Meditation at the Vatican... with Katy Perry

You might not expect the Vatican to sponsor a medical conference on innovative health solutions for the 21st century that would include a presentation by Bob and Katy Perry on Transcendental Meditation for children’s health. They did—and it was super well received. Bob talks about the dangers faced by kids under stress and his appreciation for Katy’s global work to support young girls at risk. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Stay Calm as a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
to Stay Calm, your daily dose of calmness. I'm Bob Roth,
and I've been teaching people to meditate for fifty years,
helping them to stay calm under pressure, reboot and re
energize their lives, and basically be a happier, healthier version

(00:22):
of themselves. And now I want to help you do
the same. Ready, sit comfortably, take a few deep breaths,
and let's begin today's journey. Okay, here's a sentence for you.
I gave a talk at the Vatican about transcendental meditation
with Katie Perry. I taught Katie to meditate back in
two thousand and ten in India. I was there for

(00:44):
Katie's wedding to Russell Brand. The marriage didn't last, but
the meditation did for both of them. Now fast forward
to April two thousand and eighteen, I was invited to
speak at an international medical conference co sponsored by the
Vatican on innovations in health care for the twenty first
century called Unite to Cure. The topic of my talk

(01:07):
was impacting children's health through transcendental meditation. Katie had also
been invited to participate in the conference as an entertainer,
not as a speaker. But at the last minute a
glitch arose trying to stage the concert, and unfortunately it
had to be canceled. Still, Katie wanted to join me
for my talk about t M for children, and she

(01:27):
was eager to meet the Pope. I'm telling you about
Katie not because she's some megapop star, but because of
how she's using her pop stardom to tell a whole
new generation of young kids, particularly young girls, about meditation,
how it has helped her, and how it can help them.
The need to do something to help these kids is

(01:48):
beyond urgent. From two thousand and seven to two thousand
and seventeen, suicides among ten to twenty four year olds
rose fifty six percent, overtaking homicide as the second leading
cause of death in this age group after accidents. The
increase among preadolescents and younger teens is particularly startling. Suicides

(02:12):
by children ages five to eleven have almost doubled in
recent years, and children's emergency room visits for suicide attempts
or suicidal ideation rose from five hundred and eighty thousand
in two thousand and seven to one point one million
in two thousand and fifteen, and forty percent of those

(02:33):
visits were by children younger than age eleven. Hard to comprehend.
I have had the very good fortune to direct the
David Lynch Foundation. For the past sixteen years. We have
brought transcendental meditation for free to more than one million
at risk kids in the United States and all over
the world. Research shows these meditating school kids are happier,

(02:57):
do better in school, have higher graduate sation rates, stay
out of trouble with the law. Now, one million kids
may sound like a lot, but really it's a tiny
drop in the bucket. This is a pandemic of global proportions.
And this is where Katy Perry has come in. She
breaks down the barriers about what meditation is and what

(03:19):
it does. She makes meditation okay for a twelve year
old girl. Katie wants everyone to know why she meditates. Quote.
When I meditate, it feels like my whole brain opens
up and I experience an incredible stillness. It's nothing like
I've ever known, and that brings some of the best,
most creative ideas to the surface. It's also helped a

(03:42):
lot with my anxiety. Instead of having to turn to
prescription drugs. I've been able to turn to TM. When
Katie does a concert tour, it's at least a hundred
and fifty cities and each stop is completely sold out.
She performed before sixteen thousand people, large, the young girls
and their parents. I see how stressed out kids are,

(04:04):
Katie says, I'll meet them backstage. I see them in
the audience. They're stressed out by their devices, by keeping
up with appearances, by wanting to emulate what they see online.
I feel so much for them. I know that meditation
has been such an incredible tool for me to connect
back with myself. It's really important for kids to have
this tool too, for it to be offered in school

(04:27):
so the kids can yes focus and do better in school,
but more importantly, so that they'll be able to know themselves,
find their true selves, be their authentic selves. I just
want to be a messenger of good, and this is
one of the greatest messages I can give. So what's
our lesson for today? The health tip from Katie is

(04:47):
as old as humankind. Be true to yourself, be genuine,
be authentic. All right, let's end this time together doing
something that I think should be a feature of our
everyday life, and that's appreciation and gratitude. So let's take
thirty seconds of quiet, thirty seconds to take a break,
just take a moment. It turns out when we do that,

(05:10):
it's good for our health as well. I'll be right
back all right. Thank you for joining me today. I

(05:45):
hope you heard something that inspires, that uplifts you and
that you can incorporate into your own life. This is
Bob Roth. Stay calm, hey, all of you out there.
I'd love to hear from you. You can send me
your stories, your questions, or anything else on your mind.
Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram at

(06:09):
meditation Bob. You can also send me an email at
meditation Bob Roth at gmail dot com. I look forward
to hearing from you.