Meditation: Transcending darkness
by Nancy Liebler, PhD

Healing Depression the Mind-Body Way    Translate This Article
27 September 2011

Nancy Liebler, PhD, a clinical psychologist, professor, and authority on depression, writes about her experience learning Transcendental Meditation along with her husband Bud, a top business executive, almost thirty years ago. She discusses extensive scientific research that was part of what drew them to the technique—and also led her to incorporate it into her treatment approach to depression, along with Ayurveda, the ancient Vedic system of healthcare.

Dr Liebler is co-author with Sandra Moss, MSPH, of the book 'Healing Depression the Mind-Body Way: Creating Happiness with Meditation, Yoga, and Ayurveda'.

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My husband, Bud, and I learned the Transcendental Meditation (TM) technique in 1984. We first heard of TM in the 60's. A great deal of scientific research was done on the TM technique in the 60's and 70's. Frequently we would notice a news article about the remarkable scientific findings related to the practice of this technique. We would comment to each other that the research was interesting and didn't this TM stuff sound great. We hoped it was helping a lot of people! We had no interest in learning ourselves until 1984.

In the winter of 1984 a respected friend told us of his experiences with TM. Our friend encouraged us to learn. We listened to him, thought his comments were interesting, and promptly forgot the conversation. Several weeks after this conversation, our friend who lived in LA at the time, called. He said a conference on TM was going to be held at the Renaissance Center in Detroit. He urged us to attend. Since our friend was planning to be in town attending the conference we decided to go as well.

I think our experience of hearing about TM, not doing anything about it, hearing of TM again, and forgetting what we heard is typical. Most of us need to hear of something new a few times or even several times before we embrace it. It is also human nature to embrace a new idea when we hear it from someone we know and admire rather than from a stranger. I think, too, that the media bombards us with information about a myriad of things we should or can do to improve our well being. After a time we begin to discount information.

My husband and I did attend that conference with our friend, and I remember the experience well. I remember the room where the conference was held, and I remember specific conversations I had with people there. I believe I remember my thoughts and feelings, experienced that long-ago evening, because I sensed we were learning about something that would dramatically alter the success of our lives. It was an extremely important event for us.

At the conference we were impressed by the presentation of a voluminous amount of research on the TM technique. It seemed that there was no reason to turn our backs on the opportunity to learn. Our only concerns regarded the time commitment of 20 minutes twice a day, but we gleaned from the speakers the information that we would not be giving up time. We would be gaining time. The researchers told us that the practice of the TM technique would help us to be more energetic, to think more clearly, perhaps to sleep less, and to be able to accomplish more not less. Over the years we have learned that this is true.

Immediately after we learned TM, we realized that this technique was extraordinarily powerful. . . .

Global Good News will continue to feature Dr Nancy Liebler's article, 'Meditation: Transcending darkness', which originally appeared 27 September 2011 on the website Healing Depression the Mind-Body Way. Reprinted with permission.

© Copyright 2011 Healing Depression the Mind-Body Way

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