Staff Writer
Girls star Lena Dunham has recently opened up about her obsessive-compulsive disorder and how she uses meditation to cope with it. Dunham is the fourth generation of those in her family who chose to use meditation as a way to relax when things got too difficult.
Dunham was one of the keynote speakers at the “Women. Mediation. Stress” panel discussion, hosted by The David Lynch Foundation, held at the Paley Center in New York City last Tuesday (October 8). During her presentation, US Weekly reports that Dunham spoke frankly about how she turned to meditation as a way of dealing with her disorder.
Dunham said, “When I was around 9, I was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder. I feel forever grateful that instead of assaulting me with a barrage of medications, my mother decided it was time for me to learn to meditate. Although when you’re 9 you have trouble articulating the sort of internal shifts you feel, I know that it made an incredible difference. It made it possible for me to understand what I was going through, and to process what I was going through and to calm down.”
The Girls actress explained that she had to take a break from meditating as a teenager because “sitting still for 20 minutes is very low on the list of things teenagers want to do unless they’re stoned.”
However, Dunham made the decision to return to meditation upon entering show business. “My world was spinning really quickly and I knew that I needed to return to some sense of calm,” she said. “Since my re-initiation into meditation [it] has been even more powerful than my first experience, and it has made it possible for me to weather certain challenges and storms and public moments that I didn’t ever imagine would be in my life.”
She also stated that she feels lucky to have found meditation, adding “It gathers me up for the day and makes me feel organized… happy… and capable of facing the challenges of the world, both internal and external.”
Dunham said earlier this year that she attends therapy regularly, though she likened the sessions to those at the gym: “There are days I totally don’t feel like doing it, but it’s like exercise. Except I am more likely to go for therapy than exercise.”
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