Awaken Engage

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 thoughts of love and well-being my way. I’m sending them to you.

I don’t have any grand plans for the next 30 essays other than to honor the call to just write and let the outcome be what the outcome will be. It’s much easier to steer a moving car than one that is just sitting still.

In my case, showing up means trying and trying means writing and writing means creating.

Why did I ever think it happened any other way?

So many on the road already know.

Like the late Kobe Bryant. 

My social media feed is still so full of Kobe Bryant highlights and interviews and quotes that it is sometimes difficult to wrap my mind around the sad fact that he - at least, his body - passed away much too soon.

I miss him.

And yet I still seem to see him all the time in the weird way that social media can keep someone alive and among us.

Like, the other day, I was on an Instagram Reel rabbit trail and who shows us but Kobe Bryant.

And he really showed up.

In fact, I think he had been living in our house for a few weeks and knew just the message we needed.

He is already retired in the reel and speaking as a coach to the interviewer:

“I see too many kids get so discouraged because they’re expecting to make this quantum leap and when that quantum leap doesn’t come, it feels like it will never come. But that’s not how it works. It’s step by step. One foot in front of the other. Day by day. Get better every single day. And then when you look back, when you look down, you see that mountain that you just scaled. But you can’t jump from the bottom of Everest and get to the top of Everest just like that. It doesn’t happen. Superman is only in comics.”

While Kobe looked like the Superman of professional basketball, behind the scenes he worked harder and more diligently than most other players.

He showed up to the little things in life and treated them like big things in life. He was a master of the details and he was deeply attuned to living in the moment. And he was driven by big, seemingly unattainable goals.

It takes a high level of emotional intelligence and resilience to focus on the details of the moment and the greater goal at the same time - at least, to hold them in our hearts at the same time. They work together. They rely on each other.

Right now, I’m keeping my eyes and heart open to whatever dream is waiting to be seen and believed in by me and my family and my friends and my community.

While I wait, I’ll honor the work in front of me, step by step, moment by moment.

Peace

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 short progression of notes and instantly felt that this was the foundation of the melody for the opening musical offering. I played around with it a bit once or twice during the afternoon and had a sense of a basic beginning, middle, and end of a composition with lots of room for extended improvisation throughout. I checked in with my son, Noah, and he added a second refrain that felt just perfect.

For the closing music, I didn’t have a sense of what it would be. I tried a couple of things at home, but none of them felt right. So, I decided to just wait and see what would arise in the moment. I have put in the practice time, busking time, and performing time to feel comfortable with this arrangement and I have a great deal of trust that what is needed will arise and make itself known in the moment.

Before leaving the house, I tested the equipment and made sure my mic setup and EQ was just right so that I could plug and play once we arrived.

The gathering was outdoors and we had a chance to eat together and talk and enjoy being with each other before the service.

There was already a sense of feeling seen, heard, and connected as I sat down to play the opening music. The melody I had heard earlier in the day felt true to the moment, so I composed a song around it, leaving plenty of open space to feel the cool breeze blowing out of the west and to hear the ambient sounds of the neighborhood street and kids playing in our midst.

At the end of the service, I sat with my pan in my lap not really knowing what was going to happen.

But it happened.

A rhythm became a song that told a story that was not my story but our story.

I watched my hands dance around the pan as if they were someone else’s hands.

I heard music and transitions and progressions that I hadn’t heard before.

I heard the pan sing in new ways, show me more of her secrets, and invite me to just trust the feeling of this moment and enjoy the ride.

And, oh! what a wonderful ride it was.

I was in another world, so to speak. It is so hard to describe when things like this happen. The essence of it goes beyond words.

It is like life living me. Life living us.

Like watching it all unfold while being completely part of the unfolding.

Afterward, one after another person expressed how moving the last piece was, how it resonated with them, how it spoke to them, how it mesmerized them, how it took them on a journey, how it connected them to a sense of deep and abiding peace.

The most common question I received after playing was about the second song:

“Did you have that one already composed?”

“No.” I said.

