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Wellness (OWW) initiative. That’s how Paul Downs learned to meditate. In his eleven years serving as an infantryman in the U.S. Marine Corps, Paul was deployed in hotspots and combat zones throughout the world. In the Middle East alone he served in Iraq, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait. When Paul left the Marines, one of the things he looked forward to most was being close to his young children. But what he didn’t realize was just how much his identity as a Marine meant to him. When Paul left the Corps, he said, he lost pretty much everything: his tribe, his sense of self, and all that he knew to be true.
Because of that, he lost his sense of forward momentum, purpose and connection.
Paul suffered from PTSD. To outside observers, he told me that he might have seemed like “just another angry, disgruntled Veteran.” He sought help from the VA, looking for guidance, direction and connection but nothing seemed to help and he quit trying. “I was drowning in fear and sadness,” he reflected. “After months of putting away the uniform, I developed a pretty detailed plan for suicide. But while sitting in my truck, ready to proceed, a thought hit me: to die by my own hand was not my birthright. It is not the way of the warrior. Warriors have a deep appreciation for life and are not victims of circumstance.”
Paul reached out to the Boulder Crest Retreat in Virginia, a highly respected in- residence center for Veterans seeking to heal the hidden wounds of trauma. There he learned TM. According to Paul, “TM is different. You can take it anywhere and do it anytime: at home, on an airplane, sitting in traffic, anywhere. Veterans need this meditation. We need to learn how to regulate so we can be calm, cool and collected at home, just like we were trained to neon the battlefield. TM has worked for thousands of my brothers and sisters. It’s given me the opportunity not just to survive on earth but to
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