Awaken Engage

Awaken Engage

By David Robert JonesHealth & FitnessMental Health
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Awaken Engage episodes

  • Let it Be (1)
    The Ice Bath Meditations Series is over, even if the daily ice baths continue. So, I’ve been on the lookout for the next challenge. I quite like the month-long-commitment idea and this month I’m challenging myself to script a 3-5 minute musing each day, post it here, and publish it to my podcast. The difficulty is as much in keeping it short and concise as it is doing it daily. Another challenging aspect is writing/speaking/publishing when my life feels adrift and less to-the-point and tidy than I’d like it to be. 
    And what I’d like “it” to be is the theme that has followed me throughout this day. 
    I awoke to rain and puddles and dark skies, this after an unseasonably warm spell here in the Northwest where the sun has been shining and Spring felt like it had already arrived. 
    I like sun. I like green foliage and blue skies. I like dry and firm trails. I like signs of life.
    But as I hiked with Iris in the foothills after dropping the kids off at school in rainy darkness, we trod along trails and through scenery that was anything but what I like. 
    Lots of gray and puddles and signs of things that have died and are decaying. Spring, where did you go?
    I’ve been working with this labeling thing for awhile now. Working with being with life as it is as I am. Working with the reality that I can cause myself a lot of suffering with those second arrows of trying to find permanence in the impermanent, pushing away the things I don’t like, and clinging to the ones I do like.
    So, as a cool and wet breeze soaked my skin, I decided to just look and see what was to be seen as we walked through the hollow.
    It was striking how quickly I stopped wishing it were different.
    In fact, as I let go of the desire for Spring to show up here and now, I became attuned to the distinctly different sounds of the rain as it landed on various surfaces. I noticed reflections in puddles. I smelled sagebrush and wet dirt. I saw tiny birds flying ahead of us, landing, and then flying again as we approached them. I saw changing hues of gray as the sun - unseen behind the clouds - still brought a semblance of light to the scene. 
    I got down close to the ground to see it all from another perspective. I brushed my hand against rabbitbrush along the trail. I listened to the sound of Iris’s breathing and watched the joyful wagging of her tail as she explored and then returned to me, over and over. I felt a smile of contentment and peace spread across my face and heart. 
    There was a sense of all being all right. That even in what looks like a barren and dead landscape, there is a seasoned knowing of cycles - cycles that come hard at us in this place we live whether we like it or not. Cycles of birth, growth, stability, decay/decline, death, rebirth. Seasons of life and the many things that “life” means.
    Perhaps I am slowly coming to sense that I like letting things be the way they are better than I like any particular thing at all.
    I’ll just let that be.
    4 min
  • Catching the Morning Light

    Catching the morning light. Today was the first day post-Ice-Bath-Meditations. I didn’t really have a plan for this morning except to listen and watch.

    When I awoke, it was still in the 4 a.m. range. So, I sat in silence for a bit, put on my shorts and flip flops, walked outside, and then sat in the ice bath for awhile.

    Just feeling. Just experiencing. Just being so thankful for all that was passing through my awareness.

    Relax and release. Let it Be. Let it Go. Let it In. Step out of reactivity and step into life as it is, as I am.

    I noticed only a bit of a difference in the ice bath even though it was the first I’ve done in a month without recording it. I still said “Good morning!” as I got in and I still felt the presence of a great company of friends and teachers and advisers.

    There was actually a tinge of sadness at completing the series. I am learning to just let it run its course without judging it or trying to analyze and figure out “Why?”

    As I sat just noticing the sadness feels, they came and went in about 30 seconds. They were accompanied by joy, gratitude, curiosity, and just life living me.

    After being with the kids as they prepared for school and the morning hike with Iris, it’s now time to finish preparing for one of the great loves of my life – a course I created and am so lucky to get to teach to BSU students called “Peace and Well-Being in an Age of Anxiety”. Last semester exceeded my (our) wildest expectations and a new class is now in week 4 of the Spring Semester.

    It is pure joy, my friends. It is for me what running was for Eric Little. Life living me. Great, great pleasure bestowed and received.

    After that class, I get to teach a course that I’ve now been teaching for over 3 years. A course where we investigate what it means to live a life of significance.

    More pure joy.

    As Ben Folds says, I am the luckiest. And I am so thankful.

    Peace and love, you emissaries of light and love.

    3 min
  • Day 31: Ice Bath Meditations (finale of the series)

    Day 31: (Air: 40° / H2O: 45°)

    I step out of reactivity and I step into the ice bath, 

    allowing myself to accept and feel what is in my body.

    I embrace what is present.

    I step out of reactivity and into life, here and now.

    I step into this moment. 

    Here I am now I am here I am now I am here I am… 

    Being with life as it is as I am.

