Should We Continue to Hold Our Breath or Should We Learn How to Truly Breathe: An Interview with davidji
It was truly a treat to sit down with davidji, master of meditation, former COO of the Chopra Center, author of award-winning books including Amazon’s #1 bestseller destressify, translated to 20+ languages, and named named one of the top 5 meditation teachers to follow in 2022 by USA TODAY. Chatting with davidji about meditation, ancient teachings, and life purpose feels something like quenching a thirsty mind with a fresh natural spring of wisdom, with a splash of orange soda fun.
As we get up close and personal into davidji’s stories, his work with the military, law enforcement agencies, as well as individuals, I am reaffirmed just how much stress we’ve all accumulated, individually and collectively, and how much healing the world really needs.
Photos: Michael Graste Photography; davidji Meditation
Q:
What made you start your own meditation journey?
A:
I began meditating when I was in college. It was an Asian Studies course I took where we did a deep dive in ancient traditions and wisdoms. There were 12 of us, and we sat in a circle and practiced a Zen meditation every day. Our Zen Master stood in a corner and instructed us how to meditate. We were also instructed to raise our hand as soon as we slouched, or had a thought. As soon as our hand was raised, he, with his 18-inch bamboo stick in hand, would literally come over and whack us in the back!
I thought to myself, I sort of like what meditation is doing for me but I don’t really like meditating around this guy, so I dropped out of that class after a few weeks. But I continued to meditate on my own, using techniques like candle-gazing and sought out mindfulness meditation classes, which at the time was not as commercially viable. I got into exploring many different techniques like energy, chakra, vipassana, mantra, tantra, and one of my personal favorites – chocolate-tasting meditation. I have kept some of these techniques, dropped others, but within a couple of years, I had cultivated a strong meditation practice of my own.
Q:
How did you go from working in mergers and acquisitions to becoming an internationally acclaimed meditation master?
A:
I got very involved in the world of mergers and acquisitions, building a career in finance in New York City. I started trading in my morning meditations for morning train rides to the World Trade Center; traded in my evening meditations for a glass of scotch. So very quickly my meditation practice was poof, gone. Also gone, I later realized, was my balance in life.
And in one of those sudden butterfly moments, as I call it, one day, in the wake of 9-11, I walked by a row of cardboard boxes where many people were living. A hand reached out and grabbed my leg, pulled me closer, and this man peered into my eyes and said: “What’s going to be on your tombstone?”
That question rocked my world. Time stopped, everything stopped. For a brief minute, the streets seemed empty, complete silence in the busy city of New York, he and I just hung in this gaze and had an energetic communication. When he let go of my leg, I felt tears streaming down my face, I was hyperventilating, felt so weak-kneed that I had to sit down on a staircase in a nearby apartment building and started asking myself that question over and over again: “What’s going to be on my tombstone?”
I came home and told my wife what happened that night, and she said: “You need to quit that job! There’s a guy named Deepak Chopra, he’s doing a meditation retreat in Oxford, England for a week, you should check it out.” That’s perfect, I thought, let me reengage with my meditation practice. Without knowing who Deepak Chopra was at the time, I went on this retreat and meditated every day. At around the third day, I felt a sensation in my heart I hadn’t felt in many many years, and it was the sensation of joy. I suddenly realized I hadn’t felt joy in so long and I started to feel lighter and lighter each day. It was as if my heart was contaminated with stains and each time I meditated it washed away the stains little by little.
I felt so amazing that I got a 6-month visa to India while I was still in England and headed off to my pilgrimage in search of the guru. I traveled all over India, meditated every day, did yoga, bathed in the Ganges, and went to temples. After returning home, I did nothing but meditate every day to continue my bliss in stillness, until a couple of my friends came over and did an intervention, and encouraged me to get certified to teach meditation. So I went to Carlsbad, CA to the Chopra Center to get certified, and right in the middle of a meditation, Deepak tapped me on my shoulders and invited me to run the Chopra Center. I became the COO of the Chopra Center that day and began to train and teach the very next week. I was soon appointed the Lead Educator, then Dean of Chopra University. I continued to study with Deepak Chopra and David Simon on ancient teachings as well as scientific evidence-based meditation techniques and taught meditation for the next 10 years.
