Awaken Engage

Today has been a day of working with competing deadlines and juggling a number of responsibilities that have implications for both today and the future. I noticed myself trying to look ahead into the future to try to identify a time that I can stop juggling. Or, at least feel like I can stop juggling. The reality is that it isn’t really about the juggling at all. It’s about how I am being with the...

I grew up on a farm. My experience tells me that when you grow up on a farm, you never really leave the farm and the farm never really leaves you. In many ways, I lived the life every kid would want to live. I got to ride motorcycles at a really early age, I drove to driver’s ed, I learned how to fix things, how to grow things, how to run any type of equipment, and how to solve any problem with wh...

As a general rule, humans put their trust in two areas in which they are all utter failures. The first: We think we know what we should actually worry about. The second: We think that the way we see things is actually the way that things are. Let’s take the first case in point. Think about all of the things you worried about yesterday, or today, or last Wednesday. You pick. But you have to list al...

I awoke this morning not being able to breathe at all through either nostril and with what I know to be a sinus headache. In the past, when I have felt like I did this morning, I ended up with a sinus infection but it has been many years since I have had one. I decided to do a video recording of the quality of my breathing - or, rather my breathlessness. And then, while still lying down, began the...

The breath has received so much attention in recent years that it is almost becoming white noise. “Yeah. Yeah. I know. I just need to take a deep breath. Great. I got it.” But knowing about breathing and the benefits of breathing doesn’t do anybody any real good unless they actually become intentional about breathing. As Eckhart Tolle says, “Intellectual agreement is just another belief that won’t...

I intentionally slept in this morning because of a late night last night and a very full week. Because I slept in, I had to go straight from sleep to being “on” for getting Sophia up and ready for school and the whole routine that requires me to be awake and alert. I’m usually up for a couple of hours before anyone in the house even thinks about stirring. My routines and practices during that time...

This week is as full of a week as I have had since resuming vocational life. Over these years of recovery, we have been careful to add things to my plate one by one so that we can avoid symptomatic triggers and lengthy regressions. This has been a long and intentional process and there is still much work to be done to come back “online” fully. I could see this week coming and Monday evening - on a...

This morning, as I began to make my way from dreamland to the fully waking state, I found myself mentally getting ready for the morning routine: wake up, yoga nidra, breathwork, body sensing, sitting meditation, ice bath, stretches, exercise, yoga, spend time with kids, take kids to school, walk dog, etc… As I was going through the mental paces, I heard my body say, “Be gentle with me, today.” It...

I am unashamedly stealing a title from a Mary Oliver poem of the same name. I find her poetry to be suited just perfectly for anyone healing from anything and for anyone wanting to live more abundantly and authentically. Whenever I come across her poetry, I so often feel known in the un-said parts of my life. The World I Live In - Mary Oliver I have refused to live 
 locked in the orderly house of...

I awoke this morning wondering if this might the day I have writer’s block. But I can’t find it now. Perhaps because I told Writer’s Block, “If you show up when I sit down to write, I will just welcome you and write about you and share what it is like to spend some time with you. I’m actually quite looking forward to deepening the experience of what you are like.” Writer’s Block, where are you now...

I find myself in a most contented state of being this evening after a day of heart-full talks and meetings with family and friends. At ease and full of stillness after a day of working through a few hard times with loved ones and experiencing the closeness that comes from staying accessible and emotionally responsive, even when its messy, even when it’s scary, even when it would be easier to withd...

Near the end of class today at the university, I noticed that it was raining, so we all got up from our seats, made our way outside, and slowly walked in the rain for a few minutes with the intention of just being with the rain. Removing labels. Letting go of stories. Feeling sensation. Being with what is as it is. When we reconvened in the classroom to debrief, one student talked about the sensat...

It is December 2015 and I am sitting in a small room at the St. Luke’s Concussion Clinic. I sit in a reclining chair across the room from a woman in her 60s who is speaking to me, saying, “Perhaps there is a place in your body where the ringing is louder and hotter than other places. As you look around inside the body, begin to allow yourself to note where the ringing feels loudest and hottest. An...

