Journal of Neuroscience, 100, 77-89, 2000; American Psychologist [42] 879-81, 1989; Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews 16(3):415-424, 1992; The Journal of Mind and Behavior 10(4):307-334, 1989; American Psychologist [42] 879-81, 1987
3. Journal of Clinical Psychology [45] 957-974, 1989; American Journal of Hypertension 21(3): 310-316, 2008; Intelligence 29: 419-440, 2001
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So, how would YOU do it? Could you teach TM without a living wage? With no tuition, how do you pay the center rent? Who supports the organization?
Teach TM for free? Sorry, but that's just not how the world works.
Whatever *your* job is, Sunny, do you do it for free?
Why does everyone keep the methods a secret unless you (the majority of the general public) pay some huge sum of money?
Wouldn't you want to simply spread the word and information, educate people, get it out there and start changing lives and changing the world for the better?
Just my .02 worth.
Thanks for your 2 cents.
Cheers!
This article is a help to me and I intend to learn more about TM, as that had not been my form of practice, and begin again.
In support of their experiences, Volume 6 of Collected Papers on Maharishi's Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi Program has also just been published in. It is 1,000 pages and contains 94 papers, authored by 115 researchers from 45 universities, from research institutes in 16 countries. Eighty of the papers collected in this volume were previously published in journals, conference proceedings, and books. As in volumes 1-5 of this series, the papers have been organized into four major areas: Physiology, Psychology, Sociology, and Theoretical and Review Papers. Many of these studies are summarized in Transcendence.
Studies show that the girls’ and childrens’ subjective experiences that TM practice produced calm and increased happiness are based on biochemical reductions of stress hormones and increased speed and coherence of processing of information by the brain. Other studies show improved creativity, practical intelligence, and self-actualization. The health section contains many of the landmark studies reviewed in Dr. Rosenthal’s book.
The table of contents of Collected Papers Vol. 6 can be viewed at http://www.truthabouttm.org/truth/TMResearch/TMResearchPublications/CollectedPapersVol6/index.cfm and it is available at www.mumpress.com/books/scientific-research/b06.html .
Not sure what you mean by that. With due respect, I'm a TM teacher and I don't see that this is a motivating factor. It's too abstract and theoretical sounding to have much meaning to me. I would say, people teach TM because of the real joy of teaching, and out of compassion for others -- the very satisfying sense of helping people and seeing the light and concrete results in their lives. And, as you say, to help the world. It is very altruistic in the highest sense, in my opinion.
"Transcending thought is infinitely more powerful than thinking." -- Maharishi
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ziJMW0m2zU&feature=player_embedded