“I didn’t think so. It felt like the music was just exactly what I needed in the moment”

And, another:

“It had the air of inspiration about it. I felt that I was somehow part of it.”

And my sense is that we were, indeed, all playing the handpan together. We were all a part of “it”.

Rather than a solo act, we were a choir of energetic resonance, harmonizing with one another in a language that is hidden deep within the soul, beyond words.

Soul speaking to soul.

Deep speaking unto deep.

Life inviting us to abide in and as love.

Peace

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 discovered that I would be presenting in the same building where I experienced some of my first waves of hope in my post-traumatic brain injury journey — the building where I met my occupational therapist, Barb, who taught me iRest and set me up for a healing journey that now affects every day of my life.

Another wow. I hadn’t been back to that building for many years and when I stopped going there, little did I know that I would still have so many years of challenges to face.

As the date neared for my presentation, I spent time remembering what those many years were like, feeling gratitude for the people who supported me and stood next to me, thankful for the practices that my teachers introduced me to and guided me in, and marveling at the arc of the overall journey from the perspective of today.

My goals for the presentation were pretty simple:

* to help people feel seen, heard, and known;

* to introduce them to resources to help strengthen their minds, bodies, spirits;

* to experientially share a couple of techniques and practices that could help connect them to a sense of well-being and alleviate some suffering;

* and to close our time by facilitating an experience of deep rest, relaxation, and restoration.

As I got out of my vehicle and walked toward the building on the night of the presentation, I paused and thought back to what life was like when I used to come in and out of these doors.

I definitely felt a wave of emotion roll over me as I stepped into the building and I also felt a sense of abiding joy, love, and peace.

“Here I am,” I said to myself. “I am so glad that I am here.”

The audience included both caregivers and those recovering from brain injuries that ranged from TBIs to strokes.

Many of them are facing the biggest challenge of their lives, whether they are recovering from the injury or taking care of someone who is.

To a person, they are all still saying “Yes” to life even when it is not at all the life they were expecting.

Some of them are many years removed from their injury and are still recovering. Others’ injuries have been much more recent.

Something that they — I should say “we” — have in common is that we are showing up to life.

There were many heartfelt moments of feeling mutually seen, heard, and known — of feeling together in the journey.

As we concluded our time together, one person said, “I just feel so relaxed.” Another shared that they had felt nothing but anxiety and constriction for many months. With tears in their eyes and a smile on their face, they described feeling relief, openness, spaciousness, and even a sense of okay-ness for the first time since the injury.

I also took a handpan and shared some music with them. Some of the attendees had similar responses to my first time hearing the pan, welling up with emotion and tears as they felt the harmonizing, unifying and grounding affects of an instrument that is emitting a perfect cocktail of frequencies that calm the brain (i.e,. the fundamental, the octave, and the perfect fifth). Simply touching one note on the handpan sends these frequencies outward and invites a soothing, relaxing, harmonizing response at the unconscious level of the organism. As listeners (and players) our brains and nervous systems respond to the the effects of this harmonization by becoming more regulated and synchronous.

This is at least some of the “why” that explains the moment I first heard a handpan. I felt a wave of being known, of joy, of okay-ness, of clarity, of peace. It was like nothing I had ever experienced in my life - a calming, healing balm to deep places that nothing else had seemed able to access.

And there I was, getting to gently and slowly share these sacred and healing sounds and practices with fellow sojourners.

Getting to share a practice, a way of being, a story, and an instrument that I knew nothing about the first time I set foot in that building.

What a journey.

Full circle.

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 intention.

Today wasn’t a bad day.

In fact, it was full of fun and important connections with people and activities.

Meeting with a dear friend. Playing and recording music. Practicing for a musical offering tomorrow evening. Watching my daughter play volleyball. Watching my son sing at a choir performance. Eating a lovely dinner with my family at one of our favorite places. Walking the dog in the foothills. Bookending the day by talking to my parents. Riding my bike to and from events. Almost never looking at my phone or computer.

I certainly left a number of tasks un-done.

Those tasks will still be there tomorrow.