What I found beautiful about that experience was meeting the students and getting feedback from all of them. At some point after those 10 years, I decided to begin teaching on my own, travel the world, go wherever I wanted to go and teach meditation to a variety of people, and that’s what I've been doing ever since.
Q:
From your years of teaching meditation, what are some of the breakthroughs or transformations you’ve seen?
A:
There were certainly standout moments in my life — I was invited to work with the Metro DC police department after the January 2021 insurrection. For me, it was powerful working with the cops who were there defending the Capitol, knowing how wounded and traumatized they were from the experience. It was never anything a cop was trained for or had expected to happen in their line of duty. I continue to receive emails from a lot of them who attended my workshops that they are still meditating and practicing my teachings.
I work with a lot of cops, the military, and their families because most of them are not given the right tools to cope with extreme stress and traumas, in severe cases, PTSD. The same tools they need to gain clarity under crisis situations. They were trained to shoot, to chase, to judge but not appropriately funded for the kind of training they really need to make good split-second decisions in critical moments.
Most of these guys were taught to never show weakness or share their emotions, but through weeks and months of us meditating and working together, they started to sleep better and were able to practice self-inquiry and process their traumas without shutting down. Some of them went to their doctors after they started meditating and found that their blood pressure had gone down from 190/140 to a more normal range, and their pulse gone from 90s to 70s. Those physiological shifts they’ve shared with me were very powerful.
But there have been SO many “ordinary” people I’d like to highlight, who had extraordinary breakthroughs in their lives. Such as those who were diagnosed and struggling with stage four cancer when they dove into meditation. I’m not going to say they were spontaneously healed but they were able to better navigate their journey. Some of them transcended their diagnoses and healed, while some have passed on to the next realm with more inner peace. I believe all of us are wounded on some level, either from childhood or relationships or work, and we tend to hold on to that stuff and internalize them.
There have been so many people I’ve taught and worked with just during the pandemic, like mothers who suddenly lost their personal time having to homeschool children, worrying about how school policies were going to change from week to week. We’ve all been running around with our emergency brakes on in the last two years not knowing what’s going to happen. I’ve seen so many breakthrough lives as a result of our work together. They’ve launched businesses in spite of what’s going on around us; they forged new relationships; they made peace with their past. For me, it is the ultimate to see someone find enough trust in their heart to start their healing process.
When I first started teaching meditation it was all about me, my words and my performances. Over time, it became less about me and more about the people I’m teaching. That became an important lesson for me, that teachers are really channels allowing their knowledge and learnings to flow through them to others. So in my professional life as well, I made a major shift in the way I teach and in my methodologies.
Q:
How has meditation changed your life personally?
A:
Over the years, I’ve experienced so many emotional benefits from meditation, from both teaching and practicing. It was completely unplanned and unexpected, even with the many known scientific studies. I’m from Queens, we were born with sharp elbows and taught to be badasses, and that doesn’t always work in every situation in life. Meditation has really softened me without making me soft, in terms of my personal goals and aspirations. It has certainly made my interactions with other people softer. I don’t feel the need to be right or to convince other people to incorporate what I say into their lives. I am more patient, a better listener, I sleep better, and make better decisions in life. When people ask me now what I do for a living, I say “I help others connect to their inner stillness so they can gain clarity and make better decisions in life” because that’s what I believe meditation can do for all of us.
When I first started teaching meditation it was all about me, my words and my performances. Over time, it became less about me and more about the people I’m teaching. That became an important lesson for me, that teachers are really channels allowing their knowledge and learnings to flow through them to others. So in my professional life as well, I made a major shift in the way I teach and in my methodologies.
Q:
With everything that’s happening in the world right now, can you recommend a few of your favorite meditation techniques that can help reduce anxiety and cultivate more inner peace?
A:
Here’s one of my favorite 2-minute meditations to instantly bring you into the present moment:
(Remember comfort is queen. So get as comfortable as possible in a chair or meditation cushion).
