Meghan Markle, American actress, humanitarian, and fiancée of Britain’s Prince Harry, meditates twice a day—20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes in the afternoon, according to her former meditation instructor. Years before her royal engagement, Light Watkins, an American meditation teacher and author of the book Bliss More, taught her the mindfulness practice, which she quickly adopted into her daily wellbeing routine.
“I met Meghan through a mutual friend of ours about five years ago,” Light Watkins told women’s fashion magazine InStyle. “This friend of ours is in the wellness space, and I think she had been working on some diet stuff with him. She’d been obviously familiar with the practice [of meditation] and had been doing it on her own and she was really intrigued by the fact that I was a meditation teacher and I do these trainings.”
At the time, Markle was portraying Rachel Zane on the popular American drama series Suits, when a friend introduced her to Light Watkins. Already familiar with meditation, she decided to follow one of Watkin’s meditation courses to receive further training and structure for her practice. Mindfulness is an ancient technique used in many contemplative spiritual traditions, especially Buddhism, and is has been rapidly growing in popularity among modern physiologists, neurologists, and physicians. Many recent studies demonstrate that even secular versions of mindfulness offer numerous well-being benefits, such as stress reduction, deep relaxation, and more positive states of mind. Many organizations, particularly in the West, are adapting mindfulness-based meditation programs to high stress environments, aiming to help practitioners better cope with the stressors they encounter on a daily basis.
Markle was reportedly already well versed in wellness practices and followed a very clear diet with a regular exercise as part of her daily self-care routine. “I think she just saw meditation as just another tool that she could use because she has the resources and I guess the time to explore,” said Watkins. “I think it ended up being a lot more profound than she originally thought. It seems like she was in a relatively good space beforehand and in a better space afterward.” (InStyle)
Markle was so inspired by Watkins that she mentioned him in her now-discontinued wellness blog, The Tig. She reportedly observed to Watkins: “Hey look, I’ve got this news wellness blog and I want to introduce more people to the things that I’m benefiting from and one of the key components to my wellness program is meditation.” (InStyle)
Watkins says that he teaches very simple meditation techniques that can even be practiced on a bed: “When you close your eyes, your mind is going to be incredibly busy. [My] technique is based off of an acronym: EASY. Easy stands for embrace, accept, surrender, and yield. And what I’m referring to are the very things that people tend to resist in meditation. It’s very counterintuitive.” (InStyle)
A couple of years ago, Watkins said, he was contected by Markle, who noted that she was meditating twice a day. With the royal wedding scheduled for later this spring, Watkins added, Markle is surely extremely busy, but still at times responds to the inspiration emails that he sends out every day: “I’m pretty sure she’s still meditating.” (InStyle)
See more
Meghan Markle Is Using This Centuries-Old Stress Relieving Tool to Prepare for Her Wedding (InStyle)
Meghan Markle Practices Meditation Twice A Day; Actress Very ‘Appreciative,’ Instructor Says (International Business Times)
Is Meghan using meditation to cope with the stress of wedding planning? (Mail Online)
