How Is Your Shadow?
How is your Shadow? by Keleigh August 24, 2015 I’ve always been drawn to ask people about the things we don’t normally talk about – our deepest fears and most farfetched dreams, the obsessions that keep us awake at night, the “confessions” that tumble out in darkness when everyone else has gone to sleep and it’s just two voices whispering fervently beneath the bedcovers. The meeting of the secret, ineffable realm and tangible, sensate reality. In any instance of shared vulnerability, whether with a stranger on an airplane or with someone I’ve...
read moreWake Up To Your Life
Wake Up To Your Life by Ellen May 4, 2015 I first came to a Level I workshop with the Awareness Institute (then known as the Aspire Foundation) on the advice of my meditation instructor in the Shambhala lineage of Tibetan Buddhism. Although I didn’t know it at the time, and although it was not what I was “supposed” to be doing, I had for a long time been trying to use meditation as a tool for what spiritual teacher Michael Browne calls “achieving sedation and control. “ After meditating each morning, I’d head to the Delta of Venus café and...
read moreStory Time
Story Time by Colleen June 4, 2015 When I was a child, I lived for story time. I loved the chance to become immersed in the story, in the unknown- I loved the surprises that unfolded. I loved how, for a moment in time, I experienced whatever my imagination added to the words on the page. It was like a teleportation, from my little bed out into an infinite universe of possibility. As I got older, I realized I didn’t have to be read to – it wasn’t necessary to wait for bedtime or for someone to have time to sit and read to me. I could learn to...
read moreWho am I?
Who am I? by Shannon May 19, 2015 This account was written while on a 6 day silent retreat on Mount Shasta with the Awareness Institute in August of 2014. For years I’d known I had everything in the world to be grateful for: two healthy, amazing daughters, a devoted, loving husband, a lovely home, a purposeful teaching career, long-term sobriety… however, I had always lived with a persistent sense of unease, of impending doom. I’d had moments, even periods of time in my life when I experienced what some may call God – experiences...
read moreThis Moment Will Never Happen Again
This Moment Will Never Happen Again by Rebekah May 4, 2015 What would you say if I told you that this moment would never happen again? Well, it’s true. There are no repeats, re-runs, re-dos. All you’ve got is this very moment, right now. I realized this fact (again) while driving home from work the other day. “I survived the week!” I thought, as if merely getting through was the goal. And yet, surely it can seem that way sometimes… “Just let me get through this meeting, this doctor’s appointment, this day, this event, this...
read morePickaxe
Pickaxe by Annie Originally published on November 27, 2012 I don’t remember when I first heard about “enlightenment” or “awakening,” but I know that a force bigger than my self brought me to the Awareness Institute four years ago. On the recommendation of a friend, I showed up to a one-day workshop on “Conscious Relating” hoping to resolve some of my blocks to intimacy. What I experienced was my own vulnerability in a way I’d never accessed before – and the beginning of a much deeper journey into the truth and heart of myself. Over my four...
read moreHello & Welcome to the Awareness Institute Blog
Hello and welcome! Here are a few things that might be helpful to know as we’re getting acquainted: The Awareness Institute has been offering experiential self-awareness workshops and classes since 1987. Although our name has changed* along the way, that’s a lot of experience. (*You might know us as Aspire or The Center of Consciousness, but as of January 2015 we’re officially the Awareness Institute.) We’ve served thousands of people in the last 28 years of workshops and classes. We are a non-profit organization run by a dedicated team of...
read more