Take a long slow deep breath in, and ever so gently let that go.
Let’s do that again, long slow deep breath in, and gently let that go.
Now just watch your breath, as it flows in, and watch it as it flows back out.
There is nowhere else to be and nothing else to do, except to be right here, right now, in this sacred precious present moment.
If you drift away to thoughts, sounds, or physical sensations, that’s okay, don’t resist. As soon as you realize you’ve drifted off, ever so gently drift back to observing your breath, watching your breath, to witnessing your breath.
Your mind is calming, your body is relaxing. The swirl outside of you and inside of you is slowing down.
Once again, long slow deep breath in, and let that go. When it feels comfortable, slowly bring yourself back and open your eyes.
Here's another technique I’ve shared throughout the world, the one with the most powerful effect and perhaps the simplest one. I call it “16 seconds to clarity.”
Think of something that has irritated or bothered you in the past few days… a difficult conversation, a disappointment, an unmet expectation. Replay that moment in your mind’s eye, even notice someplace in your body that feels connected to the irritation. Take a few moments to settle into that space.
Now take a long, slow, deep breath in through your nostrils, slowly count to four, and observe the air as it moves into your nostrils and to the back of your throat. Watch your breath as it moves down your chest and deep into your lungs. Feel your belly expand.
Observe your belly being filled, and hold that breath in to the count of four. And just witness the breath in your belly as you silently count. One, two, three, four.
Now slowly, to the count of four, release your breath and watch it as it moves up into your chest, into your throat, into your sinuses, and out through your nostrils.
And when the last wisp of air is out of you, hold that breath out to the count of four. And observe it, watch it, witness it… as it dissipates into the air.
Both of these meditations are available on the Unplug Meditation and Insight Timer apps.
Q:
What programs or classes do you offer for those who want to get into meditation?
A:
I am fully dedicated to teaching meditation and I’m fully dedicated to teaching people to teach meditation. I am the educational director at Unplug Meditation Teacher Training and founder of Masters of Wisdom & Meditation Teacher Training. Both of these programs are powerful for those who want to become a meditation teacher or just want a deeper understanding of meditation and lock down their own practice.
I have several live events coming up right here in Carlsbad, where we will meditate together on the beach joined by like-minded seekers and meditators. I also have a community called The Mind Shift Membership. Each month I have live webinars with members, we have guest performers, tools and fun videos on discussions ranging from chakras, feng shui, crystals to chanting. It also has the largest collection of my guided meditations from the vault available to all members. I invite everyone to check it out, connect with me through my website or social media, and find something that’s right for them.
Davidji is credited with creating the 21-day meditation process, which spawned hundreds of 21-day meditation experiences & challenges around the world.
Often referred to as the Velvet Voice of Stillness, davidji is the most prolific creator of guided meditations in the world. His more than 1,000 guided meditations are available on Insight Timer, DailyOM, Apple Music, Amazon, Hay House, Spotify, Tidal, & more.
After a 20-year career in business, finance, and mergers and acquisitions, davidji began a new journey to wholeness, apprenticing for a decade under Drs. Deepak Chopra and David Simon, serving as the Chopra Center COO, Lead Educator and then as the first Dean of Chopra Center University, where he trained more than 300,000 people to meditate and certified more than 2,500 meditation teachers.
He has since left the Chopra Center to teach the practical integration of stress management, mindful performance, meditation, and conscious choice making into our real-world, modern-day experiences. For more than 15 years davidji has helped thousands of people around the world to perform at higher levels, become more reflective and less reflexive, make better decisions, sleep better, enhance their relationships, experience abundance, and live purpose-driven lives.
He has a passion for working with entrepreneurs, business leaders & those in high-pressure, high-stress situations. His teachings on stress release, conflict resolution, and mindfulness are now practiced in Fortune 500 companies, the military, law enforcement and his signature techniques have been portrayed in movies and TV.
davidji is a certified Vedic Master, and every week, throughout the world, he hosts empowerment workshops, corporate trainings, life-change immersions, transformational retreats, and teacher trainings.
You can connect with Davidji on Instagram and Facebook, or email him at info@davidji.com