Along with a few more.

But if I could adjust anything about my day, it would be to rewind to the early moments when I first awoke this morning and to completely own and articulate the intention of prioritizing family, friends, rest, and health today, even if it meant getting “behind” on work. As I look back, I can see that the seeds of this intention were there. I just didn’t plant them and ground them.

In just letting life happen today, I found myself sometimes wondering if I was “wasting” my time or missing something really important.

The actual things I did and the time I spent doing those things probably wouldn’t have changed much, if at all.

It’s just that I would have been more fully committed.

More fully conscious and aware.

More present.

And that matters.

It matters in many ways, but pertinent to this moment is that I am running out of time to write and this is certainly not my best work.

It is, however, the best work I can give right now, partly because of how I went about my day earlier. There were several windows where I could have been brainstorming and drafting in my head. I could have sketched something out and written a draft.

But I didn’t.

And, partially because I didn’t, I’m getting a chance to reflect on how important setting intentions is in my early morning life. I’m pressing through some pretty deep fatigue at this late hour because I spent time today trying to do two “things” at once, or rather, approaching how I met the day with two different, and yet vague intentions.

No shame. Not even guilt.

Just a lesson to be learned.

Listen for the intention.

Commit to it.

Bring it into conscious awareness over and over.

Let the intention point the way home.

That’s all I got and it’s certainly more than I thought I would have when I sat down to write. We’ll see if it makes any sense when I read it and listen to it tomorrow morning.

Peace

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 minute mark, all sound and time seemed to stop.

So still.

So delightful.

I heard myself chuckling - the kind of warm, heart-full laugh that arises in the company of good friends and family after a day of adventure.

I reveled in the shadows cast by the full moon as I stared up at our 100+ year old giant crabapple tree.

And then, I was no longer in the backyard.

I was taking my last breaths in this life.

Loved ones were with me.

I was smiling and chuckling.

It was all so easy.

I wasn’t resisting.

I was happy.

At ease.

Full of delight and peace.

Fully surrendered.

And then, I saw a petal fall from one of the blossoms on the crabapple tree.

And I was that petal.

Falling gently toward the ground.

Effortlessly.

Easily.

Peacefully.

Fearlessly.

Lovingly.

As the petal met the ground, I saw hands reaching toward me, welcoming me into a circle of friends and teachers and loved ones.

The door of one life closed behind me.

And I stepped into the circle of the life now before me.

Rising from the ice bath, thought arose, saying,

“This is how I would like to die. This is how I would like to live.”

Peace

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 challenging to know how to best support, as I navigate my own feelings of anger, confusion, frustration, fear, and rejection.

I notice that the sense of rejection really is quite a lot to bear. It feels like a burning sensation in my body and I can feel my prefrontal cortex shutting down and my back-lower brain areas engaging in more primitive tactics to manage the situation.

This part of the brain does not help create measured and thoughtful responses.

It is reactive and spontaneous and a line of defense as well as a source of offensive weaponry to try to change the situation.

I desperately want the situation to be different.

It is heartbreaking to watch. I literally feel my heart aching and then I feel waves of anger that make me want to make others see what I see and change their minds and act differently.

There is a place for advocacy and diplomacy.

The initial reactivity that I feel is, I have learned, not the place to try to figure out how to advocate and negotiate because that part of my brain cannot do such tasks.

So, I am working with my nervous system. Taking deep breaths. Allowing myself to feel the sensations that are arising as sensations. Working with opposites of sensations.

Deep in the night, I awake and see that I am rehearsing the scene from yesterday. My heart breaks again and again as I rehearse it over and over and over.

I notice my mind trying to solve the “problem”, having simulated conversations, creating us/them distinctions, wanting to remove my loved one from the situation and the hardship, working, working, working to try to bring some sort of relief and resolution.

As I rehearse the scene and get even more involved in the simulation, I notice my body tensing up, my jaw clenching, my heart racing. It all feels quite unbearable.

I get up to use the restroom.

On the way back to bed, I am in the middle of rehearsing the scene again and I feel the following:

“It’s not happening right now.”