Things are often not what they seem. It may also be true that things are not often what they seem. I am learning this slowly, but I am learning. As I was thinking about the people in my life who seem to consider these truths the most in their daily lives, the very first person I thought of was my dad. In fact, now that I think of it, these “truths” arose as I was talking to my dad this morning. He...

60 has come and gone. If you remember, the 30-day writing challenge morphed into a a 60-day writing challenge and I have no intention of stopping anytime soon so, let’s make it ninety. I am compelled by a force greater than I, so I’m gonna just let go and see where it takes us. Yes. Us. Obviously, you’re at least along for this part of the ride. Thanks for joining, for following along, for sending...

This past Saturday, the day before Easter, I was invited to share the sounds of the handpan as the opening and closing of a contemplative gathering. I try to under-prepare for these kinds of settings so that I can be attentive to the mood and allow my heart to lead my hands. While talking to a dear friend earlier in the day on Saturday, he asked if I would play something over the phone. I played a...

Several months ago, I received an email asking if I would consider being the presenter at a local brain injury support group. I called the number listed on the email to chat over the details and, while on the phone, realized that I was speaking to one of the people who helped manage my care when I was a patient at the concussion clinic eight years ago. Wow. And if that were not surreal enough, I d...

Today is one of those days that just feels like it got away from me a little bit. Ever have one of those? Nothing too serious. But noticeable. I had a list of things to do. But I never looked at the list. Instead, I sort of coasted through this day, allowing whatever what was in front of me be the thing that was most important. I’m all for living in the moment. And, I’m also all for living with in...

Several nights ago, a friend joined me in the sweat lodge. It was his first time and the rocks were especially hot. At about the midway point, I got out of the sweat to soak in the ice bath. I’ve mentioned before that there is a euphoria I feel at about the 3 minute mark of soaking in the ice bath if I have preceded it with the sweat lodge. That night was no different. Somewhere around the 3 minut...

My heart is tender and raw right now. After a situation yesterday in which, through the perspective of my personal lens, a loved one was misunderstood, left out, unseen, unvalued, rejected, and treated unfairly, I found myself being washed over with waves of emotion. It seems much easier to go through these things myself than it is to watch a loved one on this journey. I find it particularly chall...

There is so much to write. And, I am spent. So many lessons today. Some very hard pills to swallow. Some even harder to watch others have to swallow. Yet, what I notice most as I sit here writing is that I am overflowing with gratitude. The calling right now is to be still. And to be thankful. To remember to be thankful. I recall the day. A reminder arrives in my email inbox: “Hi Professor Jones!!...

Almost daily, I stand in awe of the way of things, the unwritten laws that govern nature and the universe. Some we see, some we feel, and some we are aware of only by the senses beyond our senses - we just know. My friend Sylvain sent a book to me many months ago. I didn’t read it. In fact, I didn’t open the cover, glance at the flyleaf, or read the accolades on the back. Not a word. It wasn’t tha...

It is difficult to overstate the need for us to have phrases, mantras, verses, lines, intentions, scriptures, words, or whatever else we want to call the signposts that point us home, remind us of home, or, at least show us the next step when we have lost our way. As a middle school student, I went through several years where I could not sleep at night. I was distraught with anxious thoughts, espe...

I was recently referred to as a mindfulness meditation “expert” in some promotional literature for a collaborative project that I am co-leading this summer. My first reaction was, “Nope. No, I’m not.” It was a visceral reaction that felt like a heavy stone in my gut. I don’t want to be labeled as an expert. I have certainly never referred to myself as one. I don’t know everything there is to know...

The summer trip we’ve been planning for years. The cancelled flights that send us home. The vibrancy of good health. The flu that has us bedridden. The feeling of finding out we got the promotion. The foreclosure on our house and ensuing bankruptcy. The moment of seeing our newborn for the first time. Attending the funeral of a loved one. The easy life of the retirement years we worked so hard for...