For years, I searched for a way to quiet a mind that never seemed to rest — through yoga classes, and through the few times I tried sitting to meditate entirely on my own. That last part never worked. Left to my own devices, my mind would just race, and I'd end up more anxious than when I sat down.

Then I attended an introductory talk on Vedic Meditation, in a small flat off Sunset Boulevard in West Hollywood. When the teacher described the technique — sit comfortably, back supported, no focus or concentration required — something in me exhaled before I'd even learned it.

The difference showed up in the very first session. I received my Bija (seed) mantra and settled into a depth of stillness I'd never touched before — not in any yoga class, and certainly not on my own. It didn't take long to know this was something else entirely.

What followed came quickly: the self-doubt and anxiety that had shadowed me for years began to loosen their grip. I felt more at home in my own skin, more able to trust myself. The twice-daily practice became a kind of refuge — and it answered a search for meaning I'd been on for a long time, whether or not I could have named it that way back then.

The more time I spent around this practice and the teachers devoted to it, the more a vision took hold: a life built around helping people reconnect, twice a day, with something in themselves that's often buried under noise — their own intuition, creativity, and sense of purpose. Not long after learning, I began the years of training that would eventually let me teach this technique myself, so I could offer others the same door I'd once walked through.