Many people spend their lives playing the “if only” game. “If only I were happily married, kinder to others, more successful, more beautiful, had more money, had more children, (and the list goes on), then I would be happy…”
Well, Gisele Bündchen easily ticks most of the boxes. She has been the highest-paid fashion model in the world since 2004. She is happily married to Tom Brady, the only quarterback in NFL’s history to win five Super Bowls, and together they parent three adorable children.
Besides being stunningly beautiful, the supermodel is also kind-hearted, working tirelessly for charitable causes. 
Yet, as Bündchen knows, whatever the external circumstances, happiness is still an inside job.
“The only place I found peace, was within,” Bündchen admits.
“You have to connect to that place within yourself that knows your essence, knows that you come from love. That, I think, keeps everything joyful.
The experience I’ve had in my life is that it does not really come from outside, it comes from inside.”
Checking in with yourself with the TM technique
To be in touch with that true inner core, Bündchen practices Transcendental Meditation (TM).
“Meditation has been a great tool for me in my life. It helps to quiet my mind and helps me see things more clearly. It brings a sense of peace to my day.
Meditation provides me space to re-balance and re-focus when things are at their busiest,” Bundchen recently told People magazine.
“I feel a big difference in my mood when I practice regularly. I love it!”
“It helps us become more aware; it brings wisdom and healing,” Bündchen has described the effects of the practice. “I have been meditating since my early 20s and I must say that words do not express enough the significance of its gifts in my life.”
Putting on the oxygen mask on yourself first
Nowadays, we all feel time-pressured. So, adding another commitment of 20 minutes twice a day might not sound like the intuitive solution to our problems.
But Bündchen says the speed of modern life is precisely the reason why we need to take time off.
“The busy life we lead today generates a lot of stress. We are overloaded with information and overcommitted to so many tasks in our homes, jobs, causes … I think meditation is a wonderful tool to deal with stress,” she admits.
She also shares her tricks for fitting Transcendental Meditation into her busy days.
“I prefer to practice early in the am, before the kids are up. Probably because that is when things are silent,” she admits.
“The way I see it is that you have to put the oxygen mask on yourself first before you can put the oxygen mask on the people around you. If I nourish myself in the morning, when the house energy starts revving up, you have so much more to give.
As a mother, you’re always giving. It’s important to give something to yourself, so you can give from a place of being full, instead of giving from a place of being depleted, which isn’t healthy for you or for the family,” Bündchen explained to Vogue.
Meditate anywhere – in a taxi, during a Super Bowl match…
To find time for the afternoon meditation sessions, Bündchen gets creative.
“I can practice in most places. Sitting in my bed is probably my favorite though. But on an airplane, in a hotel when traveling or in the passenger seat on the way to work… really anywhere! Meditation is a trip you take inward.”
For Bündchen, the chance to meditate while stuck in a traffic jam, turns the otherwise frustrating experience into joy.
“You can be sitting in the taxi there for a while because of all the traffic, so that is an awesome place to meditate because it’s like you’re running late for something, you can’t change the fact that you are stuck behind another thousand cars so just sit there and meditate… just make the whole ride… great.”
Recently, when Bündchen was feeling tension mounting watching her husband’s team play at the frenzied 2017 Super Bowl final, she meditating right then and there.
Jokingly, she described the immediate effect of it: “I don’t want to take responsibility for the score, but it was definitely a very anxious time and since meditation has always been that special tool that I go to when I feel anxious or stressed… You know I couldn’t go there and throw the ball… I just had to sit there and watch…
I definitely took a deep breath and closed my eyes for a moment there and had a meditation. And it helped me, it calmed me down. And I have to say, I mean I’m not responsible for anything that happened in the game but it helped calm myself down… I felt better. That’s the important part, I felt great.”
The healing power of Transcendental Meditation
On May 9th, Bündchen, together with Robin Roberts, co-anchor of “Good Morning America;” Carolyn Rafaelian, founder and CEO of ALEX and ANI; and Joni Kimberlin, philanthropist, filmmaker and activist, received the Women of Vision Humanitarian Award from the David Lynch Foundation.
The awards luncheon in New York City raised funds to provide the stress-reducing Transcendental Meditation technique, at no cost, to 1,000 women and children in the New York City area who are survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.
In her speech at the even, Bündchen spoke on the powerful impact meditation can have in anyone’s life.
“Meditation has brought me clarity and peace through my most challenging times and it has helped me to know myself and to discover my purpose. I pray that meditation will do the same for all of you.
No matter how challenging the lessons of life, we always have a place where we can go to find peace that’s within ourselves.
Our lives are sacred and each of us is a small but significant part of the whole with something special to contribute to make the world a better place. May we all remember who we truly are and why we are here on Earth so we can experience the joy of living our life’s purpose.”
Latoya, Mack, a veteran, artist and sexual abuse survivor, who received the Foundation’s Courage Award, confirmed from personal experience the healing power of Transcendental Meditation.
“As a survivor of unimaginable physical and emotional abuse, gender-based violence and as a woman living with a disability as a result of my traumatic experiences, I take pride in knowing my successful journey to heal my broken soul is repeatable, achievable and possible for all women thanks to Transcendental Meditation.”
WATCH: On Jimmy Fallon’s The Tonight Show, Gisele Bündchen reveals the secret behind Tom Brady’s success on the football field
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LUV_dC4FZA
Shine a light on Transcendental Meditation
When Access Hollywood asked Bündchen about share thoughts on something as personal as meditation practice, she responded:
“You shine the light on the idea. A lot of people don’t even know it exists and that it is a tool that is possible. Transcendental Meditation I think has made meditation in general very tangible, the way TM has been structured, 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the afternoon.”
She added, “Practice makes perfect, like with anything you do in life. The more time you put into it, the more benefits you feel. And the only person that can do that work for you is yourself. It’s a gift you give yourself.”
In the recent Vogue interview, Bündchen also encouraged the readers to give meditation a try, saying, “People have been practicing meditation for thousands of years and the reason is because it’s really a wonderful tool to grant you a different access to yourself. It’s a different awareness and new level of peace.
Once you learn how to do it, it’s yours forever—you can always access that. It’s an energy inside of you. It’s not something you can lose that’s outside of yourself. It’s not physical; it’s something much deeper than that. The more you practice and the more you reach it, the more amazing it becomes.”
Sources:
Meditação Transcendental no Brasil
Access Hollywood
People Magazine
Elite Daily
