- Cheryl Anderson

Some of the things I was dealing with: Anger, Bouts of rage, Impatience, Self loathing, Low Self-Esteem, Judgemental of self and others, Negative view of self and life even though on the outside I was seen as positive and a happy person, Depressed, ‘What’s the use’ attitude with way too many things in my life, life was an emotional and physical struggle that I was just sick and tired of dealing with. I would like to give my account of who I was before learning Transcendental Meditation, and who’ve I’ve become/ grown into being since leaning and practising it twice daily. How it has positively and profoundly impacted me, my life and those around me.

I must say upon reflection, I wasn’t really aware of how angry and impatient I had become and what the spin off effects in my life were. As it is with those two traits, there is a certain personal blindness that accompanies them. They are both hugely ego driven and as most of us know, ego is never eager to hear about how it is negatively impacting something or how it is hindering the self and those around us. Ego wants only two things, to be noticed and to be right.

I hadn’t noticed how intolerant I’d become of little unimportant things in my life.

Small things would annoy me and have me either swearing at it, mumbling something angry under my breath or sometimes throwing the thing that was annoying me. After the outburst be it loud of mumbled I’d be ok, I used to think. I used to laugh at how quick I could get angry and react, then be over it. Well, that wasn’t the truth, truth was that the boiling point would go down to a simmer, the anger was still there but not as prevalent that it boiled over.

Anger was with me all the time but only obvious when it got too much and it boiled over into a reaction. I hadn’t noticed how much/ often it was with me, I was so used to it that as long as on a scale of 1-10, it wasn’t an 8 or more then it went unnoticed by me.

Impatience was there as well. I think, now looking back that it was the impatience that would bring the anger to the surface. Low self-esteem, inability to regulate my inner voice and how I saw myself when I judged myself and the world around me was what fuelled a lot of what went on. I’m paraphrasing much larger issues I had, that everyone has to differing degrees, flavours and depths.

There was a lot of misunderstood ideas of who I was and the beliefs I’d formed about myself and the world around me. None of which was true or real. It was all in my head milling around, festering and erupting most times without warning.

When I first read about Transcendental Meditation and what it could do for you and how it could calm the mind, I had to know more.

I looked into it a bit more, watched a video of Dr John Hagelin explaining how Transcendental Meditation worked, the studies done over the years and the positive effects and outcomes from practising it daily.

I was hooked, I knew at that moment and I needed to learn this technique because my anger and impatience was something a few people had spoken to me about (very brave of them I must say, and I’m so grateful they did). I found Wendy Rosenfeldt through the TM page I’d found and from there I booked in to do the course.

Since doing the course and sitting twice daily to meditate I can truly say that my life did a 180 degree turn and what used to be intermittent or uncontrollable moments of anger, rage, sadness, impatience etc are now simply thoughts I have that have no tug or pull on me emotionally whatsoever.

Stunned, yes! Amazed, yes! Happy and relieved, yesssss! At ease in my skin and having an inner tempo that rarely gets above say a 2-3 on the 1-10 scale. On the odd occasion when I’m tired, stressed or have been running on empty I can get snippy and maybe get to a 6-7 after quite a few things annoying me. However I can feel it coming on, I can sense it and because I’m so calm now days, I can let it come up and ‘respond’ to it with calmness and patience instead of how I used to ‘react’ to it with an outburst.

Where I used to say things like ‘oh,for fks sake!’, ‘just faaaaaaark off!’, ‘jeeeezuz fking chrst!’ etc so many times a day while dealing with things that would annoy or anger me or reading things or watching something on screen – to now where my go to is ‘coooome on nooooow’.

I am smiling and have an inner giggle as I type this because no one was as surprised as me when that came out of my mouth the first time in place of the usual sweating rants. I put different emphasis on those three words depending on what’s going on.

I am a different, calm and emotionally balanced person now, and I KNOW it’s all due to my learning and practising TM twice daily. No one can tell me different because the ‘feels’ inside of me are night and day to what they used to be.

I recommend this course with all my heart and soul. Wendy is a truly gentle and amazing soul doing what I know is changing the world, a person at a time. She loves what she does and she’s really great at it.

If you are thinking of doing this, for whatever reason you have, GO FOR IT.

You won’t look back, you will grow beyond who you are into a person you will be amazed at.

Open yourself up to letting the unwanted inside of you, to come out and leave. From me to you, all the very best and I wish you all the calm and self-respect you can fill yourself with.

Wendy Rosenfeldt7 June 2025Clontarf QLD

- Manav Dhindsa

Over the past seven months, TM has been invaluable to me for releasing stress and resetting twice a day. Even during extremely stressful periods, I’ve rarely missed a session. Often, I’ll sit down to meditate with an aching body, and after 20–30 minutes of deep rest, I get up feeling refreshed, with the pain greatly reduced or completely gone. I can feel my nervous system becoming more resilient as I continue shedding layers of stress. I’m not sure how much tension remains to be released, and I try not to dwell on that. Instead, I stay focused on the process.

I’ve been seeking healing for a long time, as I’ve been unwell since I was sixteen. It began with chronic fatigue, weakness, pain, stiffness, difficulty standing (POTS), an inability to exercise, and poor sleep and weak digestion—symptoms that followed years of stress and inadequate nutrition. Over 22 years (I started TM at age 38), I tried numerous approaches: traditional Chinese medicine, allopathic medicine, holistic/naturopathic treatments, many forms of meditation (including Vipassana), exercise programs, prayer, therapy, psychiatric medication, 12-step support groups, and countless nutritional supplements. While some helped, others caused significant harm. For example, I once developed psychosis and a traumatic mental illness after practicing meditation improperly without the right guidance. I was even diagnosed with schizophrenia at one point (Something I no longer meet the criterion for).

TM is the first practice I’ve adopted that has genuinely resonated with me and provided ongoing benefits. This is especially notable because I had a strong aversion to meditation due to my previous traumatic experiences, and it was initially very difficult for me to start meditating again. After years of trying and suffering, I was close to giving up hope of ever feeling better. I questioned the point of living with so many invisible injuries that received little sympathy, even from my own family. I was death-marching through life, hoping to reach the end quickly. I was also numbed out, living with a scattered mind and unable to fully connect with people, due to the weight of the trauma and the psychiatric medications I was taking.

I began TM in early August 2024, and it has given me the capacity to heal and cope with both large and small stressors. In the past seven months, I’ve experienced the loss of my father, the birth of my first son, started a high-pressure job at an international company, moved abroad with my family, and dealt with many other daily challenges. TM has enabled me to navigate all these events with increasing resilience. If my circumstances had been calmer, I believe my healing would have progressed even further. I feel more connected with people, more at one with myself and more equanimous. From my perspective, TM is a profoundly powerful technique despite its apparent simplicity. There are many subtleties in meditation, and small adjustments can lead to significant improvements over weeks and months. I still have a long long way to go, but I feel truly committed to the practice because I genuinely notice daily progress.

Frequent check-ins (Checkings) with my TM teacher, Wendy Rosenfeldt, have been crucial for refining my practice. There have been times when the stress release felt overwhelming and continuous, but Wendy’s guidance helped me move through those periods safely. I know I have carried a tremendous amount of stress and trauma in my nervous system, and before TM, I had no idea how to lay down that burden and move toward freedom. My previous attempts at healing often felt like struggling in quicksand, but with TM I finally see sustained progress and more ease in my daily life.

Kathryn Pollock7 June 2025