As I said, I feel the message as much as I hear it and notice it as concept.

“It’s not happening right now.”

What is happening right now?

I feel my body supported by the floor beneath my feet.

I feel the breath filling my lungs.

I feel the buzz of life purring away deep within.

I feel my heart beating.

What is happening right now?

What am I feeling right now?

I continue to rotate awareness through the body and notice that what I “anticipated” being in the body is actually not in the body right now.

I feel warmth and gladness and an ease of being.

I feel happiness and joy.

As I lay down, my mind pops in: “But you shouldn’t be feeling good right now! Your loved one is hurting.”

Another part of me answers:

“Are they? They’re actually asleep.

How do I know that they are even thinking about this scene and situation in the same way I am?

How do I know that they are feeling what I feel about the situation?

What am I afraid of if I just let go of trying to control the situation and trust that I have what it takes to be with life as it is, as I am?

And that my loved one also has what it takes to be with life as it is, as they are?

And that I have what it takes to be with my loved one?”

Can I let it go? Do I need to continue to rehearse this scene?

I mean, I can.

But do I even need to? Do I want to?

Can I let go of trying to control this situation and also stay deeply connected to the moment, neither pushing emotions away nor rehearsing a scene that isn’t happening right now?

What am I looking for?

The answer is immediate:

Peace. Resolution. Satisfaction.

I am looking for peace.

A sense of okayness.

For me.

And for them.

I want them to feel accepted, seen, heard, valued, understood, connected, part of the group, vibrant, and capable.

I find myself back in rehearsal mode and then simulating ways that I can try to set things right and then imagining how that probably won’t work and then imagining how my loved one’s life will unravel and so on.

It feels quite dramatic when I write these internal processes out, but I know that I am not alone. These are fairly universal human reactions to life.

I also can hear my teachers prompting me, as if they are speaking as me, to me:

Let go of the story.

Let go of the rehearsal. Let go of the way I think the story needs to unfold in order for me to feel okay, at ease, satisfied, peaceful.

Now, what do I notice?

Right now. In this moment.

I am at ease.

Yes, there are some sensations of sadness. I can be present with sadness.

Yes, there are feelings and sensations associated with rejection and loss. I can be present with the parts that are feeling rejected and lost.

Yes, there are feelings associated with anger and frustration. I can be present with the parts that are feeling angry and frustrated.

But what I am noticing as I am becoming more and more present with my body in this moment — not the simulated moment — is that I am at ease, at peace.

I really do have the right response to every situation.

My loved one has the right response to every situation.

Life is only unbearable when we demand it change.

We can be with this situation in a wise and dignified and whole way.

And our ability to be with this life situation has nothing to do with what is actually happening or what we would like to happen.

We can be with life.

We can continue to move forward with kindness and grace for ourselves and others.

We can move forward with wisdom and truth, trusting our voice and using it to advocate for what we want and need.

We can set boundaries and hold them fast, knowing we are safe and secure with ourselves.

We can honor every feeling that we have, we can work with thoughts and beliefs, we can watch the rise and fall of sensations.

We can meet this situation with grace, love, and truth.

We cannot control this situation.

We cannot control how others respond.

But we can use this situation to become even more deeply human and of loving service to ourselves and this world.

We can wake up a little bit more.

It’s a lot to ask of my loved one.

But I can be present with them.

I can be present with my self.

I am loving, welcoming presence. 

My heart is tender and raw. 

And I am present to it.

Loving it. 



Welcoming it.

Life is not easy sometimes.

But it is still life.

And I am trusting myself more and more as I engage with life as it is, as I am.

