DLF - Memorial Day 2026 Jon Mize U.S. Army Veteran and Transcendental Meditation (TM) Teacher

Video transcription:

Bob Roth:
Hello, my name is Bob Roth. I'm the CEO of the David Lynch Foundation, and today I want to give you a report of the good news of the work of the David Lynch Foundation with veterans and active duty military. This report comes at a very auspicious time because Memorial Day is just around the corner, and this is the time that we honor all those who gave their lives in service of the country, but also those who have come back home carrying the wounds of war in their daily lives and the impact of trauma and PTSD on their lives is absolutely devastating. For decades, Transcendental Meditation has been studied and applied as a simple evidence-based technique to help reduce stress, anxiety, and trauma.

Today, we are incredibly honored to hear directly from a good friend, from a wonderful TM teacher, and someone who has lived this journey. Joining us is John Mize, a U.S. Army veteran and an incredible TM teacher from San Diego who served in Afghanistan and has experienced firsthand both the challenges of returning home and the impact that Transcendental Meditation can have in rebuilding a life. John, thank you deeply for being here and thank you for your service, not just when you served in the military, but the great service you're doing today.
So, can you tell us a little bit about your service, where you were deployed and what your experience was like in Afghanistan?

John Mize :
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you, Bob. I really appreciate that. It's great to be here with you. I, like you mentioned, served in the Army for about six years, and I was assigned to Special Operations Command to support SEALs, Rangers.
Kind of special ops to protect them from harm by up-armoring their vehicles.

Bob Roth:
People talk about, who have not served, talk about the hidden wounds of war. Did you have, was that your experience?

John Mize :
When I first got back home, it was great. You know, just so good to be back home with friends and family. And then after about a few months, it just wore off. And then these invisible wounds that you mentioned disappeared. started to pop up. It was anxiety. It was depression, trouble connecting with friends, family, self-isolation, sitting with this dysregulated nervous system and just not knowing what to do. That was true suffering.

Bob Roth:
And what would you say some of the, if you're speaking to a fellow vet or active duty, what are the benefits that you found that you think they would resonate, they would relate to?

John Mize :
The first one, it calmed me down. It slowed my mind down so that I didn't have racing thoughts and I could actually function. It broke that negative thought pattern of that doom and gloom where my mind just automatically would go to whenever I would just start ruminating.
And I notice a lot of veterans, they talk about that where they're just in their head and they're just ruminating. And TM, it just breaks that.

Bob Roth:
Why did you decide you wanted to become a teacher of Transcendental Meditation?

John Mize :
I'm doing my life's work.
It feels like I'm getting just as much healing and evolution out of supporting these veterans and teaching TM than the ones that I'm supporting. So it really is just a place of service, a true service that I want to become a TM teacher.

Bob Roth:
It's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. If you were talking to a person, a donor, who is interested in supporting your work and work of other TM teachers. Why should they support this?

John Mize :
Yeah, with so many different modalities and interventions, it's tough to really gauge on how well your money is effectively working. What I've experienced firsthand and what I've seen time and time again with supporting veterans, military, first responders here in San Diego is that it only takes an hour, an hour to have someone's suffering their complex ptsd just slowly kind of dissolve and be reunited with that sense of peace that's that's always been there, and for them not to have a take a pill not have to talk about what happened, and just be guided in an hour that is an empowering thing that they can do on their own and take control back and give, it's really this money that you're donating to David Lynch Foundation is directly contributing to saving lives in the most purest form. So the more money you give, the more lives you're saving. And it that the return of investment on on.
On a soul level, on a human level, it pays back, time and time again. So I urge and highly recommend if you can just give a dollar or a million dollars, this is the best thing. This is the best thing to invest in.

Bob Roth:
You said an hour, but the meditation is only practiced for 20 minutes twice a day. So what do you mean by an hour?

John Mize :
The course to learn TM is four consecutive days, about an hour to an hour and a half each day. So by the fourth day, they're flying on their own. They are a master of their practice and they can take it with them wherever they go. My vision is just to train them up four days and then they have it for the rest of their life, including in the battle zone.

Bob Roth:
you my friend are a great warrior you were a great warrior when you served our nation and you're a great great warrior today what you're doing to not just in san diego but the effect of what you're doing is already you know rippling out to the whole country and all over the world and not just with veterans who suffer from ptsd but so many many many people young and old, with the fear and the tension and the stress in life, building and building and building, and your words are very transformational. So what I'd like to do now, before I thank you, is to play a short video of you and some of your work with the Navy SEALs.

John Mize :
I served in the Army and was deployed to Afghanistan.
And when I came back, all of a sudden just hit me that something was off. I didn't know what it was, but something was off. I wasn't me.
Looking back now, I understand it was PTSD, but didn't know at the time. So I just use alcohol to kind of numb the pain that I was experiencing and didn't really know how to ask for help. I needed something and I didn't really respond to the conventional traditional route. Luckily found a really easy and effective form of meditation called TM or Transcendental Meditation and loved it. It worked pretty quickly and I wanted to teach veterans just like I was, you know, struggling.

Guy McDermott:
I spent 24 years in the Navy. I served majority of the time as a SEAL. When I transitioned out, I lost my identity or what I thought my identity was. And it got to the point where, quite frankly, I wanted to take my own life in it.
I got connected with Johnny here at the Restore Hope VFW Solana Beach. Johnny's probably taught 20, 30, 40 people Transcendental Meditation right out of here.
I know Johnny, who's been on his own journey of this, has found meditation to be life-saving. This is the secret sauce that has saved my life.
Someone saw that I was struggling and said, brother, I love you and I got you. That was the day that my life completely reversed and I was able to spiral up instead of spiral down.

John Mize :
One of the greatest joys that I love to experience and see is seeing that hope come back with the folks that I work with, veterans and first responders who have just not had a good night's sleep or taking pills, isolating. And after a few days, you know, sometimes of them practicing this TM technique, you see this brightness. in their eyes that wasn't there before. And you can feel it. And what I love is their spouses actually notice it first. And they say, keep doing what you're doing. It's not just about the warrior. It's not just about the first responder. It's the spouse and the children that are involved just as much, if not more. So it really nourishes the whole family. There is support in so many ways, physical, human, and otherwise.
There's help. There's support. There's so much. Yeah. Don't give up.

Bob Roth:
It's a great fortune of the David Lynch Foundation to be able to work with you and support your path and your service. And for anybody who'd like to know more about the David Lynch Foundation and our work with veterans, we have a website called the resilient-warriors.org .
And thank you all for joining, and we'll be back next month with more amazing transformational news from the David Lynch Foundation. So take care and be well.