    6 min
  • Day 30: Ice Bath Meditations

    Day 30: (Air: 35° / H2O: 45°)

    Attitude of Gratitude

    Being with life as it is as I am

    Eyes of a child 

    Wonder and awe

    Releasing labels and judgment 

    Seeing and feeling for the first time 

    Welcoming and inviting opposites 

    Pairing Loving Awareness with each moment 

    7 min
  • Day 29: Ice Bath Meditations

    Day 29: (Air: 34° / H2O: 46°)
    Embracing vulnerability
    Practicing stepping into the clearing
    Being welcoming, loving presence to all that arises
    Working with opposites/polarities
    Core human needs: to be seen, heard, connected, belong
    Gentle Warrior
    Stand in the clearing and do not defend myself
    I am safe with myself
    Welcoming all that arises
    I am unchanging loving awareness
    Here I am now I am here I am now I am here I am…

    9 min
  • Day 28: Ice Bath Meditations

    Day 28: (Air: 38° F / H2O: 35° F)
    Feel it
    “I didn’t quit. I’m just not smoking today.”
    Echoes. Connection.
    Hear. Speak. Remind. Forget. Hear. Speak….
    I can’t take tomorrow’s ice bath, today.
    Do I have what it takes to be with life as it is as I am, right now?
    I am safe with myself.
    I am here, now.
    Here, now is the only place/time I can ever Be.
    Sitting in the seat of conscious awareness.
    I am aware that I am aware.
    Life is. We are.
    Here we are now we are here we are now we are…

    8 min
  • Day 27: Ice Bath Meditations

    Day 27: (Air: 39° / H2O: 35°)
    Here I am now I am here I am now I am…
    Come to your senses
    Being welcoming, loving presence
    Being with life as it is as we are
    Practicing presence
    Learning to trust ourselves
    I am safe with myself
    Hafiz

    #mindfulness #coldtherapy #yoga #awakenengage #fullypresentfullyalive #icebath #yoganidra #nsdr #irest #irestyoganidra #amrityoganidra #loveyourbrain #integrativerestoration #resiliencytraining #tbisurvivor #concussionawareness #concussiontreatment #coldplunge #coldplungetherapy #brainhealth

    8 min
  • Day 26: Ice Bath Meditations

    In March of 2020, I was on my way to ending my life. As I drove toward the backcountry, despair gripped my whole being and I had decided to make it all just stop. 

    In the midst of my desperation, I heard the words of one my teachers, Richard Miller: 

    “I always have the right response to every situation.”

    It wasn’t just his words that appeared in that moment, it was his presence.

    I stopped the car, got out, and felt the crunch of gravel underneath my feet. I heard the gentle babbling brook. I felt the cool crispness of the early Spring air brushing against my skin. 

    It was anguish to even move. The depression was so deep and devastating, the outlook so bleak. How could I go on? 

    But, somehow, I walked. And as I walked, I began to hear my own voice.

    It was saying, with each slow, excruciating step:

    Here I Am. Now, I Am Here.

    Here I Am. Now, I Am Here.

    Here I Am. Now, I Am Here.

    Soon, I was absorbed in a cycle of “hereness” and “nowness” and “am-ness”

    Here I Am Now I Am Here I Am Now

    I Am Here I Am Now I Am Here I Am 

    Now I Am Here I Am Now I Am Here

    I Am Now I Am Here I Am Now I Am

    Here I Am Now I Am Here I Am Now

    I Am Here I Am Now I Am Here I Am

    Now I Am Here I Am Now I Am Here

    I Am Now I Am Here I Am Now I Am

    The right response to the situation. 

    Like burning, bright sunlight dissipating a thick fog, the light of Presence began to dispel the  desperation and fear of the future.

    And where there had been no way to see through the hopelessness, there now appeared within me and before me a kind of light. Dim, but growing. Warming. Glowing. Rising.

    The right response. 

    A miracle. 

    Grace.

    Home calling.

    As I returned to the car, I pointed it back home and as I began to drive, I felt the need to move my body in such a way as to shake off the remnants of acute desperation.

    I turned on an upbeat song and I made myself sing. I made my body groove. I made myself smile.

    And as I did, unleashed within me was a flood of sadness and grief, as if a dam had burst and the river was free to flow again. 

    A river of life flowing through me and out of me.

    Continuing to this day.

    Here I Am. Now, I Am Here.

    Here I Am. Now, I Am Here.

    Here I Am Now I Am Here I Am Now

    I Am Here I Am Now I Am Here I Am 

    Now I Am Here I Am Now I Am Here

    I Am Now I Am Here I Am Now I Am

    Here I Am Now I Am Here I Am Now

    I Am Here I Am Now I Am Here I Am

    Now I Am Here I Am Now I Am Here

    I Am Now I Am Here I Am Now I Am

    5 min
  • Day 25: Ice Bath Meditations

    Day 25: (Air: 36° F / H2O: 33° F)
    Intention guiding and supporting commitment
    Stay awake, alert, and open
    Noticing and being with the present experience
    Working with the past and future in the present
    Sitting in the seat of conscious awareness
    Being with life as it is as I am
    Hands and feet are adjusting to the cold
    Stay open. Just don’t close.
    I am aware that I am aware.

    6 min
  • Day 24: Ice Bath Meditations

    Day 24: (Air: 33° F / H2O: 33° F)
    Gratitude
    Loved and Loving
    Who am I? Where am I? When am I? What am I?
    Watching the mind, feeling the body.
    Who is watching? Who is feeling?
    I am unchanging loving awareness,
    in which the ever-changing flow of life arises.

    7 min

About Awaken Engage

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Fully present. Fully alive.