Before I come to a conclusion, and after writing these words, I feel the need to share something from Seth Godin, to read it again, to hear it again, to receive it again:

“Trust is not self-confidence. Trust is a commitment to the practice, a decision to lead and make change happen, regardless of the bumps in the road, because you know that engaging in the practice is better than hiding from it. There are people and organizations in our lives that we trust. How did that happen? We develop trust over time. Our interactions lead to expectations, and those expectations, repeated and supported, turn into trust. These organizations and people earn trust by coming through in the difficult moments. They’re not perfect; in fact, the way they deal with imperfection is precisely why we trust them. We can do the same thing to (and with) ourselves. As we engage in the practice, we begin to trust the practice. Not that it will produce the desired outcome each time, but simply that it’s our best available option. Trust earns you patience, because once you trust yourself, you can stick with a practice that most people can’t handle. And the practice is available to all of us.” (The Practice, pp.36,7)

Peace


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!!! I just wanted to check up as well as update you on how much you have impacted me. Taking your class has been one of the most life-changing experiences I’ve ever had….”

A reminder sits waiting for me at the front door of my house as I return from teaching. A priceless gift from a friend who has changed my life, my family’s life, and many other lives.

I ask, “Is this really happening. Is this really here at my house?” Pinch me.

A reminder walks into the junior high gymnasium. My wife’s parents drove 120 miles each way to watch my daughter play volleyball and to love us on a night when we didn’t know we were going to need it so much.

A reminder sings and rings out in my living room. My daughter and I play the handpan together and create one of the most mystical, rhythmic, heartfelt musical jams I have been blessed to experience.

A reminder answers the phone. My mom and I have our nightly visit during the dog-walk along city streets. She speaks wisdom and affirmation and strength into my life.

A reminder sits next to me as I write. My wife and daughter laugh together and share a magnificently funny story about our dog Iris stealing Emily’s gloves earlier in the day and hiding them. We all laugh at the photo of the moment I discovered the pilfered goods next to the culprit. Someone looks guilty and quite satisfied.

Today was a day full of reminders.

Including the reminder that it matters how I show up to the little things in life because how I show up to anything is how I show up to everything.

I needed to show up today.

For myself.

For others.

For the most part, I did.

And others showed up for me.

Throughout the day, I felt the gentle guidance of my teachers, friends, and family to stay the course, to relinquish the need to try to control the outcome, and to return to being welcoming loving presence.

Being.

Welcoming.

Loving.

Presence.

Peace

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 that I wasn’t interested in the book.

I was just interested in other things more.

As you likely know, at the beginning of February, I decided to begin writing and publishing and podcasting every day for 30 days.

That turned into a 60-day commitment.

And once I hit 60, I know that I will continue.

How long? I have no idea. But I have stumbled upon a practice that enlivens me, challenges me, connects me, enriches me, and allows me to be me.

I decided to write because I knew it would be a challenge and I needed a new monthly challenge after the ice bath challenge of January. At that time, the criteria for the challenges was as follows: 1) It had to require willpower - there needed to be resistance; 2) It had to be done daily; and, 3) I had to just do it.

Writing ticked all of the boxes and then some.

And it continues to tick those boxes.

Now, here is where the way of things shows up.

Just last week, I was cleaning my office desk and I came across the book that Sylvain sent me. It was buried under a stack of papers.

Waiting for me.

Waiting for just the right time.

As is the way of things, the author of the book, Seth Godin, must have been taking notes on my past life, my daily life, and working as an undercover clairvoyant for what was coming my way.

He is now coaching me.

Every day.

Often, my jaw just drops wide open in amazement as I turn page after page and hear him speaking into my life, encouraging me to continue what I began.

As previously mentioned in earlier essays and podcasts, I have often felt like I’m not a creative person, especially when compared to my family.

A couple of days ago, my mom reminded me that when I was in 3rd grade, I refused to participate in the art segments of class.

Mr. Kyles, my kind and yet firm teacher, offered me an option:

“David, you can either do the art projects or you can stand with your nose buried in the back corner of the room.”

I stood in the corner.

Every time.

Every day during art.

Without exception.

It became a thing. Hey, we’re getting ready to do art. Welp, here I come, Corner.

Not until 4th grade did I feel any sort of success with “art” and that was because Mrs. Parker (who had also taught my dad) taught me how to draw pine trees and snow-capped mountains.

And that is all I ever drew.

It was short-lived.

After 4th grade, it was back to, “I don’t do art. I’m not creative. That’s the rest of my family.”

And even though I studied writing and got a degree in writing and love writing, I have carried this voice around in my head all my life that constantly reminds me, “You’re not creative. You’re not a creative. You’re not a writer.”

I had to commit to a challenge just to get started writing. It was really an excuse to write every day and tell the voice to “F&*# off” because I made a commitment and it doesn’t matter whether or not I feel like I’m a writer or whether I’m creative. I am going to write every day, no matter what. And I’m going to publish every day. Because I am. No matter what.

And, after all that, as is the way of things, Seth Godin comes along and says things like:

“If you do something creative each day, you’re now a creative person. Not a blocked person, not a striving person, not an untalented person. A creative person.

Because creative people create.

Do the work, become the artist. Instead of planning, simply become. Acting “as if” is how we acquire identity.

Writing is a universal solvent for creatives. Painters, entrepreneurs, therapists, circus acts — each of us can write our story down, a permanent record of how we see the world and how we will change the world.

Yes, you can do it in private, in a notebook that no one will ever see. But you will find so much more juice if you do it in public. Even if you use an assumed name. Even if you only circulate it to a few people.

Knowing that the words are there, in front of others, confirms your identity.

‘I wrote this.’

Blog every day. It’s easy, it’s free, and it establishes your identity long before the market cares about who you are and what you do.

Writers write. Runners run. Establish your identity by doing your work.” (The Practice, pp. 34,35)

Wow.

Confirmation. Validation. Encouragement. Support.

Just at the right time.

As is the way of things.

And now as I write, I hear the words from The Alchemist, “Whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it’s because that desire originated in the soul of the universe. It’s your mission on earth...When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it” (Coelho, 2002, pp. 22,40).

We go on the journey to find the treasure that is hidden within us, that has been ours all along.

But this truth can only be realized as we commit to the journey - to a journey.

Otherwise, it lies buried within us, under layers of complacency, self-doubt, lack of perspective, laziness, jealousy, fear, pride, and even ignorance.

We write to realize we are writers.

We run to realize we are runners.

We act to realize we are actors.

We lead to realize we are leaders.

We create to realize that we are creators.

We live to realize we are alive.

We go on a journey to find out who we already are.

But we must go on the journey.

And as we do, we see and experience the universe conspiring to bring us into contact with what matters most.

As is the way of things.


Peace.

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, especially about having to go to war and kill someone. I might have been 12 or 13, but the absurdity of such a task and the kind of terrible energy that is released in the taking of a life weighed heavily on me. I could not grasp such a thing or make it make sense.

There were other ruminations of my mind as well and if I didn’t fall asleep by 11:11 p.m., then I wouldn’t sleep at all that night.

This happened more nights than not.

There is a reason that sleep deprivation is a highly successful and unusually cruel form of torture.

I was coming apart at the seams and no one knew what to do.

I remember the terrible weight that overwhelmed me one night when I realized that my parents couldn’t help me. My sleeplessness had been going on for many, many nights and they had to sleep. It wasn’t going to work if none of us slept. So, my mom closed their bedroom door and I was left standing in the hall outside my bedroom.

Nobody could help me.

No one could be with me through every night of not sleeping.

Interestingly enough, it was that same moment of feeling overwhelmed in the hall of our farmhouse, feeling on my own, that I also noticed something that, looking back, felt like strength.

I had to figure this out. There was no other way and no one could do it for me.

This was my part of the journey to figure out.

It was after 11:11, so I wouldn’t be sleeping.

I went into my room and for whatever reason I began to read through the Psalms.

And in those songs, I found the words of other souls who knew what I was going through. It was as if they were writing and expressing the deepest longings of my heart.

I read, “As the deer longs for water, so my soul longs for love, for connection, for union, for peace, for rest.”

Yes. My soul is full of longing.

“Be still, O my soul. Why are thou disquieted within me?”

Yes. I am asking the same thing! Someone else knows this anguish that I feel.

“Weeping endures for the night, but a shout of joy comes in the morning.”

Yes. I know that to be true. Each morning, as dawn approaches, I feel as if I have survived another battle. There is hope and joy in the rising of the sun. But, oh, the night can be so long and painful.

“Be still. And know. Know that love holds you.”

I am longing to be still. I feel so restless. How can I know? What is it that I might know?

Know that I am inseparable from love.

Trust this. Know this.

I am not alone. I cannot be alone.

Each night during this season of life, I would read and reread and memorize and rehearse these words.

Each night, alongside of the terror, I would begin to feel a calm balm soothing my aching and distraught mind, rocking me to sleep, assuring my heart.

Often, I awoke in the morning, holding the words not only in my heart and mind, but clutched in my hands and gathered to my chest.

Looking back, I can see that this season was a gift.

Yes, it was an unusually early dark night of the soul and, to this day, one of the most intense of my life. But it opened my heart to love and be loved and it prepared me for a life of living from a deep, deep source.

The longing and aching and yearning were home calling for me.

Years later, I would find myself traveling to northern Idaho to celebrate my friend Jeremy’s 40th birthday. My job was to follow him and drive the support vehicle while he rode his bike through the Magruder Corridor, which is one of the most remote roads in the lower 48, sandwiched between two of the largest and most primitive Wilderness Areas in the lower 48.

An unimproved dirt road without any service for over 100 miles.

I was feeling especially fragile and vulnerable and was still in the midst of recovering from my brain injury.

The night before we were going to enter the corridor, I found myself in a full-fledge panic attack. I felt paralyzed as we lay in the tent and couldn’t think of any way possible that I could enter that corridor the next day. We would just have to call it off.

My mind was racing and racing and then I remembered that I had committed a phrase to memory earlier in the day, one that I knew that I might need.

I searched and searched for it, but my mind was scrambled and chaotic.

So, I finally gave up trying to think of it. 


I knew from experience that the felt sensation of the words was still in my body. I had felt it earlier in the day.

I began to rotate my awareness around my body and when I got to my heart, I felt a warm glow and a sense of “okayness.”

Hearing Jeremy breathing on the other side of the tent, I thought of how he had been one of the few people in my life who figured out how to be with me in the many years of my recovery. He had never left me, he hadn’t given up on me because I changed, he didn’t grow despondent when I was unpredictable and unreliable. He was just always my friend. And here he was. Here we were. Sleeping in a tent in a forest about to engage on a journey he had been dreaming about.

Gratitude for his friendship and understanding was like blowing on the embers of a fire. The warmth in my heart began to glow.

I found my breath.

Breathing in, I calm myself.

Breathing out, I smile.

Yes. Just force it. Make yourself smile. I know it’s hard. Just do it.

Over and over.

The panic began to lift a bit.

And then the words I had memorized earlier that day arose into my awareness:

“Just do the next thing in love.”

Ahhhh…yes. Those were the words my friend Brennan had talked about. At the end of his life, he said that if he could go back 30 years, he would tell his younger self to stop worrying, to stop trying to be more spiritual, to stop trying to figure out the meaning of life, to stop trying to wrap his mind around all of the why’s, to stop trying to do better, and to simply just do the next thing in love.

Just do the next thing in love.

In love.

Not out of love.

But in love.

Like, in an ocean of love.

In love.

Just do the next thing in love.

I found myself lifting fully out of the panic as I began to feel sensations of love and well-being throughout the body.

Immersed in love.

In love.

Be still. And know love. Know that I am in love, inseparable from love, joined with love, abiding in love, held by love.

In love.

Right back where I began, all those years ago in my small bedroom on the farm somewhere in the dark hours of the night after 11:11, finding the light that was guiding me home.

Peace.

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 about mindfulness. There are books I haven’t read, important names I don’t know, people who know more than me, techniques and strategies I haven’t tried, and on and on.

So, on the verge of feeling like a complete imposter and before asking to have the words removed from my name, I decided to look up the word “expert” to find out what it even is that we’re referencing when we use it.

Here is what I found at etymonline.com:

“Expert”: early 15c., ‘person wise through experience’; from Old French expert, espert "experienced, practiced, skilled.”

It is fascinating how my first thoughts and impressions of the word “expert” were solely connected to head knowledge.

Don’t get me wrong, I have put in my time in the mindfulness field in terms of training, completing certification processes, getting supervision, reading, writing, and even teaching mindfulness courses.

But, that’s not the actual emphasis of the word.

Isn’t that extraordinary?


The emphasis of the word is actually wisdom that comes from experience, practice, and the development of skills.

The feeling of the heavy stone in my gut begins to dissipate and dissolve, especially as I consider, acknowledge, and honor my story.

Mindful living saved my life at the end of the year in 2015 when I worked with an Occupational Therapist at our local concussion clinic and she introduced me to the world of iRest, or Integrative Restoration - a school of Yoga Nidra and mindfulness meditation developed by Dr. Richard Miller.

I found unexpected hope in that first session when I experientially realized that I wasn’t in an inescapable bubble of unending pain but rather that there were sensations of pain happening in specific parts of my body.

I experienced the reality that I could be with the ebbs and flows of life from a place of equanimity and wholeness.

On that day, I got a small taste of that wholeness and that unchanging peace.

It was the first hope I had experienced and it came at a time when I was at the end of my rope.

I immediately jumped into the practices as though my life depended on them — because it did — and after months of practicing, I was encouraged by my occupational therapist to go to a Level One 5-day intensive training that would serve as much as a therapeutic intervention as anything else.

She said, “You actually do your homework. That’s unusual.”

I said, “I’ll die if I don’t.”

She said, “Well, then go get trained by Richard (the founder of iRest) before he dies.”

So, I did.

In April of 2016, I traveled to southern California, following a call that I couldn’t resist answering.

Every day of my life since has been immersed in the practices of mindfulness meditation.

I went through the multi-year process of becoming certified in iRest Yoga Nidra and then jumped into another school of Yoga Nidra called the Integrative Amrit Method of Yoga Nidra or simply I Am Yoga Nidra. I went through another certification process, feeling that I had found a way of being and a practice that not only helped me but also helped others live a full life regardless of the circumstances.

But those credentials only tell a small part of the story and not the “expert” part, even though they were always a combination of knowledge and practice.

The practice is the practice.

The expertise is in the living, not the certification or credentialing document.

In fact, Seth Godin says, “Credentialing lulls us into false confidence about who is actually an expert. The fact that you have a degree doesn’t mean you have insight, experience, or concern. You’ve acquired a piece of paper, but that doesn’t mean you care. Actions matter more today than ever before. We can see your work, hear your words, and understand your intent. Today, we can go beyond the credential and actually see your impact. We can create a body of work and a community that understands the impact we’re capable of. I’m not provoking you to become a charlatan (or to follow one). Simply to take the opportunity that is available to engage in the long process of earning genuine expertise, in service of making a change” (The Practice, pp. 158,9).

Thanks, Seth.

Agreed.

My expertise — the wisdom through experience in the service of self and others — came and continues to come in the constant usage of these practices and techniques to walk through the 7 years of recovery from a traumatic brain injury. And the more I learn, the more I see how much I forgot that I used to know. That’s a fun one to work with!

I think I will always feel like a beginner. In fact, I hope I do. I love learning from the sages and teachers of the past and present. I love learning from my students at BSU who are already so wise and continually inspire me. Each day is ripe with one moment after another to wake up more and more, learn more and more, and share the journey with others.

Mindfulness mediation is really just a way of being for me, now. It is part of who I am when I am waking and when I am “sleeping.”

It guides my therapy practice, it is the foundation of retreats I facilitate, and it is the focus of most of the courses I teach at Boise State University.

It informs my marriage, my parenting and all of my relationships.

It is my life.

Or, perhaps more accurately said, mindfulness meditation has connected me to life, to who I truly am: unchanging loving awareness.

With love, I am.

An expert?

I don’t know. I’m still on the fence about that word.

But, with love, I am.

With love, I am.

I am.

Peace.