After a long day of filming on a hot set outside in southern California, Cameron Diaz knew everybody wanted to go home. But as she approached the last shot of the day, something unusual happened; she completely forgot her lines. Instead of struggling to remember the script after the long day of production, Diaz turned to a practice by which she lives in order to untangle her thoughts, meditation. After making a quick trip back to her trailer for twenty minutes, she returned to the set and performed her lines perfectly, allowing the staff to finish up and go home for the day. So how and why is meditation so powerful?
Every form of meditation is practiced a little differently, some focus on engaging with your breath with certain static potions and others practice observation of the mind from a distance in an attempt to reduce mental chatter and create a quiet mental space.
For Diaz, author of
The Longevity Book, meditation didn't always come so easy. She believed the practice wasn’t for her because of her inability to let go of her thoughts fully for an extended period of time. But when a friend introduced her to a type of practice called, Transcendental Meditation, or TM, it was the perfect fit.
TM is transformative so it is easier to learn than other more stringent practices. In it, the person focuses on a specific thought or a mantra, which is exactly what Diaz did the day that she blanked on her lines while filming a movie. What once seemed like an insurmountable task to her soon became possible after just twenty minutes of quieting the mind.
Meditation can be intimidating but once the bountiful types of the art are realized, the habit may seem more realistic. Diaz reminds us though that to become successful in your practice, you must work at it. In this video she offers the perfect visual to help bring the art of the practice and its benefits to light.
You can find more on Meditation in the August issue of
O Magazine.
