“I had never directed anything before, but I really wanted to. So I got on the phone with [AOL] and pitched them a couple different ideas, and they realized how passionate I was about Transcendental Meditation. I was like, “Oh, OK, cool!” What I was able to do with my director of photography, David Wolf, was so cool and so beautiful.“
— Judy Greer, actress
Quiet Time at Aspire Ollin public school, LA
Judy Greer explained her choice of topic for the movie: “I have been meditating for over 2 years now. And I’ve always been fascinated by the David Lynch Foundation – that they would be able to teach an entire school to meditate. To me, it seemed like a very … unlikely story!“
Aspire Ollin University Preparatory Academy in Los Angeles, the school where Greer shot her film, is one of several schools in the city which are offering TM practice with the help from the David Lynch Foundation. It is also a member institution of the Aspire public shools network – one of the US’s highest performing low-income school systems.
Judy Greer: Transcendental Meditation ’creates so much more time for you’
In a recent interview with Glamour, Greer said:
“I had been wanting to try and learn how to meditate, and I did research on the different types of meditation. The Transcendental Meditation technique seemed the easiest, and I liked that it wasn’t religious in any way. So, I did a little research of how to do it, and in the middle of it, I’m traveling for work, and I get to this location, and I meet this girl, and she says, ‘Oh, I had the best day off, I meditated,’ and I was like, ‘Wait, what do you do to meditate?’ She said, ‘I do Transcendental Meditation’. It was one of those things that I had already been hearing a lot about.
Obviously, my tip first is to incorporate meditation into your schedule. It sounds like a lot—‘Twenty minutes twice a day, how can I ever do that?!’—but creating that time to meditate ends up creating so much more time for you. My second tip is to get more sleep. Everything is so much more overwhelming when you’re so tired.“
When interviewed for the blog Jamie Makeup, Greer summed up the benefits of the practice she has experienced first hand:
I think learning to calm the mind trickles down and affects the entire body. Stress can cause some of the worst physical ailments in the body, and by practicing TM one can alleviate stress, therefore, potentially alleviate many physical conditions as well.
Personally, I sleep better. I am calmer. I don’t get as moody or as anygry. I think I am a better listener, and somehow it makes me feel like there is more time in my day. I don’t tend to overeat or want as many glasses of wine to relax. Also, I practice with my husband most mornings, and I think it’s brought us closer too. We encourage each other to mediate when we can’t practice at the same time or when one of us is traveling.
It’s better than a nap, and that was what I used to try to do when I was stressed and exhausted. I could never quiet my mind enough to sleep, napping or at night, and was so tired all the time. Now I sleep so much better and feel energized after a meditation, ready to tackle the rest of my day.
She also shared her secrets to meditating on-the-go:
I do my morning meditation in bed as soon as I wake up. When I’m working I either take my lunch break to meditation, do a mediation when I get home or, if I’m out running errands, etc, I will park my car in a shady spot and do my afternoon meditation there. If I’m working I just tell whoever will be knocking on my door to give me 20 minutes before disturbing. I have wanted to make a sign, or magnet that says that I am meditating so I can get my 20 minutes in without interruption.
Watch the movie, from the AOL series In Short:
