Oprah Winfrey’s new TV series, ‘Oprah’s Next Chapter’, which launched on 1st January, is to include an episode on Transcendental Meditation, exploring how the simple technique has transformed the lives of many Americans, including those of Oprah and her 400 employees.
The TV star and her team learned to practise the technique at their studios in California before commencing filming in Fairfield, a small town in Iowa, where over 3000 people – a third of the population – practise the TM technique daily. In the film, which will be broadcast on Oprah’s own TV network, OWN, in February, highlights will include Oprah’s visit to a school in Fairfield where all the pupils meditate, and her participation in a group meditation of 500 women in a purpose-built golden-domed hall. Emerging stunned after the 20 minute experience, she declares she has never felt anything like it before.
This preview of Oprah’s Next Chapter features highlights of the six part series, including her visit to ‘TM Town’ in Fairfield, Iowa. The series will be broadcast on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN), with excerpts on Oprah.com
Filming took place in October 2011 and such was the positive impact on the personal and professional lives of Oprah and her closest team that within six weeks all of her 400 employees had learnt the technique.
Appearing on a leading American TV chat show in December, she told the anchor, Dr Mehmet Oz, a well-known TV medic in the USA, that twice-daily practice of the technique had transformed their workplace.
“Nine o’clock in the morning, and 4:30 in the afternoon no matter what is going on, we stop and we meditate.
“And that way of being ‘still’ with ourselves – coming back to the centre – and recognising that something is more important than you, [that] it’s more important than the work you are doing, brings a kind of energy and an intensity of energy; an intention that we have never had before.
She went on to describe the effect it had on her employees’ personal lives.
“People who used to have migraines, don’t. People are sleeping better. People have better relationships. People interact with other people better. It’s been fantastic.
“So the one thing I want to continue to do is to centre myself every day, and make that a practice for myself because I am one thousand per cent better when I do that, one thousand per cent better when I take myself back to something bigger than myself.”
Watch Oprah speak about Transcendental Meditation with Dr Mehmet Oz.
