TM wakes up my brain It’s a silly thin odels are just seen for how they look. I started to feel that every human being should be valued for what they have inside. Then you see a lot of girls that want to be like models. They want to be skinny like models. They start to get eating disorders. It’s like an obsession to be or look a certain way. But you start to realize that doesn’t matter. What matters is what you have inside I remember when I first started meditating—it was like a wake up call in my brain. All of a sudden within the first week of meditating I wanted to organize my life, my personal belongings, my apartment, everything. It was like I got this desire to organize things. It was almost like my brain was turned on. Lifestyle, smoking, and meditation Transcendental Meditation changed my whole lifestyle in a year. One big change happened four months ago when I realized that I had to quit smoking. It was something that I’d been carrying with me through my whole modeling career because I thought that smoking would keep me thin. I started to realize that all these challenges were a good thing, so stop smoking! It makes me very proud now to be a non-smoker, to take care of myself. Before, the only thing I could think about was that I needed a coffee to get out of bed, and how I needed to watch the news to start the day—all that stress, and worries. Everything was a problem. Now I wake up always in a light mood. I go straight to do my meditation. When I meditate, I feel this excitement like what is the day going to be like today? People say “Live everyday of your life like every day is your last day”. That’s the feeling I get. It’s like today is the day and there are all these things I can do today. It’s an exciting feeling, and at the same time it is calming. Now more and more, after a year now, I’m really starting to feel this blissful feeling. It comes and you’re like wow! It’s beautiful. Positive Outlook I think that before I did TM I had a tendency to be negative towards everything. I was the kind of person that would always look at the negative side before the positive. So I used to meet someone and I would straight away start looking at the negative things about that individual. Now with TM, when I look at an individual I can only see the positive things about them… and not only with people but with things in general. TM has made me aware, aware of the beauty of the world but also it’s made me aware of things in general. Relationships In my work I must be social. Whenever I’m on a fashion show or photo shoot I have to be with people. I have to be social but it was almost like a fake social. I knew I had to be social. I would arrive at the job and do what I had to do. I didn’t feel I could connect to people so much. But now that I’ve started to meditate, I’m starting to love people. It’s true. It’s almost like I want to meet as many people as I can. I’ve started to realize that no matter what I’m doing, each person is equally as beautiful as the other. I’ve felt that since I started meditating. With TM, my relationships with people have really changed for the better. People kept saying how energetic I am. I think I get done a lot more pictures now than I used to. Before, I used to get tired and think “I can’t stand these high heels anymore”. Now it’s like I’m an athlete and I’m full of energy. Advice to women about stress I think these days, women have more and more responsibilities—raising families, and then they have their job. I think it’s very hectic. I think that a lot of women suffer from stress here. I think that TM could really help them release that stress. I feel much more calm because of meditation. It’s like you have your quiet time and all that stress and the worries and everything is dissolved. Then you move on through your day and the challenges and problems don’t become problems any more. You want to find solutions for everything. It’s almost like a stress killer. That’s why I think it would be really good for women everywhere to learn. On Meditation and Paradise As a model I always joke that it’s very similar to being a stewardess—very often in airports and hotel rooms alone. So TM has helped a lot with that. Now when I’m in a plane I meditate and that makes me calm. If you’re constantly in airports and planes it can be very stressful—all the security lines etc. TM makes me feel calm about that. The frustration is gone. And also being with mysel ou get to the hotel room and meditate, but when you’re there in that moment of total peace with yourself, you’re in paradise no matter where you are.